
Class . 

Rnnic . W ( -2, H ^ 




WAH-PA-SHA 



CHIEF OF SIOUX. 



HISTORY 



WABASHA COUNTY, 



TOGETHER WITH 



BIOGRAPHICAL MATTER, STATISTICS, ETC. 



GATHERED FROM MATTER FURNISHED BY IXTERVIEWS WITH OLD SE1TLER&, 

COUXTY TOWNSHIP AND OTHER RECORDS, AND EXTRACTS FROM 

FILES OF PAPERS, PAMPHLETS, AND SUCH OTHER 

SOURCES AS HAVE BEEN 

AVAILABLE. 



HISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 



CHICAGO: 
H. H. HILL & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS. 

1884. 







jLl'lGfll 



% 



PREFACE. 



In presenting the history of the County of Wabasha to the 
public, the editors and pubHshers have had in view the preserva- 
tion of certain valuable historical fticts and a vast fund of infor- 
mation which without concentrated effort could never have been 
obtained, but, with the passing away of the old pioneers, the 
failure of memory, and the loss of public records and private 
diaries, would soon have been lost. This locality being com- 
paratively new, we flatter ourselves that, with the zeal and 
industry displayed by our general and local historians, we have 
succeeded in rescuing trom the fading years almost every scrap 
of history worthy of preservation. Doubtless the work is, in 
some respects, imperfect; we do not present it as a model liter- 
ary effort, but in that which goes to make up a valuable book 
of reference for the present reader and future historian, we assure 
our patrons that neither money nor pains have been spared in the 
accomplishment of the work. Perhaps some errors will be found. 
With treacherous memories, personal, political and sectarian 
prejudices and preferences to contend against, it would be almost 
a miracle if no mistakes were made. We hope that even tlfiese 
defects, which may be found to exist, may be made available in 
so far as they may provoke discussion and call attention to cor- 
rections and additions necessary to perfect history. The main part 
of the work has been done by Messrs. Dr. L. H. Bunnell, Dr. J. 
M. Cole, Hon. O. M. Lord, Prof. C. A. Morey, Gen. C. H. Berry, 
Hon. W. H. Hill, P. G. Hubbell, W. S. Messmer, Mrs. H. K. 



Arnold, lion. S. L. Canij)bell, Dr. Wni. Lincoln, J. X. Murdoch, 
M. C. Kussell, J. A. Ellis, E. Mathews, Wm. F. Bigelow, A.' 
J. A. Pollock and Francis Talbot, and we believe that no corps 
of writers could have been found who could have done the subject 
more ample justice. We wish in an especial manner to acknow- 
ledge our obligations to Mr. Francis Talbot, who has been 
untiring and ever-vigilant in his efforts to make this work a 
credit to Wabasha county. Foi' many years he has been gathering 
the facts which constitute a very large part of this work, and 
when they were needed for the enterprise he generously donated 
them to the publishers and their agents for this nse. 

The biographical dej^artment contains the names and private 
sketches of nearly every person of importance in the county. A 
few persons, whose sketches we would be pleased to have pre- 
sented, for various reasons refused or delayed furnishing us with 
the desired information, and in this matter only we feel that our 
work is incomplete. However, in most of such cases we have 
obtained, in regard to the most important persons, gome items, 
and have woven them into the county or township sketches, so 
that, as we believe, we cannot be accused of negligence, partiality 
or prejudice. 



ILLUSTEATIONS. 



AVah-pa-sha Frontispiece 

Joseph Buisson .^ 560 

Wm. L. Lincoln 705 

Lake Pepin 825 

Oliver CRrrxE 881 

Eesidence ()f L. Ginthner 948 

Lucas Kuehn 958 

S. L. Campbell ' 1023 

J. G. Chapman (Steamer) 1028 

HiESCHY Hall 1059 

■Francis Talbot • . . . 1103 

Grain Elevator, Wabasha 1107 

St. Felix Church 1143 

D. L. Philley 1153 

M. C. Russell 1202 

Lake City Congregational Church 1229 

George Patton ] 247 



INDEX. 



\y PAGE 

Aboriginal ^61 

Adams, J.C 11^^ 

Adams, W.T 1^00 

Affeld,L.&J 1110 

Akers, George j^^u 

A Loyal Indian i-'U 

Alexander, Ewin ^-^^ 

Amerland, G. H y^- 

Amerland, Herman y»U 

Amsbry, William H 1006 

Anderson, John jjo^ 

Anderson, A. J 114<^ 

Anderson, W.H 1144 

Anding, Fred 1056 

Angell, William D 

Appel, L. W 

Army 

Arendt, Philip 



1132 

1150 

670 

1163 



Arnold, James 1034 

Arnold, Charles A 11^7 

Arnold, AV. J 980 

Asher. John \f^£' 

A Survivor of Bad Axe l^Ji 

Bailey, Andrew iOoO 

Bailey, George y^^ 

Baldwin, M. A 115^ 

Baldwin, Jeremiah • • • • liio 

Banking . ob8, 7/d 

Bartholome, Nicholas 11 li 

Bartron,G.R 1208 

Barnes, Amos \\^^ 

Bartlett, J.C llOj 

Basey, Augustus li^i 

Baumgarten, Henry jiOg 

Baustert, Matthias lOd^ 

Baxter, Williams 1103 

Beaty,J.J 969 

Befort, WiUiam 1158 

Belden, IraW 1138 

Bell,S.H 1237 

Benson, G.F 117o 

Bench and Bar 692 

Black, Elam 1135 

Black, William W 1135 

Black, Ralph W 1136 

Boatman, William "^'63 

Bolton, T. J 1304 

Boughton, Benjamin 1047 

Bough ton, Orrin E. 1046 

Boutelle, Charles H 1049 



PAGE 

Boutelle, Charles M 1049 

Bowen, Theodore 1308 

Brandt, Philemen 1185 

Brant, Henry C 1060 

Bricher, John -/o? 

Bright, A.H 122 

Brown, Parley j^i^ 

Brooks, D.W 1289 

Bryant, J W^ 1299 

Buckman, John ; lioy 

Building and Loan Association . . 721 

Buisson, Cyprian 937 

Buisson, Henry 937 

Buisson, Joseph •|'3b 

Bullock, Richard 1105 

Burchard, Rodman J91 

Burdett, Frank A 1100 

Burdick, F. H 1213 

Burkhardt, Henry 10«7 

Burman,N.P 1241 

Burnham, George H 1017 

Burnham, John W lOlo 

Bush, Jacob 1^95 

Butts, James J 1024 

Cain, David 103J 

Calhoun, Lawrence l-yo 

Campbell, S.L 977 

Campbell, W. H 1074 

Card, KM 1174 

Carlson, Oliver...... 11^ 

Carpenter, George W. 9^/ 

Carpenter, Russell W yy^ 

Carruth, O. P 1062 

Carroll, R.C 1164 

Carson, Marcus j^^^ 

Cassidy, W.W 1237 

Casper, Anthony i-^* 

Caswell, Cyrus L ^^^ 

Caswell, Joseph 

Chalmers, Gabriel 

Chapman,R. W 

Charlev, Augustus ^ 

Chester Township ^ ^'44 

Chinberg,01e ■•• 

Churches ;;-o., 

736, 749, 757, 767, 783, 844 



956 
1220 
1305 
1054 



1197 



94 



Clark, William. 



1280 



Clear, J. H •••• 1207 

Cleaveland, William Lord 967 

Clemens, Peter 1084 



Cliff, Addin Johnson 1035 

Cliff, Joseph 1036 

Clifford 988 

Colbv, ("harles M 1078 

Colb'v, Loyal D 1080 

Collier, F.J 9G4 

Collier, O. F 9(55 

Conrad, Frank 1167 

Conrad, Paul 1167 

Cook, Klnathan 1188 

Cook, Garret A 998 

Cornwell, E. R 1159 

Corn well, Chauncey C 1129 

Cornwell, F. J 1172 

Corp, Sidney 1166 

Corwin, Daniel C 1094 

Crane, Charles Fhvood 1153 

Crane, Ira 1132 

Crarv.C.W 1208 

Cratte, David 937 

Cratte, Oliver 937 

Cronin, David 1006 

Cutter, Isaac J 960 

Cyclone 901 

Dadv, Jerrv 1290 

DadV, M. U 1291 

Dak', Daniel 1010 

Dale, John 1010 

Dale, Levi A 1011 

Dale, Jacob 1010 

Damoude, R. R 1206 

Darcv, John 1048 

Davis, J. P 1242 

Davis, Robert H 962 

Davis, William 962 

Davison, Daniel 1108 

Dawlev, C. G 1023 

Day, W. W 961 

De Camp, Ira 1294 

De Cam]), Lewis 1293 

Description 609 

Dean, W. W 1104 

Dickman, P. (t 966 

Dickerman, Dorr 1302 

Dieterle, Herman 1109 

Dietrich. Joseph 1022 

Di.snev, W.J 1024 

Disncv, John 1079 

Doane, S. 11 1014 

Doane, Robert 1014 

Doughty, A. B 990 

Doughty, J. C 1281 

Doughty, Samuel 958 

Drinkwalter, R. W 996 

Drurv, M. E 1027 

Duffus, William 1053 

Dugan, E.J 1044 

Duncan, (-Jeorge 954 

Dwolle, Abner 943 

Dwelk;, T. L 944 

Early, Charles 1061 



Earlv Religious Impression 1279 

Early Settlers 1021 

Early Times 579 

Edholm, A. E 1189 

Eichenberger, Rudolph 1029 

Elgin 88 

Emery, C.C 1193 

Emery, James H 1127 

Emery, S. M 1231 

Enright, J. C 1240 

Estes, David Corbin 1038 

Evans, J. II 973 

Everett, (Jeorge C 1034 

Farrar. George 1298 

Fatalities 871, 882 

Favrow, J. E 1294 

Feller, Ezra 1221 

Feller, AV. H 1303 

Ferris, F 1227 

Felton, A. J 1098 

Fifield, Ira A 997 

Finch, C. E 1203 

Finch, Clarence E 1203 

Finchi,J. B 1182 

Fires 831 

Fletcher, John 1005 

Fletcher, Lorin J 1005 

Florer, Bruce 1185 

Ford, E. L 947 

Ford, Joseph 946 

Ford, Orville D 945 

Foreman, William 1090 

Forrest, Charles 1066 

Foss, R. H 1194 

Foster, Alonzo P 992 

Foster, Scott A 1026 

Fowler, Andrew J. 1083 

Fowler, Edw^ard P. C 1020 

Fox, Ansel T 1049 

Fox, Aaron 1246 

Franklin, George B 1022 

Freiheit, F 1148 

Freiheit, L 1148 

French, J. M 1183 

Fricke. Julius 1086 

Frye, Henry 999 

Gage, John 1244 

Gardiner, John 1030 

Gardam, William 1289 

Gates. Stephen K 1165 

Gavlord, Albert K 1018 

Gaylord, S. H 1031 

Gearey, H. R 1157 

Gengnagle, Jacob 1124 

Gibbs, Oliver 1152 

Gibson, Peter 1116 

Gill, William 976 

Gillett. Harrison 1004 

Gill ford Township 792 

Oilman, H. W 1301 

Ginthner, L 948 



9 



Glasgow Township 762 

Goodenough, J. R 1235 

Good Running 1274 

Gold Mining 742 

Graham, Duncan 935 

Grannis, George H 1129 

Gray, Alexander 1110 

Gray, James 1111 

Gray, Robert R 1128 

Greenfield Township 877 

Greer, A. J 1176 

Gregoire, J. B 1173 

Gregg, L.M 978 

Grove, M. A 1168 

Guernsey, Alonzo T 1071 

Guptil, E. B 1187 

p-,Haessig, Jacob 1127 

'-'Hahn, W. J 1311 

Hall, Chester 1192 

Hall, George R 1050 

Hall, Hugh 1142 

Hall, Robert 996 

Hall, Samuel 1103 

Hall, Peter 1215 

Hall, G. W 1283 

Hallaway, Henry 1189 

Hammons, Joseph 1019 

Hancock, G. F 1309 

Hardy, AV. L 1163 

Harrison, James M 997 

Hart, Michael 1170 

Hassinger, J. C 1153 

Hazlett, Silas 1070 

Heath, Alpheus W 1045 

Heath, Henry C 1046 

Hebbeln, George 1114 

Helt, W. A 1064 

Henry, James 1030 

Herman, C.E 1211 

Herschy & Son 1058 

\ / Herschy, Samuel 1059 

'^ Highland Township 913 

Hinckley, C. E 1205 

Hibner, George 1118 

Hobbs, W. H 1174 

Hopkins. W. H 1180 

Hopkins', E. F 1281 

Hornbogen, Charles 981 

Horner, J. W 1229 

Hostetter, M. S 1186 

Howe, George 1099 

Howard, L. M 1160 

Howat, James 1055 

Howat, John 1056 

Hubbard, Clarence A 1128 

Humphrey, Ira J 1095 

Humphrey, Marcus A 1078 

Hyde Park Township 952 

Hyde, John E 952 

Ingalls, D. H 1246 

Ingalls, Wm. H 1247 



Ingraham, Marcus Morton 1100 

Irish war 1271 

Jackson, William S 979 

Jacobs, William J 1038 

Jacobv, M 1193 

Janti," William 1097 

Jellison, T. S 1212 

Jenks, T. T. 1290 

Jerry, Francis 950 

Jewell, P. A 1291 

Jewell & Schmidt 1125 

Johns, Martin 1234 

Johnson, William A 1099 

Johnson, S. J 1180 

Judd, George Washington 960 

Kellogg 484 

Kemp, M. 1169 

Kennedy, John 1238 

Kennedy, M 973 

Kepler, S.S 1086 

Killiam, T. B 1228 

Kimble, James L 959 

Kinsella, :Matthew 9(.8 

Kinney, Alvin 970 

Kinney, Lucius 1092 

Kinney, Wesley 1091 

Knights of Honor 719 

Knapp, Francis W 1090 

Konnig, Clements 1124 

Kopp, Jacob Ills 

Kuehn, Lucas 963 

Lake City 816 

Lake Pepin 823 

Lakey, J.H 1216 

Landon & Burchard 1083 

Landon, Charles 1096 

Langer, Fred 1181 

La Rue, Charles 1112 

La Rue, George S 1102 

Laurence, J. G 1107 

Lawrence, Benjamin 949 

Lawson, Herman 1043 

Lee, Van R 1113 

Lead Mining 1273 

Legend 596 

Ley, Joseph 1238 

Leininger, B. F 1181 

Lenhart, Lewis Y 1037 

Lewis, John H 1058 

Lifrige, Nicholas 1183 

Lincoln, W. L 1029 

Link, John 970 

Lont, Elijah 955 

Lont, O. S 986 

Loucks, F. C 1214 

Low, Q. A 1188 

Lowe, C. C 1311 

Luger, Manufacturing Co 1088 

Lunge, Fritz 1314 

Mack, J. R 1033 

Maiden Rock 571, 825, 711 



10 



INDEX. 



iMaire, Tlieodore 
Majenis, X. J. . . 

Martin, I Ipnr3^ 

Martin, John A inn 

Martin, J. P ]^\\ 

Martin, J. M it'^^ 

^MarslKiU, Andrew '. 1 1 on 

Marshall, Joseph W ".■.■■■■ 1005 

M f'"'Vr, 851>, 897. 1259 

Matoer, Thomas ' 1999 

Mathews, Aufrustus ' 1130 

Mathews,.Lewis B " mn 

Maxwell, G ^" 

Maxwell, R. F 

Maze})pa Township 

McArthiir.AV. S. 

McBride, John 

McCarty, 8. L 

McCarthy, I'atiick . . 

McCrackin, William 



1033 
1138 
1054 



( 

1068 



O'Brien, John 

O'Brien, Richard.... ::: j^?^ 

^^JK^^^f 718,789,-864.1?J^ 



Odink, M. A 

One of the Earliest... 

Oswak'f h''" "^^^•'^'^^^h''^ ^'ounty 
Paradis' E. A 



1181 
1272 
597 
1223 
1224 



Parkinson. William.' '.". \nh 

Patton,E.A ' ,VnY 



947 
1020 

726 
1110 
1093 

995 
1282 

)44 



Patton, George 
Pattqn, G. R. ... 

Pauselim 

Pehl, C. A ; 

Pencille, Orrin . 
Pepin Brewery . 
Pepin Township 
Perkin.s, Elisha . , 
Perkins, W. E . 
Philley, D. L. 



1004 
1000 
1002 

884 
1192 

951 
1117 

647 
1156 
1007 
1134 



McDonald, John 1990 l j^,:Uw.' 7,- - 1134 

McDonough, Patrick i,)09 p .r l?";.^-.^- •. 1167 

McDonongh, Patrick 00, ^J^^^^' 1^^'n.jamin 9,)^ 



MeDonongh,' Miles.". '.'.'.'. ll^l 

MoDonough. Thomas ' lor.T 

McGovern, J. T " fwT 

Mclnnerv, P. M.... 0^0 

McKinney, Wm '.'. 104? 

McKenzie, D. M " " ins7 

Mc3Iillin, James .' 14.^ 

McMiliin ]]if. 

Mcxaiian, Walter. :::::: ::;:••• 1040' 

Meachnm, F. L ^n^, 

Megers, John '^i 

Medical Fraternity 700 

Megroth, T.H...: ;::■•• k2? ' 

]Messer,H.F JiJl 

xMetzgar, Daniel 

Miller, J. B... 
Milligan, F. II. 

Minneiska 

Moon, Xel.son. . , 

Morey, C. A 

Morey, Royal . . , 
Mount Pleasant. 
Mullen, J. H.... 
Munger, O. B. . . 

Munro, James iffr 

Murdoch, J. N.... ni- 

:\rurray,W.R .' .' .' ^i''' 

Murray, E. B. . ^~^^' 

jMurrav. P. B 

Musty' Peter 

Myer, Joseph 

Mvers, A.J 

Nash, Edward .;.■.■ |n^j 

Nelson, Oliver 

Newspapers 

Norton, A. B. W. . . 
Norton, A. B. W ... 
Oak wood Township 



Pierce, Anson 

Piers, W. S 

Pioneers 

Pioneer Materialt 
Plainview 



1065 

1021 

940 

931 

1122 

1240 

1249 

752 

1148 

1223 



945 
1227 
1215 
1056 
1221 



993 

1073 

981 

935 

1278 

Plainview Township '..'.'. 1 9^1 

Pnetz, Peter .Tyoa 

Poison, Emric ] It'S 

Poorhouse "q^ 

1313 

1075 
1151 
1013 



Porter, Elijah 

Pope, John F 

Powers, Lawrence 
Preble, T. J. 



942 
925 
984 
1279 
767 



Press of Wabasha County' .' .' .' .' " ' 995 

Price, George W " '9-0 

Pryor, Leonard .".".".' ^a',,> 

Quigley,C.F loTl 

Qnigley, M. H otq 

Qnigley, Michael i^jo 

Qnigley, Philip .■;;;■■■ }o44 

Radebaugh, Namon jn-y- 

Kadebaugh, Samuel " ' -1 oq^ 

Kahilly,P.H }S 

Kay, J. W ^-^'' 

Raymond, Enos B.. 

Read, Charles R 

Read's Landing 

Reding, Peter 

Reiland, John ,,„, 

Reusch,W.E ^90 

Richards, F.S '.'.'.'.'..'. 9^9 

Richardson, James G 11 SI 

Robbins, Joseph Parker [' mo-, 

RobuLson, John JJ 

Robinson, Samuel 
Roli", Henry 



1177 
1061 
938 
657 
1203 
1169 



141 
1060 
1063 



Rogers, C. F .".'.'.'.'.""■ 19-8 

Rogers, James F 1 1"! o 

Rollins, E. T '.'.'.'.'.'.'. 1297 



11 



Rose, J. F 

Rose, J. G 

Rueckert, F. W 

Russell, M. C 

Ryan, P. F 

Safford, John L 

Sandford, G.D ..•■ 

Sandford, J. H 

Schad, John 

Schillinc;;, Peter 

Schmitz, John 

Schmidt, John 

Schmidt, Henry 

Schmidt, J. C 

Schermuly, John 

Schools . . .756, 765, 789, 791, 795, 

Schram, M 

Selover, Alexander 

Selover, Peter 

Seeley, Ira 

Seeley, F. W 

Seymour, S. 

Shaw,F. W 

Sheldon, J. B 

Shields, Patrick 

Sibley, C. H 

Sibley, J. J 

Sinclair, C 

Sigler, A. V 

Sioux Half-breed Tract 

Simons, Henry 

Skillman, Evander 

Slocum, Fitz Gerald 

Smith, A. E 

Smith, M. D 

Smith, C. W 

Smith, H.L 

Smith, H.N 

Smith, N.B 

Smith, O.N 

Smith, S.G -■■ 

Societies 711, 758, 785 

Southworth, A. D 

Springer, John 

Stauti; C. C 

Stauff, C. J 

Stearns, Ernest 

Stearns, R. E 

Stearns, T. P 

Stevens, H. A 

Stocker, H. D 

Stout, Elijah 

Stout, G. C 

Stowell, A. D 

Stowell,F.A. ..^ 

Stowman, A. AV 

Stratton, George 

Strickland, Edward 

Strickland, Richard 

Struble, Stephen 

Stuetzel, Frank 



1241 
1242 
1186 
1195 
1293 
1089 
994 
668 
1055 
1240 
1026 
1119 
1126 
1079 
1171 
689 
1217 
1068 
1069 
1274 
1275 
984 
949 
1048 
1095 
1157 
1012 
1081 
1018 
1255 
1185' 
1151 
1106 
1217 
1218 
1093 
1180 
1043 
1063 
1179 
1292 
859 
1171 
1149 
989 
941 
974 
974 
1168 
1076 
1120 
1284 
1285 
956 
, 956 
990 
. 1102 
. 1166 
. 1166 
. 1159 
1191 



Sullivan, Florence 1218 

Sumner, H. S 1247 

Sylvester, G. W 1008 

Taber, M. E 1182 

Taft, Andrew J 1084 

Talbot, Francis 940 

Tefft, N. S 982 

Tenney,G.AV 1042 

Tenney, Jacob 1041 

Tibbitts, Abner 1291 

Terrell, Henry K 1037 

Thompson, Thomas A 985 

Thorp, Lymon E 1008 

Townsend, L 1057 

Tracy, Lawrence 1014 

Traditional 570 

Treaties 589 

Trobec, James 1143 

Troutman, Ludwig 982 

Ti-yon, Charles f: 1043 

Umbreit, Christian 1104 

Underwood, J. M 1230 

Van Buren, A. D 1219 

YanVleit, L. S 1232 

Vilas, CD 1288 

Wabasha and Vicinity 621 

Wabasha Foundry 1162 

Wadleigh, T. J . .' 1191 

Wagner, J. P 1226 

Wahler, Frederick B 1117 

Wah pasha 1273 

Walker, David 1228 

Walker, J. S 1277 

Walton, W. S 1189 

Warring, William H 1085 

Waskey, Alexander 955 

Waskey, William 955 

Waste, J. P 1225 

Watopa Township 1261 

Weaver 1266 

Wear, John 1248 

Wedge, Henry D 1141 

Wahrenberg, John H 999 

Webster, S. W 1309 

Weimar, J. M 1226 

Welcome, W. A 1144 

Wells, Frank A 1114 

West Albanv 777 

Whaley, Uriah 1089 

White, CO 1307 

White, Robert 1115 

White, R. N 1306 

Whitmore, H.J 1044 

Whitmore, L. H 1142 

Wilcox, H. C 972 

AVilcox, Ozias 1278 

AVildes, A. J 1236 

Wildes, Ephraim 1236 

AVilson, George 1053 

Willson,H. P 1276 

Winters, F. W 1144 



]2 



AVise, Charles ] 233 

Witte, William nyi 

Wood, Thomas 1296 

Woodruff, Henry C 1052 

Wording. AV. E 1 925 

Wright, Rufus C 1307 

Wright, William 905 

York, E. M 965 



Yotta, Jacob 1140 

Young, C. F. & Bro [[ 1072 

Young, Louis mg 

Young, J. E 1216 

Youngs, Jesse 1012 

Zumbro Township 759 

Zumbro Township Societies 1267 



HISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 



CHAPTER I. 



ABORIGINAL HISTORY. 



A HISTORY of the first settlement of Winona county, and es- 
pecially that of the city of Winona, requires that some notice be 
given to the Indian tribes that have occupied the territory in which 
it lies, and of that adjacent, and also that some notice be given to 
the early efforts of missionaries and explorers to christianize and 
render the savages obedient to the wants of commerce and of French 
or English ascendanc3^ The fur trade was the most important ele- 
ment in the early explorations and settlement of the Northwest, as 
commerce generally has been in the civilization of the world. 

The limited S])ace allowed for this subject admits of but slight 
mention of the authorities drawn upon, but it is imperative that 
the aid afforded by the researches of the Smithsonian Institute, of 
Rev, Edward Duffield Neil, and of Judge George Gale, be acknowl- 
edged. 

Absolutely nothing is known of the origin of the Indians ; 
neither the mound-builders, nor the more modern tribes ; and the 
naturalist is led to ponder over the suggestion ascribed to Yoltaire, 
' ' that possibly, in America, while God was creating different spe- 
cies of flies, he created various species of men." 

Be that as it may, their differentiations in languages and cus- 
toms, forming different tribes from rnore original stocks, or sources, 
have been noticed by writers upon ethnology ; but aside from the 
knowledge afforded by their various languages and traditions all is 
doubt and m^'stery. Their traditions, even, are so blended with 
superstitions and romances that the most critical judgment is re- 
quired in giving credit to any portion of them ; the more especially 
to times and distances^ that extend beyond the Indiatn's present 
capacity to realise. The territory between the lakes and the Missis- 
2 



18 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

sippi river seems to have been peculiarly fitted by its topography 
and natural productions for a grand nursery of savage tribes ; and 
there are evidences still remaining in the languages and traditions 
of the aboriginal inhabitants of this territory, and in the remains 
of ancient tumuli, stone and copper implements, to warrant this 
belief It is ])robable, as claimed by tradition, that some tribe of 
Algonquin origin was in possession of this vast territory, and were 
dispossessed by confederated Sioux, whom tradition says came from 
the New Mexican frontier. The Chippewa names for diiferent local- 
ities, now corrupted, but familiar to us, warrants this belief, if it 
does not establish the fact. The Sauks and Min-o-min-ees, both of 
Chippewa origin, say they were the original owners of the whole 
territory, but they shed no light upon the origin of the mound- 
builders. Those people may have been drawn to this territory from 
the far south in search of copper, which to them, probably, was as 
the gold of California to modern adventurers, and been expelled 
again by wars, or have voluntarily abandoned their industrious 
mode of life to become engrafted into the new nations that were 
springing up around them. Such industrious people would natu- 
rally become the prey of more warlike tribes, and the more especially 
so because of their cranial development, indicating a lack of aggress- 
ive character. In support of the claim to have been the oldest ot 
modern tribes to occupy the territory, the Chippewa race mention 
the names given by their ancestors to prominent localities. For ex- 
ample, Michigan, a word of Chippewa origin, is derived from Mich- 
e-gali-ge-gan, meaning the lake country, or "skye bound waters." 
Wisconsin is from Gy-osh-kon-sing, the name of its principal river, 
and means the place of little gulls. Chicago is from Gah-che-gah- 
gong, a place of skunks. Milwaukee is from Mim-wa-ke, meaning 
hazel-brush land, equivalent to good land, as upon good land only 
will this shrub grow. The astringent bark was used as a medicinal 
remedy, and hence the shrub was known as the good shrub by the 
Indians. 

Galena was known as Ush-ke-co-man-o-day, the lead town ; 
Prairie-du-Chien as Ke-go-shook-ah-note, meaning where the fish rest, 
as in winter they are still known to do. St. Anthony's Falls was 
called Ke-che-ka-be-gong, a great waterfall ; the Mississippi as 
Miche-see bee, or Miche-gah-see bee, meaning the great or endless 
river, or, more literally, the river that runs, everywhere ; and Lake 
Superior was known as Ke-che-gun-me, or "the great deep." Only 



ABORIGINAL HISTORY. 1 9 

a' few Chippewa names have been given, and those simply to show 
the familiarity of the Chippewas with characteristics of the various 
localities named by them and now so familiar to us. It may be 
added that St. Paul, or its site, was known as Ish-ke-bug-ge, or new 
leaf, because of the early budding out of the foliage below St. An- 
thony's. It has been a custom of Indian tribes, as with other primi- 
tive peoples, to name persons and tribes from peculiarities, from 
resemblances and from localities. 

This rule has been followed in naming the separate tribes of 
the great Algonquin, Iroquois and Dah-ko-tah nations, as well as of 
those of the Pawnee, Shosh-o-me, Kewis, Yu-mah and Apachee or 
Atha-pas-can nations. For many years the records of the early 
Spanish and French explorers were hidden from the researches of 
modern investigators, but those of Marco-de Mca and of Coronado, 
have come out at last from their mouldy recesses, and documents 
that had lain in the archives of France for long years have been 
copied and published to aid the modern historian. In these records 
of the early explorers, errors in writing and on maps have been 
made ; but they are of considerable value to modern research, be- 
cause of the light they shed upon the explorations of their authors, 
and upon some Indian traditions concerning them. 

The Chippewa name for Lake Winnepec is Win-ne-ba-go-shish- 
ing, the meaning of which is a place of dirty water. The name 
Win-ne-ba-go was interpreted to mean ''stinking water," and the 
Indians of the tribe were called by the early French explorers tlie 
"Stinkards," under the impression that they had come from a place 
of stinking water. Lake Winnebago, in Wisconsin, was supposed 
to be that locality, but it may be observed here that the ^i^ater of 
that lake is not, or was not, before the advent of the white people, 
impure. 

Another- reason given for the name was, that they had come 
from the Western sea or ocean, imagined by the first French ex- 
plorers to exist in the region of the Mississippi river ; and as the 
Algonquin name Winnebagoec, for salt and stinking water, was the 
same, except in accent, their name was supposed by some to desig- 
nate a people from the Western ocean. The traditions and legends 
still existing among the Winnebagoes render it probable that they 
once inhabited the territory adjacent to lake Win-ne-ba-go-shish-ing 
(modernly called Winnepec), and probably long anterior to the 
occupancy by the Sioux of the Mille-Lac country, as while acknowl- 



20 HISTOKY OF WINONA ('OUNTY. 

c'dgiriir tlieir relatioiisliij) to the Dah-ko-tali nation, they claim a more 
ancient lineage. Lieut. Pike refers to the statement of an old Ohip- 
j)ewa that the Sioux once occupied Leach Lake; and Winnebago 
sliishing, or the "Dirty Water lake,'' is but twenty-live miles dis- 
tant from Leach Lake. 

The Winnebagoes call themselves Ho-chunk-o-rah, meaning 
*'the deep voiced people." The Dah-ko-tahs call them Ho-tau-kah, 
full or large voiced people, because of their sonorous voices being 
conspicuously prominent in their dance and war songs. Many 
words in Winnebago and Sioux are very similar. Wah-tah is the 
Sioux word for canoe; watch-er-ah, the Winnebago. Shoon-kah is 
the Sioux word for dog; shoon-ker-ah, is the Winnebago name. 
No-pah is nine in Sioux ; Noi)e is the same numeral in Winnebago. 

Numerous other examples might be given of resemblances in 
tlieir respective languages, but these will suifice. The Chi))pewa 
language is wonderfully artistic in construction and rich in sugges- 
tions ; hence we lind many of their words accepted by other tribes 
as classic. Manito-ba, God's land, suggests the idea of a God-given 
country or Indian paradise. Superior in intellectual capacity to 
most other tribes, their names seem to have been accepted by others 
as something better than their ovm. It is believed by the writer 
that in this way, probably, the Chippewa name, Winnebago, was 
given and accepted by the Ho-chunck-o-rah. 

The Northeastern Sioux claimed to have owned the Mille Lac 
counti-y from time immemorial. It seems quite probable that 
before the "long war," and during some long era of peace, the 
Winnebagoes may have inhabited the shores of Lake Winnepec, 
perhaps, while the Sioux were at Leech lake. The Kneesteneau, 
or Chippewas, would have been their neighbors, and from them the 
Winnebago may have acquired some of the tastes and habits that 
have so marked his character. 

As is still customary with bordering ti-ibes, intermarriages were 
no doubt of frequent occurrence, and in this way, it is conceivable, 
that the Dah-ko-tah progenitors of the Winnebagoes may have 
established themselves among some Chippewa tribes, and their off- 
spring have been led to accept flag-mat wigwams, deer, fish and 
water-fowl in lieu of skin tents and buffalo meat. The Sioux 
language even differs in each band. Probably, soon after the 
Spanish conquest of Mexico, many of the red rovers of the i)lains, 
as their traditions tell, left for more northern climes. Tlie inviting 



ABORIGINAL HISTORY. 21 

prairies of Minnesota, with tlieir countless herds of buffalo and 
elk, would for a time, at least, content the warlike Sioux, who, ].^ro- 
vided with some of the "big dogs" (horses) of the Spaniards, 
could roam at will over these bou)idless, beautiful plains. It seems 
also likely that reports of the more than savage cruelty of the 
Spaniard had gone out, with accounts of the destructive nature of 
his "deadly thunder"; and if so, a common dread would have ke])t 
a superstitious people at peace. 

Friendly alliances would most naturally have sprung up among 
border tribes, and in but a few generations old tribes would have 
been multiplied into new ones, as appears to have been done dur- 
ing some long era of peace. It is true that the problem may be 
as readily solved by supposing a state of civil war to have existed, 
but in that case there still must have been long eras of peace, or 
the race would have become extinct. Be that as it may, the forests 
of Minnesota and Wisconsin limited the range of the buiialo in 
these states, and in doing this determined the character of the nati\e 
inhabitants. 

The Sioux soon asserted his savage sway over the whole prairie 
region west of the Mississippi river, and drove into the forests of 
Wisconsin his less formidable neighbors. In after years, by com- 
bined attacks with firearms, he was driven back by those he had 
dispossessed of their patrimony, and was content to plant himself 
upon the western shore of liis watery barrier ; keeping as neutral 
ground, for a time, a strip of territory along the east side of the 
Mississippi. 

This region remained neutral but for a short time only, for w^^ 
find by the accounts of the earliest Fj'ench explorers that the Da- 
kotah and Algonquin nations were in an almost constant state of 
warfare when first visited by them, and during the whole time of the 
French occupation of the territory. 

The water-courses afforded ready access to the greater part of 
the region between the lakes and " Great river, " and the dense 
forests concealed the approach of the wily foes. While the " battle- 
ground " presented opportunities for a surprise, it was no less ser- 
viceable for those who waited in ambush. Many a war party of both 
nations have., been cut off* by a successful ambush, and their people 
left to mourn and plot new schemes of vengeance. 

Other tribes suffered by these national animosities, and aban- 
doned the noted theatres of war for more peaceful localities. 



22 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

'J'lie Wiiinebagoes, according; to their traditions, suffered from 
the incursions of both nations ; and at tlie time of the first visit 
of tlie French at Green Bay tliey were found there and on Fox 
i-iver. living in amity with the rice-eaters, or Min-o-min-nee, and 
other tribes of Algonquin origin, though known to be closely re- 
lated to the almost universal enemy, the Sioux. During the summer 
months the Indians on Fox river appeared sedentary in their habits, 
living in bark houses and cultivating Indian corn and other products 
of Indian agriculture, or gathering the wild potatoes and wild rice 
that, served them for their winter stores of vegetable food. During' 
seasons of scarcity from frosts, or from disaster, edible nuts and 
acorns were secured against times of want; and if famine came upon 
them in their extremity, they supported life by feeding upon the 
inner bark of the slippery elm, linden and white pine. Those were 
happy times for the peaceful tribes, and of sorrow for those in 
enmity with one another. 



CHAPTER II. 



EXPLORATIONS. 



The Minominnees, Pottawattamies and the Foxes occupied the 
water-courses tributary to Green Bay, while the Winnebagoes and 
the kindred tribes of lowas, Missouris, Osages, Kansas, Quapaws, 
Ottoes, Ponkas and Mandans, possessed the country south and 
west, bordering upon the territory of the Sauks, the Illanois and the 
Sioux. This territory seems to have been visited by the French as 
early as 1634, and in 1660 Father Rene Menard went on a mission 
to Lake Superior, where the furs of that region and of Green Bay 
had ah'eady begun to attract adventurous Frenchmen. 

Poor zealous Menard, the first missionary, never returned to 
civilization ; he was lost in the wilds of a Black river forest, separated 
in a swamp from his faithful follower and assistant Guerin, and all 
that was ever known of his fate was inferred from the agony of his 
companion and the priestly robe and prayer-book of the aged pre- 
late found years afterward in a Da-ko-tah lodge. 

In 1 665 Father Claude Allouez, with but six French voyageurs, 
but with a large number of savages, embarked from Montreal for 



ABORIGINAL HISTORY. 23 

Lake Superior, where he established himself for a time at a place 
called by the French La Pointe, because of its jutting out into the 
beautiful bay of Bayfield. Here at once was erected the mission of 
the Holy Spirit, and the good ofl&ces of the priest tendered to the 
untutored and savage tribes of that vast wilderness. The peaceful 
mission of AUouez was soon known among the warring tribes, and 
Sauks and Foxes, Illani and other distant tribes, sent messengers of 
peace or curiosity to the "Black Ciown," and he was admitted to 
their counsels. In turn, "their tales of the noble river on which 
they dwelt," and which flowed to the south, "interested Allouez, 
and he became desirous of exploring the territory of his proselytes." 
Then, too, at the very extremity of the lake, the missionary met the 
wild and impassioned Sioux, who dwelt to the west of Lake Superior, 
in a land of prairie, with wild rice for food, and skins of beasts instead 
of bark for roofs to their cabins, on the bank of the Great river, of 
which Allouez reported the name to be Mississippi. To Father 
Allouez belongs the honor of having first given this name to the 
world. In speaking of the Da-ko-tahs, he says : "These people 
are, above all others, savage and warlike. * * * They speak 
a language entirely unknown to us, and the savages about here do 
not understand them." 

In 1669 the zealous Marquette succeeded to the mission estab- 
lished by Allouez, and his writings give a somewhat florid account 
of Sioux character. He says: "The Nadawessi (the Chippewa 
name of the Sioux), are«the Iroquois of this country beyond La 
Pointe, but less faithless, and never attack until attacked. Their 
language is entirely different from the Huron and Algonquin ; they 
have many villages, but are widely scattered ; they have very extra^ 
ordinary customs. * * * All the lake tribes make war upon 
them, but with small success. They have false oats (wild rice), use 
little canoes, and keep their word strictly. 

At that time the Dah-ko-tahs used knives, spears and arrow- 
heads made of stone. About that time, one band of Dah-ko-tahs 
were allied to a baud of Chippewas by intermarriage and commer- 
cial relations, and for a time were living in friendly relations with a 
band of Huron s, who had fled from the Iroquois of New York. 
Hostilities breaking out between these people and the Sioux, they 
joined the people of their tribe at La Pointe. 

To Nicholas Perrot is due the honor of having first established 
a trading post on the Mississippi below Lake Pepin, and according 



24 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

to Neil's History of Minnesota, Perrot inspired the enterprise of 
La Salle, who sent Louis Hennepin to explore the Mississippi. 
Hennepin was iirst to explore the river above the mouth of the Wis- 
consin, the first to name and describe the falls of St. Anthony, the 
first to i)resent an engraving of the Falls of Niagara, and it may be 
added, the first to translate the Winnebago name of Trempealeau 
Mountain into French. The Winnebagoes call that peculiar mount- 
ain Hay-me-ah-chaw, which is well rendered in French as the Soak- 
ing Mountain, as it stands isolated from its fellow peaks entirely 
surrounded by water. 

After reaching the Illinois river. La Salle, in 1680, sent Henne- 
})in on his voyage of discovery, with but two voyageur assistants. 
After reaching the mouth of the Illinois river he commenced the 
htizardous ascent of the "Great river," traversed before only by 
Joliette and Marquette, when they descended from the Wisconsin. 
Hennepin encountered war-parties of Dah-ko-tahs, and was taken 
a prisoner by them up the Mississippi to St. Paul, to St. Anthony's 
Falls, and to Mille Lao. While in the land of the Sioux he met 
Du Luth, who had come across from Lake Superior. 

Du Luth obtained the release of Hennepin, and gave him much 
information of value. Du Luth seems to have been the real dis- 
coverer of Minnesota. 

Owing to the war inaugurated against the English by Denon- 
\ille, in 1687, most of the French left the Mississippi, and concen- 
trated for defense under Du Luth at Greea Bay. 

In 1688 Perrot returned to his trading-post below Lake Pepin, 
and the year following, by proclamation, claiiAed the country for 
France. In the year 1695 Le Seur built the second post established 
in Minnesota, on an island not far from Red Wing. 

During this year Le Seur took with him to Canada the first 
Dah-ko-tah known to have visited that country. The Indian's name 
was Tee-os-kah-tay. He unfortunately sickened and died in Mont- 
real. 

Le Seur hoped to open the mines known to be on the Mississippi, 
and went to France for a license. The license to work them was 
obtained, but Le Seur was captured by the English and taken to 
England, but was finally released. After overcoming great and 
renewed opposition, and making one more trip to France, he,. in 
1 700, commenced his search for copper, which was said to l)e 
abundant on the upper Mississippi. 



EXPLORATIONS. 25 

Some time in August of this year he entered Fever or Galena 
river, whose banks were known to the Indians to contain lead, but 
Le Seur was the first to mention the existence of those lead mines. 
After many incidents of interest, Le Seur reached the Blue Earth 
river, and established himself in a fort about one mile below the 
mineral deposits, from, which the Dah-ko-tahs obtained their paint 
lor personal adornment. In 1701 Le Seur took to the French post, 
on the Gulf of Mexico a large quantity of this mineral, and soon 
tliereafter sailed lor France. 

At this time, according to Le Seur's journal, there were seven 
villages of the Sioux on the east side of tlie Mississippi, and nine on 
the west. 

The Wali-pa-sha band was anciently known as the Ona-])e-ton or 
falling leaf band, and their village of Ke-ox-ah was upon the 
prairie now occupied by the city of Winona. Keoxa is difficult of 
translation, but it may be rendered as "-The Homestead," because 
in the springtime there was here a family reunion to honor the ' 
dead and invoke their blessings upon the band. 

The site of Winona was known to the French as La Prairie Aux- 
Ailes (pronounced O'Zell) or the Wing's prairie, presumably because 
of its having been occupied by members of Ked Wing's band. The 
Americans called it Wah-pa-sha's prairie. 

Under the impression that it drew from Canada its most enter- 
prising colonists, the French government for some years discour- 
aged French settlements among the Indians west of Mackanaw ; but 
very soon the policy of the English in estranging the Foxes and 
other tribes from the French, compelled a renewal of the licenses 
that had been canceled by the French authorities. 

The Foxes had made- an unsuccessful attempt upon the French 
fort at Detroit (known as Wah-way-oo-tay-nong, or the Wy-an-dotte 
fort), and smarting under defeat they made an alliance with their 
old enemies the Dah-ko-tahs. This alliance and the enmity of the 
Foxes made it unsafe for the French to visit the Mississippi by way 
of Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and for some years the Sauks and 
Foxes scalped the French traders, and waged war against their 
Indian allies. The Foxes were finally overcome by the French in 
1714, and, capitulating, they gave six hostages as security for a 
peaceful treaty to be agreed upon in Montreal. Pemoussa, their 
greatest warrior, and others sent as hostages, died there of small- 
pox. One who had recovered with the loss of an eye was sent to 



26 HISTORY OF WINONA (lOIINTY. 

Mackanaw to treat, but he escaped and again stirred up the Indians 
to revolt. 

Tlie (3hick-a-saw8 in the south and Dah-ko-talis in tlie nortli 
made the country exceedingly dangerous to the French. They now 
became assured that the Englisli were undermining their intiuence 
with the Indians, for in a dispatch written about 1720 it is stated 
that the English "■entertain constantly the idea of becoming masters 
of North Amei^ca.''^ Licenses to traders were once more abundantly 
issued, and the prohibition against the sale of liquors that had been 
established by the influence of the pious missionaries was removed. 
In 1718 Capt. St. Pierre was sent with a small force to reoccupy 
La Pointe, now Bayiield. The Indians there and at Kce-wee-naw 
had threatened war against the Foxes. During this year peace was 
established at Green Bay with the Sauks and Foxes and Winne- 
bagoes, who had taken part against the French. An endeavor was 
now made to detach the Dali-ko-tahs from friendly alliances with the 
Foxes, and to secure a treaty of peace between the Chijipewas and 
Dah-ko-tahs, with a promise oi renewed trade with them if they 
remained at peace. To accomplish this purpose, two Frenchmen were 
sent to the Dah-ko-tahs, but it would appear were not entirely suc- 
cessful, and wintered among the Menominee and Winnebago Indians 
on Black river. In order to obtain a strategic pointy it was resolved 
by the French to build a fort in the Sioux country. On June 10, 
17^7, the expedition left Montreal, accompanied by missionaries and 
traders, and on September 17 of the same year reached their desti- 
nation on Lake Pepin. A stockade was soon built on the north side 
near Maiden Rock that inclosed buildings for troops, missionaries 
and traders. The fort was named " Beauharnois," in honor of the 
governor of (Canada, and the mission named " St. Michael the 
Archangel." The commander of this fort was De la Perriere Boucher, 
noted for his savage brutality and bigotry. This fort was overflowed 
in 1728 and its site abandoned. According to Sioux tradition, the 
prairie on which Winona is now situated was also ovei-flowed at that 
time. During this year a large force of French and Indians left 
Canada with the intention of destroying the Sauks and Foxes. On 
August 17 they arrived at the mouth of Fox river. Before the 
dawn of day an attempt was made to surprise the Sauk village, but 
they escaped, leaving only four of their people to reward the French 
for their midnight vigils. A few days Uiter the French ascended the 
rapid stream to a Winnebago village, but it also was deserted; still 



EXPLORATIONS. 



27 



pursuing their search, on the twenty-fifth tliej came to a large Fox 
village, but that too was abandoned. Orders were now given to 
advance the command tQ the grand portage of the Wisconsin river; 
but this move was as fruitless as those which had preceded it, and 
the expedition returned to Green Bay without results. The Foxes 
retired to Iowa, and, establishing still closer relations with the lowas 
and Sioux, were allotted hunting-grounds to which have been at- 
tached some of their names. The Kick-ah-poos and Masco-tens were 
allies of the Foxes and their congeners^ the Sauks, and took part 
with them against the French. 

In 1736 St. Pierre was in command at Lake Pepin and regarded 
the Sioux as friendly, but they still remained objects of suspicion to 
the French Canadian government, as some of them had attacked an 
expedition under Yeranderie", undertaken at that early period to open 
a route to the Pacific. 

In 1741 the Foxes killed some Frenchmen in the territory of the 
Illinois, and this so aroused the authorities in Canada that they 
determined, if possible, to overthrow and completely subdue the 
Foxes. The officer selected for this purpose was the Sieur Moran 
or Marin, who had once been in command at Fort St. Nicholas near 
Prairie du Chien. With the cunning of a savage, Marin placed his 
men in canoes under cover, as if they were merchandise, and when 
ordered by the Foxes opposite or near the Butte des Morts to land and 
pay the usual tribute exacted from all traders passing their village, 
he opened fire upon the assembled multitude and killed indiscrimi- 
nately men, women and children. Marin had anticipated the Foxes' 
consternation and flight, and before reaching the village had sent a 
detachment of his force to cut them off. There was great slaughter 
and but a remnant of the village escaped. These people were again 
surprised by Marin and his forces on snowshoes in their winter 
encampment on the Wisconsin, and were utterly destroyed. 

The Dah-ko-tahs had during this period been at war with the 
Chippewas, but in 1746 were induced by the French to make peace. 
Many of the French voyageurs, and in some few instances French offi- 
cers even, had taken wives, after the Indian method of marriage, from 
among the Dah-ko-tahs and other tribes, and by this means their in- 
fluence was still great among their Indian followers. Yet, English 
influence had commenced its work, and soon after this period French 
power seems to have begun to wane. The French, however, still 
continued to make a struggle for existence, if not supremacy. 



28 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

The CLippewas of Lake Superior showed a disposition to aid the 
f^nglish, and committed a robbery at the Sault St. Marie ; " even the 
commandant at Mackanaw wa.s exposed to insolence." St. Pierre 
was sent to the scene of disorder. His judgment and courage was 
undoubted. St. Pierre seized three murderers and advised that 
no French traders should come among the Chippewas. While the 
Indians, secured by the boldness of St. Pierre, were on their way to 
Quebec under a guard of eight French soldiers, by great cunning and 
daring they managed to kill or drown their guard, and thougii 
manacled at the time, they escaped, severing their irons with an axe. 
" Thus was lost in a great measure the fruit of Sieur St. Pierre's 
good management "as wrote Galassoniere in 1749. 

Affairs continued in a disturbed state, and Canada finally became 
involved in the war with New York and the New England colonies. 
In the West, affairs were for some time in doubt, but the influence 
of the Sieur Marin became most p^jwerfnl, and in 1753 he was able 
ti» restore tranquillity between the PVench, and Indian chiefs assem- 
bled at Green Bav, 



CHAPTER in. 



AMONG THE INDIANS. 



As the war betw-een the colonies became more desperate, the 
French officers of experience and distinction were called from the 
West to aid the Eastern struggle. Legardeur de St. Pierre in 1 755 fell 
in the battle upfm Lake Champlain, and Marin. Langlade, and others 
from the West, distinguished themselves as heroes. After the fall of 
Quebec the Indians of the Northwest readily transferred their alle- 
giance to the British. In 1761 the English took possession of Green 
Bay, and trade was once more opened with the Indians. A French 
trader named Penneshaw was sent by the English into the country 
fo the Dah-ko-tahs, and in March, 1763, twelve Dahkotah warriors 
arrived at Green Bay, and offered the English the friendship of their 
nation. They told the English commandant that if any Indians 
obstructed the passage of traders to their country, to send them a 
belt of Wampum as a sign, and '-they would come and cut them off, 
as all Indians were their slaves or dogs." After this talk they pro- 
duced a letter from Penneshaw, explaining the object of their visit. 



AMONG THE INDIANS. 29 

In June Penneshaw himself arrived with most welcome news from 
the land of the Dah-ko-tahs, bringing with him for the commander 
ot the post a pipe of peace, and a request that English traders be 
sent to trade with the Sioux of the Mississippi. 

A tradition still exists among the Sioux that the elder Wah-pa- 
sha, or, as we might say, Wah-pa-sha the First, was one of the 
twelve Da-ko-tahs who visited Green Bay. Notwithstanding the 
English had conquered all the vast territory between the lakes and 
the Mississippi, and had the prolfered friendship of the Sioux 
to strengthen their influence with all the other Indian tribes, 
the lines of trade between the territory of Louisiana and the 
newly acquired territory of the English were not closely drawn, and 
French influence was sufticiently potent to send most of the furs and 
peltries to their post at New Orleans. The cause of Indian prefer- 
ence for the French may be found in the latters gaiety of character, 
and their ability to conform to the circumstances that may surround 
them. The Canadian voyageurs and woodmen displayed a fondness 
for high colored sashes and moccasins that was pleasing to the bar- 
baric tastes of the Indian women, and many of them, joining their 
fortunes and their honors with those of the French, raised children 
that were taught to reverence and obey them. 

In addition to the influences extended by these ties of blood, 
tlie kindness and devotion to their religious faith exhibited by the 
Catholic missionaries won upon the imaginations of the Indians, 
and many were won over to a profession of their faith. The tribes 
which came under their influences looked upon the priests as verita- 
ble messengers from God, and called them the "good spirits," be- 
lieving that they were the mediums only ot "good spirits." 

All Indians are spiritists, believing implicitly that the spirits of 
departed human beings take an interest in mundane aflairs. 

The English, in contrast with French management, had a bluti' 
and arbitrary way of dealing, that, however successful it may have 
been with eastern tribes, was for a time very distasteful to the Sioux. 
However, the English learned something in due time by contact 
with these Indians, and from French politeness ; but some years 
were required before their success with the Sioux was establislied. 

For some years the trade seems to have been abandoned west of 
Mackanaw, to the French. In the yeai* 1766 Jonathan Carver, a 
native of Connecticut, visited the upper Mississippi, and his reports 



30 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

concerning tlie beauty, fertility and reHources of Minnesota aroused 
some attention to the value of these new possessions. 

Carver was a man of keen observation and discernment, and 
some of his predictions regarding the "new northwest," though 
scoffed at by some at that time, proved almost prophetic. Carver 
died in England in 1780. After his death, a claim was set up to a 
large tract of land said to have been given him by the Sioux, and 
since known as the " Carver tract. " 

The claim was investigated after the territory came into the pos- 
session of the United States, but it was found to be untenable. 

Carver found the Sioux and Cliippewas at war when he arrived 
among them, and was told that "war had existed among them for 
forty years." Chippewa and Sioux tradition both make the time 
much longer. It was supposed by the English that the policy of 
the French traders fostered war between the Sioux and Chippewa 
nations. Whether this be true or not, it is certain that French in- 
fluence continued paramount in the country for some years, but as 
the French that remained after the transfer of the country to the 
English were inferior in intelligence to those in authority while 
the French held possession, we are principally dependant upon 
Indian and mixed blood tradition for what occurred in this vast 
territory until after the revolution. 

Tradition tells us that an Englishman, located near the mouth of 
the Min-ne-so-ta river, was killed while smoking his pipe, by an 
Indian named Ix-ka-ta-])e. He was of the M'de-wa-kan-ton-waii 
band of Dah-ko-tahs. 

As a result of this unprovoked murder, no other trader would 
visit this band, which had already been divided by dissensions, and 
been driven by the Cliippewas from territory formerly occupied east 
of the Mississippi. 

In earlier times this decision of the traders would have been 
disregarde<l, but then it was of vital importance to their well-being 
if not their existence ; for they had learned to depend upon guns 
instead of bows and arrows, and therefore suffered for want of am- 
munition and other supplies, and were at the mercy of their well- 
armed enemies. After a grand council it was determined to give 
up the murderer to English justice. 

Accordingly a large party of Sioux, with their wives and the 
murderer, started for Quebec. In order to avoid their enemies the 
Chippewas, they took the usual canoe route by the AVisconsin and 



AMONG THE INDIANS. 31 

Fox rivers to Green Bay. While on this journey, the ridicule ot 
other tribes and their own dissensions caused a desertion of over 
half of their number, and upon their arrival at Green Bay, but six, 
of whom some were women, persevered in their intention to go on. 
When about to start, the murderer also disappeared ingloriously. 
The leader of the little band of six, then called Wa-pa "The Leaf," 
told his followers that he himself would go as an offering to the 
British commander, and if required, would give up his life that his 
people might not be destroyed. On arriving at Quebec, his motive 
and heroism were both appreciated by the English governor, and 
the chief was sent back to his prairie home, loaded with abundant 
supplies of the coveted ammunition and Indian trinkets ; and as 
evidence of his gratitude demanded a British flag to wave over his 
territory. A gaudy uniform, which included a red cap, common 
enough in early days, was also given "The Leaf," or as Grignon 
calls him, the "Fallen Leaf," and as he represented the Dah-ko-tas 
as a nation of seven principal bands, he was given seven medals for 
the respective bands, the one for himself being hung by a tassel 
cord upon his neck by the English commander at Quebec in person. 
This noble band of Spartan Sioux wintered in Canada and had 
small-pox, though in a mild form, and when the navigalon of the 
great lakes was fully opened in the spring they safely returned to 
their tribe. 

Before reaching their village, which had been again divided 
during their absence, they dressed themselves in their finest apparel, 
and marching in Indian file at the head of his devoted companions, 
the chief entered his village with red cap and flag conspicuously 
displayed. 

The chief was hailed, after Indian custom as Wah-pa-ha-sha, or 
"Ked Cap," which, by abbreviation soon became Wa-pa-sha. 

Wapasha's successful return and denunciation of the cowardly 
desertion by his comrades, created another division, which was 
made permanent by his leaving "Red Wing's " band and removing 
to the present site of Minnesota City, known to the Wah-pa-sha 
band as 0-ton-we, "the village," probably because of its having 
been a very ancient dwelling and burial place of Indians. 

There, at Gilmore and Burn's valleys, they had their cornfields 
and summer residences. The band also had a village near Trempea- 
leau mountain and at Hoot river. At times, when not occupied 
with field work, they assembled upon the site of Winona (known as 



32 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Keoxa) juul La Crosse, held tlieir sun and other religious dances, 
])lajed their games of " La Crosse," or wept over the remains of 
their dead. Nostrils and sight both reminded them of this sacred 
duty, as the dead of their band were placed u])on scaffolds, and left to 
fester and bleach in the open air until whitened by time. The bones 
and burial garments were buried in some secluded spot, or placed 
under stones in some ancient ossuary. This custom was soon 
abandoned, and in later years their dead were at once buried. 
Wa-pa-sha was very proud of his success with the English, and 
dui'ing one of his visits to Mackanaw, sti])ulated that when visiting 
English forts, the British commanders should salute him and his 
staff with solid shot, aimed a little high: 

For much of the foregoing tradition, and very much more of 
like character, the writer is indebted to Thomas Le Blanc, born in 
1824, son of Louis Provosal, or Louis Provencalle, an old French 
trader, whose post was at or near the site of Pennesha's, on tlie 
Minnesota river, at Traverse des Sioux, and where, for a time, in 
ancient days, some of Wa-pa-sha's people were encamjjed. Thomas 
was related to Wah-pa-sha, to the Grignons and to Faribault, and 
was well versed in Indian and French traditions. He spoke French, 
English and Dah-ko-tah about equally well, and during the four 
months employed by the writer lie was found singularly intelligent 
and truthful. 

The lirst Wah-pah-sha was grandfather to the one removed from 
his Winona village by treaty in 1851-3. His memory is still held 
in great reverence by his descendants and the whole Sioux nation. 
His deeds of prowess and of benevolence are still preserved in tra- 
ditions and S(^ngs that are sung by medicine-men or priests to the 
young of the tribe : and even the Winnebago members of the 
Wah-j)a-sha family have learned to sing them. 

As a s])ecimen of these rude verses, com})elled into rhyme, the 
following song is given : 

SONG OF thp: DAH-KO-TAHS. 

Wah-pa-sha ! Wah-pa-sha ! good and great brave, 
. You rode into battle, made enemies slaves ; 
Your war-chief was strong in spirit and frame, 
And many the scalps he hung on his chain. 

Your " Red Cap " was known in the East and the West ; 
You honored the English, and hoped to be l)lessed ; 
You clothed your rod children in scarlet and blue ; 
You ever were kind, devoted and true. 



AMONG THE INDIANS. 85 

The skins of your Te-pee were brought from the plains ; 
Your moccasins dressed with Chippewa brains,* 
Your war-whoop saluted by British real shot.f 
Gave peacefullest token they harmed you not. 

Then rest thee, brave chieftain, our night has come on. 
The light has departed from a\\ thou hadst won ; 
Thy people lie scattered on hillside and plain ; 
Thy corn-fields, thy prairie, we cannot regain. 

Notwithstanding the esteem in which his memory is now held, 
during his lifetime Wah-pa-sha became the subject of dissensions in 
his tribe, and leaving the cares of chieftainship principally to his 
son, he roamed at will with a small band of devoted followers of 
his own tribe, and a few Win-ne-bagoes, one of whom had married 
his sister Winona, and whose daughter Winona, called the sister 
of the last Wah-pa-sha (though but a cousin), played so important 
a part in the removal of the Winnebagoes in 1848. Old Wah-pa- 
sha finally died at a favorite winter encampment on Koot river, and 
was taken to Prairie du Chien for burial. When news reached the 
Mississippi, in 1780, that Col. George R Clark, of Virginia, was 
in possession of Illinois, and was likely to take possession of Prairie 
du Chien, a lieutenant of militia, twenty Canadians and thirty-six 
Fox and Dah-ko-tah Indians were sent with nine bark canoes to 
secure the furs collected at that post. Wah-pa-sha was in command 
of the Indians. 

The canoes were filled with the best furs, and sent by Capt. 
Langlade, who had charge of them, out of danger from capture, and 
a few days afterward the Americans arrived with the intention of 
attacking the post. During this year, also, a squaw discovered a 
lead mine near the present site of Dubuque. During 1783-4 the 
Northwestern Company was organized, but some of the members 
becoming dissatisfied, an opposition company was formed by Alex- 
ander McKenzie and others. After a sharp rivalry for some time 
the two companies were consolidated. 

In 1798 there was a reorganization of the company, new part- 
ners admitted, and the shares increased. The new management 
was thoroughly systematized, and their operations made very profit- 
able. 

*The brains of animals are used in dressing deer skins. 
t A stipulation at Mackinaw, required a salute to Wah-pa-sha of solid shot 
when he visited that fort. 
3 



8<) HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

In about the year 1785 Julien Dubuque, who had settled at 
"La Prairie du Chien," and had heard of the discovery, by a Fox 
squaw of a lead vein on the west side of the Mississippi, obtained 
permission at a council to work those mines, and he established him- 
self upon the site of the city that bears his name. 

Dubuque was the confrere of De Marin, Provosal, Po(piette and 
others who have prominently figured in the fur trade of that i)eriod. 
The principal traders, however, were Dickson, Frazer, Renville and 
Grignon. James Porlier, an educated French Canadian, was acting 
as clerk for Grignon, on the St. Croix, at this time, together with 
tlie pompous and eccentric Judge Reaume, afterward so noted at 
Green Bay. 

Porlier, while with Dickson at Sauk Rapids, gave Pike useful 
information during his visit to the upper Mississippi in 1805, and 
afterward, moving to Green Bay, acted as chief-justice of Brown 
county tor sixteen years. The treaty of 1783 failed to restore good 
feeling between England and the United States, as the British posts 
were not at once surrendered, and this fact served to keep the 
Indians hostile; 

Tlie English pretended not to have authority to give up posts on 
Indian territory. This excuse was set up in the interest of the En- 
glish fur traders, but it was finally agreed by the treaty efi"ected by 
Mr. Jay that Great Britain should withdraw her troops by June 1, 
1796, from all posts within the boundaries assigned by the treaty, 
and that British settlers and traders might remain for one year with 
all their former privileges, without becoming citizens of the United 
States. The Northwest Comj^any seized upon this opportunity to 
establish posts all over Minnesota. They paid no duties, raised the 
British flag in many instances over theii" posts, and gave chiel's 
medals with English ensignia upon them. By these means they 
impressed the savages witli the idea that their power still remained 
supreme, and tliis impression was a fruitful source of annoyance, 
and even danger, to Americans, for years afterward. In May, 
1800, the Northwestern territory was divided. 

In December, 1803, the province of Louisiana was officially 
delivered by the French to the United States government, and in 
March, 1804, Capt. Stoddard, U.S.A., as agent of the French govern- 
ment, re(;eived fi-om the Spanish authorities in St. Louis actual 
possession of this important territory, transferring it very soon there- 
after to the United States. 



AMONG THE INDIANS. 37 

It was now deemed expedient that this valuable territory, so 
recently purcliased, should be fully explored, and the Indians be 
made to acknowledge the full sovereignty of the Federal govern- 
ment. Upper Louisiana, including a large part of Minnesota, was 
organized immediately after the transfer, and on January 11, 1805, 
Michigan territory was also organized. Gen. Wilkinson, placed in 
command at St. Louis, finding that the laws of his government were 
still unrecognized by the English traders in the new territory, in 
1805 sent Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike to expel the traders and bring 
some of the prominent Indian chiefs to St. Louis. Pike was cour- 
teously received and hospitably entertained by the wily Scotch and 
English traders of that period, but they secretly resolved to dis- 
regard and circumvent the policy of the United States government 
in its proposed management of the Indians. 

Pike visited the different tribes along the Mississippi as far u]) 
as Sandy and Leech lakes, and made a treaty with the Dah-ko-tahs 
for sites for forts at the mouth of the St. Croix and Minnesota 
rivers. 

Wintering in the country of the Chippewas, he was enabled to 
induce them and the Sioux to smoke the pipe of peace, and in the 
early springtime started with representatives of both nations for 
St. Louis to conclude articles of friendship and commerce intended 
for the benefit of these hostile races. 

■ Upon the "Aile Rouge," or "Red Wing," hearing of a secret 
attempt to 'shoot Lieut. Pike by a young Sioux, he spoke with 
vehemence against the chai-acter of some encamped at the mouth of 
the Minnesota river, and offered to bring the would-be assassin to 
Pike for punishment. Pike found at the Red Wing village an old 
chief known as Roman Nose, and who had been the second chief of his 
tribe, desirous of giving himself up for some instrumentality in the 
death of a trader. The Indian name of the chief was not given, 
but it was said he had been deposed in consequence of the murder 
of the trader. Pike thought it impolitic to tell the penitent chief 
that the matter was beyond his jurisdiction. 

On his way down the river Pike speaks of Winona prairie by 
its French name of "Aile" or "Wing" prairie, and of Wah-pa- 
shas encampment below La Crosse, probably at mouth of Root 
river. He also gives Wah-pa-sha Ids French name of La Feuille, 
"The Leaf " La Crosse he calls De Cross, but when speaking of 
the game played at Prairie du Chien by Sioux, Fox and Winnebago 



88 niSTOIlY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

contc'staTics, he calls that "a great game of the cross," showing 
clearly that he did not know the French origin of the name. While 
at Prairie du Chicn, Wah-pa-sha teent for Lieut. Pike, "and had a 
long and interesting conversation with him, in which he spoke of 
the general jealousy of his nation toward their chiefs," and wished 
the "Nez Corbeau," as the French called the "Roman Nose," 
reinstated in his rank as "the man of most sense in his nation." 
This conversation shows another noble trait in the character of Wah- 
pa-sha. 

Before leaving Prairie du Chien for St. Louis, Pike established 
regulations for the government of the Indian trade, but his disa]>- 
pearance from " I^a Prairie" was the signal for Cameron, Polette, 
Dickson and their subordinates to disregard them. Cameron and 
Dickson wei-e both bold Scotch traders, who seem to have disre- 
garded all regulations and laws, except those of hospitality and 
humanity. Cameron died in 1811, and was buried on the Minnesota 
river. Dickson lived to take an active part in the war of 1812, and 
have few but his ill deeds spoken of in history. 



CHAPTER IV. 



T]{()UBLE8 WITH THE INDIANS. 



In 1807 it was becoming evident that the various Indian tribes in 
the Northwest were forming a hostile league against the United 
States government. In 1809, a Nicholas Jarrot made affidavit 
tliat English traders were supplying Indians for hostile purposes. 
Indian runners and envoys from the "Prophet" were visiting the 
(/hippewas, while Dickson, who was the principal trader in Minne- 
sota, held the Indians along the waters of the Mississippi subject to 
his will. 

Gov. Edwards, of Illinois, reported to the secretary of war that 
"The opinion of Dickson, the celebrated British trader, is that, in 
the event of a war with (ireat Britain, all the Indians will be 
opposed to us, and he hopes to engage them in hostility by making 
peace between the Sioux and Chippeways, and in having them declare 
war against us." A principal cause of the great influence of Dick, 
son was his alliance by man-iage with the noted Dah-ko-tah chief 
'■Red Thunder," whose sister he had taken as his wife. 



TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 89 

In May, 1812, two Indian coui'iers were arrested in Chicago, 
supposed to have letters for Dickson. Tlie Indians liad anticipated 
arrest, or else, for greater security, liad buried their letters until 
they should resume their journey, and notlung being found upon 
tlieir persons they were released. A Mr. Frazer was present when 
the letters were finally delivered to Dickson, who was then at ."the 
Portage " in Wisconsin, and said the letters conveyed the intelli- 
gence that the British flag would soon be flying upon the fort at 
Mackanaw. 

During this period, Cadotte, Deace and others were collecting 
the Chippewas of northeastern Minnesota on Lake Superior, and at 
Green Bay. Black Hawk was given command of the Indian forces to 
be assembled. Dickson gave him a certificate of authority, a medal 
and a British flag. Before it was known that M^ar had been declared, 
the American commandant at Mackanaw was surprised by the land- 
ing of Bi-itish troops and traders, and a demand for the surrender 
of the garrison. 

With the British army came well known traders, prepared with 
goods to trade under the British flag. 

An American, taken prisoner at the time, wrote to the Secretary 
of War : "The persons who commanded the Indians are Robert 
Dickson, Indian trader ; John Askin, Jr., Indian agent, and his 
son," both of whom were painted and dressed in savage costume, 
Neill says : "The next year (1813) Dickson, Renville, and other fur 
traders, are present with the Kaposia, Wah-pa-sha, and other bands 
of Dah-ko-tahs, at the siege of Fort Meigs." 

While Renville was seated, one afternoon, with Wah-pa-sha and 
the then chief of the Kaposia band, a deputation came to invite 
them to meet the other allied Indians, with which the chief complied. 
"Frazer, an old trader in Minnesota, told Renville that the Indians 
were about to eat an American." * * * "The bravest man of 
each tribe was urged to step forward and partake." * * * ^ 
Winnebago was urging a noted Sioux hunter to partake of the horrid 
feast, when his uncle told him to leave, and addressed the assembled 
warriors as follows : "My friends, we came here not to eat Ameri- 
cans, but to wage war against them; that will suffice for us." 
Trah-pa-sha said: "We thought that you, who live near to white 
men, were wiser and more refined than we are who live at a distance, 
but it must indeed be otherwise, if you do such deeds." Col. 
Dickson sent for the Winnebago who had arranged the intended 



40 HISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

toast and demanded his reason tor doing- so disgusting a deed. His 
answer sheds no light u])on his motive. 

The fall of Mackanaw alarmed the- people of the Mississippi 
valley, and they called loudly for the defense of Prairie-du-Ghien. 

In May, 1814, Gov. Clark left St. Louis for this purpose, and 
taking ])Ossession of the old Mackinaw House, found a number of 
trunks full of papers belonging to Dickson, one of which contained 
this interesting extract : "Arrived from below, a few Winnebagoes 
with scalps. Gave them tobacco, six pounds of powder and six 
pounds of ball." 

A foi-t was built by the Americans, and named " Shelby." The 
Mackanaw traders, hearing of this, organized a force under McKay, 
an old trader, and started in canoes to dispossess the Americans. 

The British force was guided by Joseph Rolette, Sr., and, land- 
ing some distance up the Wisconsin river, marclied to the village 
and demanded its surrender. 

The foft was untinished and scarcely defensible, but its com- 
mander, Lieut. Perkins, replied that he would defend it to the last. 

On July 17 the gunboat, under command of Capt. Yeiser, was 
attacked by the British and Indians. The boat moved to a com- 
manding position above, but was soon dislodged by the enemy, who 
crossed to the island, where they availed themselves of the shelter of 
trees. 

The boat was then run a few miles below, but was unable to do 
much execution. For three days Lieut. Perkins made a brave 
resistance, but was finally compelled to capitulate, reserving the pri- 
vate property of his command. 

After placing his prisoners on parole, the British victor escorted 
them to one of the gunboats, upon which they had but about a 
month before come up, and, crestfallen at their discomfiture, they 
were sent back down the river, pledged not to bear arms until 
exchanged. 

Some bloodthirsty savages followed them in canoes, but made 
no victims. 

Lieut. Campbell came up from St. Louis about this time with a 
small force to strengthen the garrison, and, landing at Pock Island, 
held a conference with Black Hawk at his village near by. Directly 
after leaving, news came to Black Hawk of the defeat at Prairie-du- 
Chien. His braves at once started in pursuit of Campbell's com- 
mand. A severe encounter was incurred, ' the lieutenant was 



TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 41 

wounded and some of his men killed. During the light a boat was 
captured, and the force was compelled to retreat back to St. Louis. 

After the capture of Fort Shelly, it was named by the British 
Fort McKay. 

In August, 1814, Maj. Zachary Taylor was sent up with a force 
in gunboats to punish the Indians who had attacked Lieut. (Campbell, 
but to his astonishment found the British and Indians in possession 
of Rock Island. 

Fire was opened upon Taylor from a battery, and the first ball 
fired passed through a gunboat commanded by Capt. Hempstead. 

Taylor's boats were all disabled and he was compelled to retreat 
down the river a short distance for repairs. In that engagement 
one was killed and eleven wounded. With the Americans who 
came down to St. Louis after the surrender of Prairie-du-Chien was 
a "one-eyed Sioux," who had aided in the defense of Capt. Yeiser's 
gunboat. 

During the autumn of 1814, in company with another* Sioux of 
the Kaposia band, he ascended the Missouri to a convenient point 
above, and, crossing the country, enlisted a number of his people 
in favor of the Americans. 

After these professions of friendship, most likely from Sioux 
nearest St. Louis, he went down to Prairie-du-Chien. Dickson, 
upon his arrival, asked his business, and snatched from him a bundle, 
expecting to find letters. 

The Indian told Dickson that he was from St. Louis, and would 
give no further information. 

Dickson confined the Sioux in Fort McKay, and threatened him 
with death if he did not give information against the Americans. 
The "one-eyed Sioux" was proof against all threats, and he was 
finally released. 

The stubborn savage soon left for a winter sojourn among the 
river bands, and returning in the spring of 1815 he. soon heard the 
news of peace having been restored. 

As tiie British evacuated the fort they set it on fire, with the 
American flag flying as it had been run up, seeing which, the "one- 
eyed Sioux" rushed into the burning fort and saved the flag. A 
medal and a commission were given him by Gov. Clark, which he 
treasured and exhibited upon frequent occasions, while rehearsing 
his many exploits. 

These interesting facts taken from Neill's valuable history, relate 



42 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

to Ta-]ui-mie, tlie ''Rising Moose," mentioned by Lieut. Pike in liis 
journal. 

He was well known to the writer as the '' one-eyed" medicine 
chief, or priest, of the Wah-pa-sha band of Sioux, though he seemed 
equally at home with other bands and with the Winnebagoes, all of 
whom reverenced him for his bravery and intelligence. His fre- 
quent boast of having been the only American Sioux during the war 
of 1812, made liitn quite famous among the American settlers of 
Winona county, while the pretentious cock of his stove-pipe hat and 
. the swing of his mysterious medicine-bag and tomahawk-pipe gave 
him character among his Sioux and Winnebago patrons. His serv- 
ices were in frequent demand; and even now, in 1882, he is spoken 
of by the older Indians as a great hunter, a great warrior, and a 
good ])riest. His more modern name of Tah-my-hay, "the Pike," 
corrupted into Tom-my-haw by the American settlers, was probably 
taken by himself as the adopted brother of Lieut. Pike, after an 
Indian custom. His Winnebago name of Na-zee-kah, an interpreta- 
tion of his Sioux name, shows clearly that he was known as "The 
Pike." In regard to the " Tomahawk," that so mystified Dr. Foster, 
whose interesting and 'elaborate article is quoted from by Neill, it 
appears probable, allowing something to imagination, that the father 
of Lieut. Pike had a tomahawk, the head and handle of which formed a 
pipe, and that Lieut. Pike had taken it with him on his mission to the 
Sioux and (^hipi)ewas as a calumet oi- pipe of ])eace. That, meeting 
with and forming a close tie of friendship with Ta-ha-mie, the " Rising 
Moose," he gave him a memento of his everlasting friendship, in 
peace or war, by presenting the "pipe tomahawk," in such common 
use along the Canadian border in early days. The writer's memory 
was in fault as to the certainty of its being Tah-my-hay who, of all 
the Sioux, was so expert h\ the use of the tomahawk, but R. F. Nor- 
ton, a merchant of Homer, Minnesota, comes to his aid by relating 
the following incident : 

During the early days, said Norton, my brother, the doctor, 
and myself, were listening to an old dragoon settler's account of 
his skill and prowess with the sabre. Flourishing a stick, he told 
how easy it was to defend himself against the assault of lance or 
bayonet. Tom-my-haw happened to be present, and understanding 
more than the valorous cavalryman supposed, or, as proved agree- 
able, asked the white warrior to strike him with his stick. This 
tlie dragoon declined to do, but, being urged, he made a demon- 



TROUBLES WITH THE USTDIANS. 43 

stration as if intending to strike, when, with a movement of 
Tom-my-haw's tomahawk, the stick was caught, and whirled to a 
safe distance. Norton described the tomah.awk as a combined 
hatchet and pipe. 

In his youth, Tom-my-hay was a noted liunter, aiid after the 
disruption of the Me-day-wa-kant-wan band, joined Red Wing's 
subdivision, and afterward that of Wah-pa-sha. He told the writer 
that during one of his hunts, while following the game into a dense 
Tamarach thicket, a sharp, dry twig entered one eye and destroyed 
its sight. The vanity of Tah-my-hay was something remarkable, 
but his devotion to the Americans was vouched for by his tribe. 

After the war had closed. Little Crow and Wah-pa-sha, by 
request of the British command, made a long journey, in canoes, to 
Drummond's Island, in Lake Huron. 

After lauding their valor, and thanking them in the name of his 
king, the officer laid some few presents before them as a reward 
for their meritorious services. The paltry presents so aroused the 
indignation of Wah-pa-sha, that he addressed the English officer, as 
appears in Neill's History of Minnesota, as follows : 

"My Father, what is this I see before me? A few knives and 
blankets ! Is this all you promised at the beginning of the war? 
Where are those promises you made at Michilimackinac, and sent 
to our villages on the Mississippi? You told us you would never 
let fall the hatchet until the Americans were driven beyond the 
mountains ; that our British father would never make peace with- 
out consulting his red children. Has that come to pass ? We never 
knew of this peace. We are told it was made by our Great Ffither 
beyond the water, without' the knowledge of his war-chiefs ; that 
it is your duty to obey his orders. What is this to us ? Will these 
paltry presents pay for the men we have lost, both in the battle and 
in the war? Will they soothe the feelings of our friends? Will 
they make good your promises to us ? " 

"For myself, I am an old man. I have lived long, and always 
found means of subsistence, and I can do so still ! " 

Little Crow, with vehemence, said : "After we have fought for 
you, endured many hardships, lost some of our people, and awak- 
ened the vengeance of our powerful neighbors, you make a peace 
for yourselves, and leave us to obtain such terms as we can. You 
no longer need our services, and offer these goods as a compen- 
sation for having deserted us. But no ! We will not take them ; 



44 HISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

we hold them and yourselves in ecjual contem])t." So saying, he 
spurned the ])resents with his foot, and walked away. 

The treaty that soon followed at Portage-des-Sioux, won over to 
the United States the fealty of the Dah-ko-tahs, of Minnesota, and 
the disgust expressed by ''Little Crow" and Wah-pa slia on their 
return to their peo})le, for a time, at least, rendered any further 
serious ditiiculty with them improbable. 

A period has now been reached in the early exploration and 
occupation of the territory of the Dah-ko-tahs, when the traditions 
relating to that era have been merged in the experiences of the 
writer. It is not merely tlie vanity of self-asserfion that induces 
him to give his own personal experiences in early pioneer life, but, 
to connect the past, with the present mode of life in Minnesota, he 
thinks, may give a clearer impression of the character of the early 
pioneers than has generally hitherto obtained. 

The writer's father. Dr. Bradly Bunnell, was born in New 
London, Conneticut, in about 1781, and his mother, Charlotte 
Houghton, was bom in Windsor, Vermont, in about 1785. Soon 
after their marriage they came to Albany, New York, where the 
eldest sister of the writer was born, and where also was born her 
husband, Stephen Van Rensselaer. From Albany his parents 
moved to Homer, New York, where the eldest son, Willard 
Bradly Bunnell, was born in 1814. Ten years later, 1824, the 
writer was born in Rochester, New York. 

While living in that beautiful city, his father conceived the idea 
of visiting the Territory of Michigan, and in 1828 went to Detroit. 
The writer is made sure of the time, by the date of a diploma of 
his father's membership in the Detroit Medical Society, signed by 
Stephen C. Henry, president, and R. S. Rice, secretary, and other 
papers in his possession. 

In the autumn of 1831, Bradley Bunnell started for Detroit, 
with the intention of establishing himself in the practice of his 
profession, but, delayed by the inclemency of the season, and lack 
of secure transportation, was induced to open an office in Buftalo. 

His practice grew into importance, and during the season of 
cholera, 1832, the calls for his services to relieve the distressed and 
dying were almost constant. 

Tlie writer had an attack of Asiatic cholera, and passed into what 
was supposed by consulting physicians to be a collapsed stage of the 
disease, but the heroic treatment decided upon caused a rally of 



TROUBLES WITH THE INDIANS. 45 

the vital forces, and the grim enemy was routed. Although but 
eight years old at the time of the Black Hawk war, that event, and 
incidents connected with it, he distinctly remembers. The passage 
through Buffalo of United States troops on their way to the scene 
of conflict made a vivid impression that years have failed to eradi- 
cate. In 1833 it was thought advisable by the writer's father to 
move up to Detroit, but meeting with what he thought a better 
opportunity to establish himself, after a short delay at Detroit, con- 
tinued on up to Saginaw. There he purchased forty acres of land, 
that now forms part of that flourishing city. He also bought forty 
acres that forms the site of Carrolton. Soon dissatisfied with his 
purchase, and the felicity afforded by howling wolves and croaking 
bullfrogs in their gambols and songs of love, he left in the sweet 
spring-time for metropolitan life in the French village of Detroit. 
His family, on the score of economy, and most likely for want of 
ready funds, were left in Saginaw to care for the household goods 
and garden, and the children to cultivate their unfolding intellects at 
a country school. The writer was called "Pet" by his mother, and 
was allowed to run at large with Chippewa children (whose tongue 
was soon acquired), visit their camps, sugar-groves, hunt, fish, swim, 
skate and fight, to his unbounded satisfaction. His pride was to 
excel his dusky competitors in all things, and this was soon accom- 
])lished, to the admiration of an old Chippewa warrior instructor by 
his killing two immense bald eagles at the age of eleven. The 
writer was not then aware of the importance Indians attach to the 
killing of an eagle. 

His mother soon became satisfied that her "Pet" was learning 
more of the camp than the school, more of the hi-yah, of Indian 
music, than of that taught by his sisters. After a few written notes 
received from his teacher (confidential), and a vain attempt to take 
all of "his hide off," after the most approved methods of that 
'''■good old time''\%). It was thought best, upon one of his father's 
periodical visits, to place the writer in a Detroit "classical school." 

At about the age (»f twelve the misguided boy was placed in the 
Latin school of Mr. O'Brien, of Detroit, who has for many years 
taught the young ideas "to shoot," fitting many young men with 
preparatory instruction for useful lives. Mr, O'Brien had been 
educated for the Catholic priesthood, but discovering some peculi- 
arity in his character (it was thought to be his temper) un suited to 
so sacred an ofiice, he opened his Latin school in Detroit. 



46 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Tliere can be no doubt of tlie masterly ability of O'Brien as a 
teacher ; but his method was the old one he learned in his bible, to 
"spare not the rod !" So, after a very short term at that school, 
receiving in tlie meantime a few exty^a lessons in tlie manly art ot 
sdf-defense^ the writer one day with a ty-yah ! left the school and 
his books never to return. 

A new method was then tried with the young savage, and his 
experiences at the "]>acon Select or High School," of Detroit, are 
cherished in grateful memory. The writer made rapid progress 
toward the goal of his ambition, a liberal educatiim, but the "wild- 
cat mania" had seized upon his father, and as a consequence of 
losses, sickness and deaths in his family, the boy aspirant had to be 
made self-supporting. 

He was ])laced in the drug store of Benjamin T. Le Britton, 
opposite Ben Woodworth's hotel, where he boarded for a time upon 
his arrival in Detroit, and with that kind and upright gentleman, 
and his successor in business, he remained until the fires that raged 
in the wooden buildings of that period had destroyed them. 
Before the destruction of the 'American or Wale's Hotel by fire 
the writer was boarded at that house by his employer, and 
while there remembers that Henry R Schoolcraft boarded there also 
for some considerable time, engaged, probably, upon his Indian 
works. A Chippewa maiden in attendance upon his invalid wife 
(who was of mixed blood), though shy, seemed pleased when spoken 
to in (yhippewa, which, boy like, the wiiter would do. 

For a time, at intervals, though young for the work, he was sent 
by his employer to take orders and make collections in Ohio, Ken- 
tucky and Virginia. 

It was now thought advisable to engage the writer in the study 
of medicine. This was distasteful to him, but finally, with his ex- 
perience as a druggist to build on, in 1840 he went into his father's 
office in Detroit, and in winter, for want of other resources, attjended 
private clinics and demonstrations. 

The reading and confinement involved was too great a change 
from his former and accustomed habits, but nevertheless, in order 
not to disappoint the fond expectations of his parents, he worked 
against his inclinations. He had continued his studies, more or less 
regularly, when a most welcome letter from his brother, Willard B. 
JUmnell, decided him, in the spring of 1842, to go to Bay-du-Noquet, 
where Willard was engaged in the fur trade. 



CHAPTER V. 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS. 



A POINT has now been reached in this paper where it will be more 
convenient to use the pronoun of the first person singular, and 
accordingly I will say that my recollections of the passage of Gen. 
S'cott and his troops up the lakes, in 1832 ; my intimacy with Indians, 
annually renewed by their visits to Detroit and Maiden, Canada, to 
receive payments ; my acquaintance with all the old-time French fur 
traders and their offspring, at Detroit, and of the traditions told me 
by the Snelling boys of their father and their grandfather. Col. 
Snelling, all conspired to imbue me with a romantic idea of ''going 
out West " into the Indian territory that has never yet been realized. 
At my father's table I had heard Col. Boyer, the Indian agent at 
Green Bay, speak in glowing terms of that beautiful sheet of water 
and its rock-bound islands and harbors ; and I had also heard the 
Williams, of Pontiac and Saginaw, as well as my mother's cousin. 
Dr. Houghton,^ speak in my presence of Indian traditions relating 
to silver and copper mines upon Lake Superior. I asked myself 
then, with boyish fancies, why I could not find one. My dream of 
the conquest of fortune was at first rather rudely dispelled upon my 
arrival at my brother's house, but upon mature reflection I decided 
not to return to Detroit. 

I found my brother in very poor health and about to move to 
the upper Mississippi. The climate of this lovely region, even at 
that early flay, was extolled by the fur traders for its salubrity, and 
for persons sufiering from any form of lung disease it was thought 
to be almost a specific. Exposures and excesses frequently incident 
to frontier life had left their marks upon Willard, and I at once 
decided to aid in his removal to a dryer atmosphere. 

Will bought of the Chippewas and fitted out two of their 
largest bark canoes, and after selling to Mr. Lacy, of Green Bay, 
all of his stock of furs, and loading his sloop, "The Rodolph," 
with choice maple sugar, he closed out the remnant of his winter 
•stock of goods to the Indians encamped on the shores of Green Bay, 
taking in payment their choicest furs and peltries. 



48 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Upon his arrival at the city oi Green Bay all of the purcliases 
made from the Indians were disposed of at enormous profits, includ- 
ing one oi the bark canoes, capable of carrying about four thousand 
pounds. The other canoe Will loaded with the lighter fabrics of his 
trade, and, after a few days' delay in procuring a s\iitable pilot, or 
guide, started up through the rapids of Fox river. 

My brother was accom])anied by his wife, 7iee Matilda Des- 
noyer, who was of the old French stock of Desnoyers, myself, a 
voyager, and an old Menominee Indian pilot, who spoke Chippewa 
w(?ll, and said he belonged to the band of Osh-kosh. The Indian 
went with us only to the head of the rapids, or foot of Lake Winne- 
bago, as agreed upon, but gave us so clear a description of the 
route to be followed to Fort Winnebago, that we reached that 
ancient portage without assistance or difficult3\ 

At the Buttes du Mort (the mounds of the dead), we found a 
most intelligent mixed-blood trader, named Grignon, a descendant 
of the celebrated Fi-ench officer Langlade, who offered us generous 
hospitality and inducements to remain with him. I think that the 
maiden name of my brother's wife, Desnoyer, influenced the old 
trader upon its incidentally becoming known to him, for he spoke 
in the highest terms of the Desnoyer family as personal friends of 
his in troubled times. Grignon told us that "the mounds of the 
dead " had no relation to the battle with the Fox Indians, fought on 
the opposite side of the stream, but were ancient tumuli, oi which 
none but the most vague traditions existed. 

After a day's rest, we pushed on up through the intricate wind- 
ings of Fox river. 

We were not very heavily loaded, our cargo consisting for the 
most part of calicoes, red, green and blue cloths, blankets, cutlery, 
beads, and other baubles, so that upon the whole our trip was a 
very pleasant one: Some of the Winnebagoes encountered on the 
way were at first inclined to be somewhat surly, and demurred to 
the ])rices fixed upon the goods, and no doubt our firm and non- 
chalant demeanor was all that jjrevented an attack from one encamp- 
ment, where it was intimated a tribute would be acceptable. This 
intimation angered my brother, and in a choice vocabulary of hhink 
Chippewa, which their association with the Menominees of (ireen 
Bay enabled them to understand, Will ])()ured into their unwilling 
ears sounds that utterly silenced them. The Ilo-chunk-o-raws, or 
"Sweet Singers," as some translate their name, changed their 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS. 49 

tune and brought out their remaining fars, and would have loaded 
our frail bark at our own prices, to the top of the gunnels. 

Willard expected to sell the furs collected on this journey at 
Fort Winnebago, but failed to do so, as the enterprising trader and 
commercial traveler of the St. Louis, or Choteau Company, had 
already made his annual rounds, and had started for Prairie Du 
Chien. However, by some unexpected delay, we met La 'bath 
after we had started from the Portage, and were assured of a sale 
at "La Prairie." 

At the Portage, oui- canoe and its bulky cargo were transported 
by wagon to the Wisconsin, down which, after having been 
"pocketed" a few times in misleading channels, we journeyed tri- 
umphantly. 

At Prairie Du Chien, we met Charles Le Grave, a merchant, 
whose family I had known in Detroit, and also the trader La 'bath, 
both of whom were willing to purchase our furs, but at reduced 
rates. 

'We did not quite realize expectations in the final sale of our 
Indian commodities, for the season had too far advanced for the 
profitable sale of furs. Consulting with Le Grave, after a long 
conversation with La 'bath regarding the upper Mississippi, we took 
their advice and decided to go to the "Soaking Mountain," known 
now as Trempealeau. 

We were told that in the near future the site of the village 
would be the emporium of trade, and we were assured of a hearty 
welcome from a hospitable Kentucky pioneer named Reed. By the 
treaty of J^ovember 1, 1837, the Sioux and the Winnebagoes mixed 
bloods ceded to the United States all their territory on the east side 
of the Mississippi, and it was supposed by the old traders that town 
sites would become of great value. Francis La'bath, though a half- 
breed Sioux, had the energy, if not the business capacity, of a 
railroad magnate, and as a trader and collector of furs for the 
American Fur Company, he had become familiar with the Indian 
territory of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers. 

In addition to his trips of purchase for the fur company he had 
personal interests to supervise, for he had established small posts 
and wood-yards at several points for trade on the Mississippi between 
Prairie du Chien and Lake Pepin. La'bath's first post was at the 
head of the "Battle Slough," where Black Hawk was defeated, and 
it was generally managed ty La'bath in person. He had another 



50 iriSTOHY OF WINONA COUNTY* 

small post on the east side of the river, about three miles below 
La Crosse, that commanded the trade of Root river and vicinity and 
was an important winter post. Root river was known to the Winne- 
bagoes as Cah-lie-o-mon-ah, or Crow river, and not the Cah-he-rah, 
or Menominee river, as stated by some writers. The Sioux also 
called Root river Cah-hay Wat-])ali, because of the nesting of crows 
in the large trees of its bottom lands. In the winter of 1838-9 
James Douville and Antoine Reed (Canadians) established them- 
selves at Tremjiealeau in the interest of La'bath, but more to hold 
the town site than for the purposes of trading with the Indians. A 
wood-yard was established on the head of the island opposite Trem- 
pealeau, and some land cultivated by Douville, but nothing of con- 
sequence done to induce a settlement at Jrempealeau. La'bath was 
a cousin of the last chief Wah-pa-sha, and as a half-breed was allowed 
to establish himself where white men were prohibited from settling. 
In accordance with La'bath's privileges he was interested in the 
half-breed tract at what is now Wabasha, and had petty posts estab- 
lished at every point where trade might be secured. At or near 
what is now Minnesota City, on the Rolling Stone, Labeth placed 
his nephew, Joseph Bonette, to trade with the Wah-pa-sha band, 
and abandoning his lower ])Osts, established one a few miles below the 
mouth of White-water, at a point known as the Bald Blulf. This post 
was known to the Winnebagoes as Nees-skas-hay-kay-roh, or White- 
water Bluff, while his Rolling Stone post was called Nees-skas-hone- 
none-nig-ger-ah, or Little White-water. The Sioux name for White- 
water is Minne-ska, and for Rolling Stone E-om-bo-dot-tah. Wat-pah, 
a river or ci-eek, is sometimes added, though not often, as the creek, 
like many words in Indian, is to be understood. It should be 
understood that most of the petty posts established on Indian terri- 
tory were temporary huts of logs for winter quarters, occupied and 
again abandoned when no longer serviceable to an ever-changing 
trade. 

' A short time previous to the breaking out of the Black Hawk 
war, a war-party of Sauks attacked an encamjjment of Dah-ko-tahs 
on Money creek. The young daughter of the Sioux war-chief 
Wah-kon-de-o-tah was captured and was being hurried from the 
camp, when her cries were heard by her father. AVith a spirit 
worthy of his name he rushed through the rear guard of the foe, and 
with his own war-club alone brained three of those who had opposed 
the rescue of his child. At the sound of his war-whoop his braves 



PERSONAL EECOLLECTIONS. 53 

instantly came to liis support, and few of the Saiiks were left to tell 
of tlieir defeat. This attack, though so bravely repulsed, alarmed 
the Wah-pa-sha band, and after the fight they made their principal 
encampment in Wisconsin, near the Trempealeau mountain, until 
after the treaty of 1837. Their spring gatherings and dances were 
still held, however, at Keoxa. This statement was recently given 
me by a half-blood Sioux and Winnebago relative of Wah-pa-sha, 
who was in the fight of over fifty years ago on Money creek. 

This statement is confirmed by the Grignons, who inform me 
that their uncle La Bath vacated many petty posts when threatened, 
and reoccupied them again when the supposed danger was past. 

The post at the Rolling Stone was finally abandoned in about 
1840. Joseph Borrette, who was then in charge of La Bath's trading 
post, built a small cabin near the site of the Green Bay elevator, at 
East Moor, which served as a winter post until about 1843, when it 
too was abandoned. During the winter of 1842-3 I attended a pay- 
ment held in the oak grove below where the elevator now stands, 
and which, I think, proved to be the last one made individually to 
the Wa-pa-sha band. Mr, Dousman and others from Prairie du 
Chien were present to look after their interests, but with all their 
sagacity and experience there were transient traders enough with 
"spirit water" to gobble up a liberal share of the five-franc pieces 
then paid the Indians, to the no small disgust of the agent. All 
after-payments were either paid in goods, or if iji coin, the payment 
was paid in bulk at Fort Snelling. La Bath's relationship to Wah- 
pa-sha gave him great personal influence, and by his advice James 
Reed was selected and appointed as their farmer and storekeeper. 
Soon after Reed's appointment he employed Alexander Chienvere, 
a son-in-law, to break fifteen acres of land at the Gilmore valley for 
the band, and Charles H. Perkins, who married Miss Farnam, Reed's 
stepdaughter, was soon after employed to break ten acres more for 
Wah-pa-sha on the east side of Burns' creek, on what is now Miss 
Maggie Burns' farm. When that work was done the chief declared 
himself well satisfied, and sent, the workmen back to Reed. 

La Bath himself was employed by the fur company for a number 
of years, but his nephew, Joseph Borrette, kept up the trade of his 
uncle, with varying success, until about 1844, when all of the petty 
posts were abandoned. Those old cabins served as stopping-places 
in winter for the old mail-carriers, Lewis Stram, Baptist and Alex. 
Chienvere, and others, and the one ^ on the Prairie island above 
4 



54 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Winona was occupied by old Goulali, a French Canadian, who liad 
been for some years in the service of La Bath, but, growing too old 
for journeyings in the wilderness, was placed in charge of a wood- 
yard established by La Bath on the island above the Wah-ma-dee 
bluffs, now Fountain City. But to return. We renewed our sup- 
plies of provisions and left "La Prairie" buoyant with hope, a south 
wind wafting our harh up the Me-ze-see-bee, or great river, of the 
Chippewas. We arrived at La Crosse in the delightful month of 
June, 1842, and were received by the trading firm of Myrick & Mil- 
ler in a very courteous manner. They then occupied a mere shanty 
or small log cabin, but were at work upon the foundation of what 
afterward grew to a house of fair dimensions, though the archi- 
tecture was somewhat of the composite order. To their original 
structure they afterward added a hewn block-house, Indian room, 
and frame addition, and this building, a warehouse, stable, and 
other outbuildings belonging to the firm, formed the nuclfei of La 
Crosse. There has been some discussion between Mr. Nathan 
Myrick, of the old firm of Myrick & Miller, relatiiig to the first 
settlement of La Crosse ; and while I concede the possibility of a 
house having been erected on the prairie before that of Mr. Myrick's 
was built, I do not believe it, as no evidence of the fact was seen, or 
the event talked of, by any of the old traders. On the contrary, 
Keed, who as a soldier had camped on the prairie some years before 
1842, spoke of Myrick & Miller as the pioneer settlers of La Crosse. 
Even though a small cabin had been built before Myrick's arrival, 
running fires or government steamboats, the crews of which had to 
provide wood while on their voyages, would have removed every 
vestige of the fact of the building's previous existence ; and besides 
this, until the ratification of the treaty of November, 1837, the 
Winnebago Indians would allow no permanent settlement upon their 
domain east of the Mississippi without a special arrangement with 
them. 

Upon landing at La Crosse, Miller was especially hospitable, and 
offered to wager us "theskoots" that we would not find another 
such a chance for settlement as La Crosse afforded, and urged us to 
remain and lielj) build u[) a city. We were not tlien very favorably 
impressed with the advantages claimed for La Crosse, but thanked 
Miller for his courtesy and interest in our behalf. Finding us firm 
in our purpose of visiting the "Rattlesnake hills," as he and Dous- 
man called the Trem])ealeau bluffs, he volunteered to aid us in 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS. 65 

locating a claim, and to break up sufficient ground for a potato-patch 
should we return after seeing how immense tlie rattlesnakes were up 
at "Jim Reed's town." 

Miller was a man of most generous impulses and strong attach- 
ment, but crosses rendered him as stubborn as resistance itself, 
and this quality subsequently marred his happiness. 

After renewed assurances of good fellowship between Willard 
and Miller, mellowed, no doubt, by a few private interviews, we 
continued on up the broad river, resting in the shade of the forest- 
■clad bluffs, while our light canoe ploughed its course at their base, 
or stopping at other times where a gushing crystal fountain invited 
us to blend its limpid waters with our midday lunch. 

The Eagle's Nest (tlie remains of which may still be seen), now 
known as the ' ' Queen Bluff, " because of its surpassing beauty and 
perpendicular height, had living occupants, as we were informed, 
that had held possession for manj^ years before. Subsequently 
they were dispossessed by Reed and some of his Dah-ko-tah friends 
to celebrate a war-dance. At Catlin's Rocks, now Richmond, we 
found the red paint discernible that marked Catlin's name; and had 
it been used to paint one of his savage chiefs, it would have ren- 
dered the canvas more imperishable than the rocks that still bear 
his name. 

The wind rising up for a vesper breeze, we put on all sail, and 
in a short lialf-hour's run landed at Trempealeau. 

James Reed, his son-in-law, James Dauville, Josej^h Borrette, 
and others of the family, came down to the river bank to greet us, 
and after explaining our purpose in coming, and presenting a letter 
from Le Grave, Reed invited us to his house, and soon' had his 
whole household interested in our welfare. We were invited to 
supper, and the manner in which it was done precluded a declina- 
tion of the hospitality. We retired early, but not until a sheltered 
place for a winter home had been suggested for us by Reed. 

Reed was at our camp early next morning, and leading the way 
to a most refreshing spring in a little valley above the present site 
of the village, Willard selected it for a temporary residence, until, 
as he said, he should be able to learn something of the country. We 
asked Reed in reference to danger from rattlesnakes, and were 
told that, to annoy him, or retaliate for disparaging remarks he had 
made about a miserably poor dog having been used in naming the 
*'Dog Prairie" (Prairie du Chien), Dousman had retorted by calling 



56 iiisToiiY OF wiNOisrA consmL". 

liis Trempeleau vilhige site "The Eattle-Snake Hills"; and the 
worst part of it is, said Keed, "he directs all his letters by steam- 
boat in that way, and nervous people will scarcely land." It was 
evident to both Willard and myself that Dousman's name was not 
entirely a liction, and we adroitly retiiraed to the subject. Eeed 
finally confessed that though he had been there but two years, 
having established himself in 1840, he had seen quite a number of 
rattlesnakes; but his hogs, he said, wei-e fast extei-minating them, 
and he hoped they would soon disappear, for, said he, "old hunter 
as I am, / stej) high in going through the ferns and grasses of the 
hluffs.'''' The Winnebago name of the localit}^, Wa-kon-ne-shau- 
ali-ga, means the place of rattlesnakes on the river. We were told 
by Reed that it was the westernmost peak of the range that was 
called by Hennepin La Montaigne, qui Trompe-a L'eau, and that 
the name was a translation (probably understood by signs) of the 
Winnebago name of Hay-nee-ah-chaw, which signified about the 
same thing, that is, that the mountain was "getting pretty wet." 
The Sioux called the mountain Pah-ha-dah, "The Moved Moun- 
tain." La Crosse was so named by the French, because during 
peaceful eras the most athletic of the Indian tribes in the surround- 
ing country assembled to play Indian shinny-ball, called Wah-hin- 
hin-ah, staking horses, blankets, wampum, and sometimes even 
their squaw slaves, on the issues of their national game. The 
lower end of the prairie, near Michel's brewery, was the place of 
assembly; but the game of ball was so common among all Indians, 
that the name of their game was never given to a locality. At one 
time, along the foot of the bluffs, back of the sandy portion of the 
prairie, within the memory even of white settlers, that locality was 
famous for strawberries, and for this reason the Sioux called La 
Crosse Wah-zoos-te-cah, meaning the place of strawberries, when La 
Crosse was designated, but the Winnebagoes, more given to naming 
localities from peculiarities in the geological formation of their 
country, called the La Crosse valley to its junction with the Missis- 
sippi, E-nook-wah-zee-rah, because of the fancied resemblance of two 
prominent mound-shaped peaks noi-th of La Crosse to a woman's 
breasts. 

Coon creek was called Wah-Iceh-ne-shan-i-gah, and the mounds 
situated on Coon prairie were said to have been remarkable for the 
number of stone and copper implements found in and about them. 
Black river was appropriately called Minnesap-pah, by the Dali-ko- 



PERSOIS-AL RECOLLECTIONS. 57 

tabs, and ISTe-sheb-er-ah by the Winnebagoes, both names signify- 
ing black-watei'. The Trempealeau river was called Ne-chaun-ne- 
shan-i-gah by the Winnebagoes, and Wat-a-Pah-dah, both meaning 
the overflowing river. The Chippewa was called by the Winne- 
bagoes Day-got-chee, ne-shan-i-ga, meaning the river of the gartered 
tribe, as they called the Chippewas, and the Sioux called it Ha- 
ha-tone Wat-pah, meaning the river of the dwellers at the falls (as 
the Chippewas were known to the Sioux), as it was one of the prin- 
cipal routes of travel to the Chippewa country. Beef slough and 
Beef river were both called by the Sioux Tah-ton-kah-wat-pah, and 
by the Winnebagoes Te-chay-ne-shan-i-gah, because of the locality 
being the last resort of the buffalo east of the Mississippi, though 
some were seen on Trempealeau prairie at a very late date. The 
Winnebagoes called the site of Winona, De-cone-uck, and the whole 
prairie Ose-cah-he-aitch-chaw, meaning the prairie village, or its 
equivalent. The Dah-ko-tahs called it Ke-ox-ah, translated to mean 
the homestead. The French called it La Prairie Aux-Ailes (pro- 
nounced O'Zell), or Prairie of Wing's, — for what reason I have been 
unable to learn, but as the Wah-pa-sha village was colonized from 
the Red Wing band, it would appear as if the Indians of- the village 
of Ke-ox-ah might have been known to the early French traders as 
one of the Red Wing villages. 

Ke-ox-ah seems to have a specific meaning, like Tee-pe-o-tah, or 
0-ton-we, both of which mean a village or collection of tents, but 
Reed thought "The Homestead" as good an interpretation as could 
be given the word. Reed was not a very good linguist, and said 
that he had been frequently misled like Gov. Doty, who, while 
mapping Fox river, supposed Ne-nah, or water, to be the Indian 
name of the river, and at once put it down on his map as Ne-nah, or 
^ox river, and for a number of years it so appeared on the official 
maps of the state. James Reed informed us that he had been in the 
United States army under Col. Zachary Taylor at Prairie du Chien, 
iind that during trips to the pineries of the Chippewa, under com- 
mand of Lieut. Jefferson Davis and others, the beauty of the site of 
Trempealeau, and the scenery of the river above and below, had so 
impressed him that he had resolved to settle there when his term of 
service should have expired. His purpose was delayed for various 
causes, as he came to Prairie du Chien when quite young, but 
finally, after many years, Reed had established himself and was in 
comfortable circumstances. At the time of our arrival Reed had a 



58 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

large drove of cattle and .young horses, which tlie Indians never 
stole, but would ride occasionally, to his great annoyance, as thej 
galled the backs of his horses and thus exposed their brutality. The 
houses erected by Gavin, the Swiss missionary, and his associates, 
Louis Strain and others, in 1837-8, upon the land now owned by the 
Trowbridge brothers, east of the Lake of the Mountain, were used 
by the Winnebagoes and their Sioux relations to catch the horses, 
as in fly-time the horses would go into the dark log cabins to escape 
tliese pests. During the summer of our arrival Reed burnt uj) the 
cabins to abate the nuisance, saying that they would never be of 
further use for missionary purposes. By the treaty of 1837 the 
Sioux, and the Winnebagoes allied to them, had agreed to remove 
west of the Mississippi. This agreement was not fulfilled untU 
1840, the year of Reed's settlement at " Monte-ville, " as he used to 
call his location at times, and this fact will account for the persistent 
efforts of the Swiss to establish their mission. The Sioux Indians, 
according to Reed, were very willing to have Monsieur Gavin, 
Lewis Stram, and others on the east side of the Mississippi, culti- 
vate corn and vegetables to give them (all for the love of God), but 
they preferred their dog-feasts, sun and scalp dances, to the pious 
teachings of the missionaries, and after one or two years of hopeless 
work the missionaries left their Trempealeau mission and farm work 
in disgust. 

Like most Kentuckians, Reed was very fond of horses, and had 
improved his stock by the importation of a young thoroughbred 
stallion. The brute was a very intelligent animal, and refused to be 
ridden by any of Reed's family of boys, who were then quite young. 
Reed bantered me to ride the horse, saying, "If you will subdue 
him you can use him as your own." 

Reed himself was a good horseman, but thought himself rather 
old to ride the colt, I accepted the old Kentuckian's kindly offer, 
and so won upon him by subduing his stallion that a horse was 
always at my service. The stallion, a beautiful iron-gray, after a 
term of service, was sold to an othcer at Fort Snelling. 

James Reed was a remarkable man in many respects, and one ot 
the best types of a pioneer hunter and trapper I ever knew. His 
first wife was a Pottawatomie woman, by whom he had five children, 
four of whom are still living ; his son John, also a great hunter, died 
from a gunshot wound accidentally inflicted by his own hand while 
hunting deer. Reed's second wife was the widow of the trader 



PERSONAL KECOLLECTIONS. 59 

Farnam, a partner ot Col. Davenport, wlio was murdered at Rock 
Island a number of years since. Reed's stepdaughter, Miss Mary 
Ann Farnam, married Mr. Charles H. Perkins, and is still living 
near Trempealeau. ' Reed's last wife was the estimable widow Grig- 
non, mother of Antoine and Paul Grignon, of Trempealeau. Mrs. 
Grignon was the sister of Francis La Bath, the noted fur-trader, and 
a cousin to the younger chief Wah-pa-sha. She was first married to 
a French Canadian named Borrette", to whom was born Joseph Bor- 
rette, who so many years managed La Bath's post at the Rolling 
Stone. 

To Mrs. Grignon-Reed and her intelligent family I am much 
indebted for interesting facts connected with the pioneer settlement 
of Trempealeau and Winona counties. Mrs. Reed's death was an 
irreparable loss to her family, and a subject of regret to all who knew 
her. For several years in succession Reed used the land cultivated 
by Louis Stram, the first Lidian farmer, who had tried to act in 
concert with his countrymen the Swiss missionaries; and while 
thanking his stars for finding land already for his use, Reed said 
that the austere and<rindustrious character of the missionaries ren- 
dered them unpopular with Wah-pa-sha and his band. 

According to La 'bath, both Stram and the government black- 
smith at the present site of Homer were somewhat afraid of the 
Sioux Indians. Francis du Chouquette, the blacksmith, removed 
his fo'rge to the island opposite Homer, known as The Blacksmith's 
Island, and after a raid by a war-party upon the Wah-pa-sha village 
he left his forge and anvil upon the island and fled to Prairie du 
,Chien. My brother Willard found the anvil, and it was in use for 
some years in Homer, Upon the site of Du Chouquette's shop in 
Homer I occasionally find fragments of iron and cinder, and the 
spring, walled up by him, was intact only a few years since. 

The next attempt to proselyte the Sioux and establish in their 
village at Winona was made by the Rev. J. D. Stevens, who, ac- 
cording to my information, had an appointment of some kind as 
farmer and chaplain. His eftbrts were no more successful than had 
been his Swiss predecessors Louis Stram and Mr. Gavin. Reed used 
to regard the discomfiture of Protestant missionaries with resigna- 
tion, and sg,y that if the Sioux would not receive the Roman 
Catholics, with the influence of the French mixed bloods to aid- 
them, it was simply out of the question for Protestants to succeed. 

According to Reed and La 'bath, Stevens got lost in an attempt 



60 HISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

to reach the camp of Wah-pa-sha, but was found and kindly treated 
by one of the band, and after an interview with the chief, in which 
he was told that no white man would be allowed to settle on their 
territory, Stevens crossed over to the Wisconsin shore opposite 
Winona and made a temporary shelter for himself and assistants, 
and then left for provisions and to confer with the authorities. He 
finally abandoned his attempt to make unwilling christians of 
heathen savages. La 'bath could probably have changed the order- 
ing of affairs in Wah-pa-sha's counsels, but it was not his interest to 
do so, and besides, he believed that but one revealed religion existed 
upon earth, the Catholic, which he professed. The half-breeds were 
all Catholics; and although they exerted a most potent influence 
against any Protestant interference with the Sioux, they never inter- 
fered with the medicine-men, but joined, like Frontenac, in their 
scalp-dances and ceremonies. Hence their great influence with 
them . 

In 1841 another attempt to settle upon the site of Winona was 
made by Thomas Holmes and Robert Kennedy and their families, 
but they were not allowed to establish themselves on the prairie. 
After several offers made to Wah-pa-sha, and his refusal to allow 
the establishment of those men among his people, they opened a 
trading-post at the Wah-ma-dee, or Eagle Bluffs. This point of trade 
was for some years known as Holmes' Landing, but is now called 
Fountain City, from the numerous fountain-like springs that supply 
its inhabitants. Soon after we arrived at Reed's village of ' ' Monte- 
ville," we made the acquaintance of Holmes and Kennedy and their 
families, and a man in their employ named Smothers. Tom Holmes, 
the moving spirit of the trio, was the most persistent of pioneers, 
and had aided in the early setl lement of Rockford, and other towns 
in Illinois, and after leaving the "Landing," commenced the settle- 
ment of Shockpay on the Minnesota river. 

Holmes' first wife was the sister of Kennedy, who was from 
Baltimore, and both were accustomed to good living and knew how 
to prepare it, as they had kept a hotel in Maryland. My brother 
and myself took dinner at their house while aiding Captain Eaton 
(of the firm of Carson & Eaton) to drive cattle up the Chippewa. 
Eaton and a man named Darby had had their horses stolen from 
them by the Winnebagoes near La Crosse, and were left on foot to 
drive a large drove of cattle. Near the head of what is now called 
, the Mississippi slough six shots were fired at us by a small party of 



WINONA CITY IlSr EMBRYO. 61 

Sioux from Red Wing's band, one of which broke a leg of an ox, 
and the others cut twigs of trees over our heads. While this in- 
teresting target practice was going on I ambushed the Sioux rifle- 
men, and but for Captain Eaton and my brother would have killed 
two of the war party, as I had them, at my mercy. While relating 
our experience to Holmes, I observed a peculiar smile and glance of 
intelligence from his wife, and upon inquiry found that in our 
ignorance of Dah-ko-tah, Captain Eaton had offered a deadly insult 
to the Indians while trying to ask our way. However, the Red 
Wing band subsequently ])aid for the ox disabled by the Sioux, as 
I was informed, a year or two afterward. 



CHAPTER VI. 



WINONA CITY IN EMBRYO. 



Aftek considerable exploration of the country, charmed with the 
•scenery and pleased with the soil and water, we decided to build a 
house in the little valley pointed out to us by Reed, and where we 
had before built a small cabin. When our determination was made 
known. Reed, his son-in-law Danville, and a hired man and team, 
came at once to aid us, and we soon had raised up a comfortable log 
house. A year or two after Reed's appointment as farmer and sub- 
.agent of the Wah-pah-sha band, I returned the favor in part by aid- 
ing Reed to construct the body of the first house ever built in Winona. 
The men wlio aided me in ' ' carrying uj) the corners " were Joseph 
Borrette, Reed's wife's son, a nephew of La Bath, James Dauville, 
Reed's son-in-law, and a Canadian named Goulet, alternately em- 
ployed by Reed as cattle-grazer, woodchopper and storekeeper. 
Ooulet had been previously employed by La Bath at Minnesota 
City, knew Wah-pa-sha and his band thoroughly, and was quite a 
favorite with them. While in Reed's service at Prairie island, he 
was found by some of the Sioux in a state of intoxication, badly 
burnt from having fallen in the fire, and died soon after from the 
■effects of his debauch. After the loss of his office by the prospective 
removal of the Sioux, Reed took down the building and floated the 
«awed lumber, the valuable portion of it, to Trempealeau, where it 
was used as an addition to his residence. When he settled upon his 



62 inSTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

farm at Little Tamarach, he sold his residence and lots in the village 
to Mr. Ben Ilealj, and some clear joists and other lumber that had 
been used in Reed's Winona building now constitute a part of the 
large wooden store building of Mr. Fred Kribs, the principal hard- 
ware merchant of Trempealeau. During a recent visit Mr. Kriba 
and Antoine Grignon pointed out to me some of the identical joists 
used in 1S4A by us in the construction of Reed's storehouse for gov- 
ernment supplies, and which was also used as a residence for him- 
self and men while performing their duties. The body of the house 
was built of white-ash logs, cut by John La Point and Goulet, 
Reed's men, and floated from the islands above the present city, and 
it occupied a spot near the store of S. C. White. It has been sup- 
posed by some that the Rev. J. D. Stevens built a temporary abode 
upon the site of Winona, but there were no inducements offered 
liim to do so, and after his decided repulse by the Wah-pa-sha band, 
it would have been foolhardy for him to have attempted it. Reed, 
the Grignons, and the Indians all agree in this, that no missionaries 
were acceptable to Wah-pa-sha, and when he made his final treaty, 
he insisted as a condition of the treaty that money alone should be 
paid him, and that he should be allowed to manage his own affairs 
without interference of any kind with his band. Some ash logs left 
by R^ed were used in erecting a cabin which was pulled down by 
Capt. Johnson, and they were finally cut up for firewood. 

My brother Willard was much pleased with the game the country 
afforded, and made frequent excursions with Reed for brook-trout 
and deer. Reed was a great hunter, but had been too long among 
Indians to needlessly offend them by slaughtering their game, but 
as he had a large family he needed large supplies of meat, and it 
was no unusual occurrence for him and my brother to retm-n from a 
fire-hunt with three or four red deer in their canoes, or from a fish" 
ing excursion with a gross or more of brook-trout. A favorite resort 
for trout was the spring brook or creek upon which the Pick-Wick 
mills are situated, and which Willard named Trout creek. The east 
branch of the creek, where he caught six dozen in about two hours' 
fishing, he called "Little Trout." 

As for deer, there was never a scarcity, for the whole range ot 
bluffs on the Minnesota side, or right bank of the Mississippi, was a 
favorite resort for them. Here were acorns in plenty, and after they 
had eaten what satisfied them, the deer went out upon some prom- 
ontory of bluff to watch their enemies, or descended to some breezy 



WINONA CITY IN EMBRYO. 63 

sandbar to escape the stings of the deer-flj. xVt nightfall the mer- 
ciless attacks of gnats and mosquitos drove the deer into the waters 
of creeks and rivers, and as the bewildering firelight of the hunter 
noiselessly approached them in the light canoe, the deer fell a victim 
to his curiosity. The flashing eyes of the deer reflected back the 
torchlight, and told with unerring certainty where to direct the mur- 
derous shot. Outside of the timber, on the borders of the prairies 
but a short distance from Winona, elk were abundant, and a little 
farther west bufialo were still to be found quite numerous. We were 
told by Reed that only a few years pre\'ious to our arrival bufialo 
were seen on Trempealeau prairie* and on the big prairie slough at 
the mouth of the Chippewa river known as Bufi^iilo Slough prairie. 

Upon one of my numerous excursions to St. Paul and Fort 
Snelling I remember seeing Gen. Sibley return from a successful 
bufialo hunt, and he told me that in times past they had been seen 
from the knobs almost in sight of his establishment. The General 
was noted as an expert hunter and scientific rifie-shot, but upon the 
expedition referred to his delight in the chase was cut short by a 
sprained ankle received by the fall of his horse. 

On the buffalo slough or channel of the Chippewa, around jutting- 
points, deep trails were visible, where buffalo had repeatedly passed 
to water, and these were in common use by elk and deer at the date 
of our arrival in the country. 

Willard's use of the Chippewa tongue for a time prejudiced his 
interests as a trader, and he did not embark in the business among 
the Sioux for some time after his arrival here. In the autumn of 
1842 he and a Menominee Indian of great repute went up the Trem- 
pealeau river to hunt and trap, and in order to escape observation, 
and perhaps for convenience, he duplicated his Indian comrade's cos- 
tume tliroughout. At that time there was some danger from raiding 
parties of Chippewas, and Will said that if any should be encoun- 
tered, his knowledge of their language and his costume, unlike 
that of the Sioux, would be his safeguard. 

Will made a very successful hunt, and as furs were quite high 
in those days, the skins brought in sold for a considerable sum of 
money. In an oak grove above the site of Dodge my brother killed 
three bears in one day. His dog, a very noted one, obtained from 
Capt. Martin Scott, brought the beai-s to a stand, and he killed them 
in quick succession. At Elk creek, named during his hunt, he killed 
a couple of elk, and the Indian killed some also, but how manv I 



64 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

have forgotten. The Menominee had, during the fall before, caught 
over fifty beavers, but while upon the hunt with Willard he had 
almost totally failed to trap that cunning animal. Finding himself 
outwitted by the beaver, and surpassed in skill as a hunter, the 
Indian became moody, and began a fast to propitiate the evil influ- 
ences that he believed were assailing him. Will tried to reassure 
him, but to no purpose ; so, after repeated successes on Will's part, 
and failures of the Menominee to catch the coveted beaver, they dried 
their meat, and taking the skins of the elk killed, they stretclied 
them over a willow boat-frame, and thus equipped, their hunting 
canoes on each side of their skin boat, they descended the Trem- 
pealeau just as the ice was about to close the Mississippi. Will 
returned alone to that once noted resort of beaver, mink and otter, 
and as the warm spring branches were seldom closed by ice, he was 
able to catch those valuable furred animals in winter. The beaver 
skins were at that time worth about $4 per pound. Game was 
quite abundant in those early days, for there were no vandal hunters 
to wantonly destroy it, or if they did the Indians were very likely 
to destroy them. Wild fowl and pigeons nested in the country and 
raised their broods undisturbed. As for myself, I was no hunter in 
its proper sense, and having rej^eatedly missed deer at short range, 
and standing broadside to me, I determined to learn the only art 
that would command the respect of the pioneer settlers, or instill a 
wholesome dread of my marksmanship among the warlike Sioux. 
My failure to kill deer was more a habit of preoccupation than a 
want of ability to shoot, for with my rifle, a target gun, I could pick 
off the heads of grouse or pigeons, and at a mark I had repeatedly 
excelled Willard and Reed, who were noted among the Indians even 
as the best hunters on the Mississippi, excepting, perhaps, Joe Rock, 
of Wah-pa-sha, and Philo Stone, of the Chippewa river. The grand 
climax, to my chagrin, was reached when Reed accused me of 
"buck fever." I repelled the accusation witli scorn, and aiming at 
the eye ot the next deer I sliot at, it fell in its tracks, and for ever 
after I was able to kill elk, bear and deer, with about equal facility. 
In September, 1843, in company with Tom Holmes, Wm. 
Smothers and my brother, I went up the Trempealeau river for the 
pui-pose of hunting elk, but our purpose was frustrated by almost 
incessant rain while we were on the hunt. A few deer were killed 
by my brother, who knew the ground hunted over, but I killed 
nothing but a few ])innated grouse, and a goose which I brought 



WINONA CITY IN EIMBEYO. 65 

down with my rifle as it was flying over onr camp. Neither Holmes 
nor Smothers killed anything, but they caught a few beavers and 
muskrats, the skins of which were not prime. While at the mouth 
of Elk creek we saw an aerolite pass over our camp, which must 
have been of unusual size, judging from the attending phenomena. 
We were afterward informed that several had been seen within the 
memory of some old Indians, to their great bewilderment. 

During the winter of 1842-3 we made some improvements, vis- 
ited La Crosse, Holmes' Landing, Black River Falls, and made a 
few trading expeditions to winter encampments of the Sioux and 
Winnebagoes. Our commerce was carried on principally by the 
sign-language, sticks often representing numerals above the capacity 
of the fingers and memory of the Indians to carry. Although the 
Sioux still called my brother Ha-ha-tone, the Chippewa, he was rap- 
idly gaining their esteem, and his success as a hunter commanded 
their admiration. As a consequence he was in demand as a trader. 
I made several trips with him that were Very successful, and one 
with Nathan Myrick, that was memorable. Upon one occasion, 
while Nathan Myrick and myself were attempting to reach Decorah's 
camp upon the "Broken Gun Slough," a branch of Black river, 
during an exceedingly cold night in winter, Myrick drove his horse 
into an air-hole that had been filled by drifted snow, and but for the 
well-known war-whoop of Decorah, who I had informed of the event 
upon running to his camp, the horse would have disappeared under 
the ice, for Myrick was nearly benumbed with the cold when I re- 
turned to him with the aid the war-whoop had instantly called to our 
assistance. A few minutes sufficed for the Winnebagoes to get the 
horse out of the Mississippi, but being unable to rise to his feet, the 
horse was dragged to the shore, blanketed and rubbed until warmth 
was restored, when he was taken to Decorah's camp and a fire built 
for his comfort by order of the chief. It is due to savage hospitality 
that the event be recorded. 

The Indians of those early times were not always as humane 
and considerate as Decorah. Many times I have been fired at 
while passing them in a canoe, simply to gratify their innate dislike 
of white men. Sometimes my canoe would be hit, but as a rule they 
would direct their >shots so as to skim the water at my side or just 
ahead of me. To vary their diversion, if they caught me pre- 
occupied, they would steal upon me and discharge their rifles so 
near as to give the impression that it was not really all fun that wa& 



66 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

intended. Keed assured me tliat I was daily gaining in favor among 
tlie Sioux, and that if I would join in one of their sun-dances and 
go through the ordeal I might become a chief. He further informed 
me that I was called Wali-sheets-sha, meaning the Frenchman, a dis- 
tinguishing mark of their favor, that most likely had saved my scalp 
from adornment with vermilion and ribbons. Partly to reciprocate 
their interest in me, and to confirm them in the good opinion Reed 
had facetiously said they were forming of me, against the advice of 
the old traders, I pitched two Winnebagoes out of the house when 
the next proof of their friendship was offered me, and giving the 
•oldest son of Decorah (then head chief by inheritance) a deserved 
thrashing for a wanton display of his affection, I was not again 
troubled by any of their ordeals. 

Previous to that time Willard and myself had been frequently 
annoyed, and sometimes angered, by the insults offered us, although 
aware that our nerve was simply being tested; but we had decided 
to put an end to all future attempts at Indian levity; and when soon 
after five rifles of a hunting party were leveled at me when I was 
unarmed, I told the Indians, who complemented me for not flinch- 
ing, that it was well for them I had no rifle to aim at them ! 

Willard and myself were both able, in due time, to make the 
Indians respect us, but many white people had their traps stolen 
^nd their blankets appropriated by the young warriors anxious to 
vv'in a reputation for bravery. 

Early in the spring of 1843 Peter Cameron, a transient trader 
and fur buyer, came to La Crosse with a kind of keelboat loaded 
with goods, and after taking possession of an unoccupied cabin, and 
securing the services of Asa White to manage his affairs in La Crosse, 
concluded to make a trading voyage up the Mississippi in advance 
-of any steamboat. 

Cameron made me a proposition to go with him, allowing me 
pay for my services, and the privilege of taking, as a venture in 
trade, certain goods I wished to dispose of, and of a kind he had 
not in his cargo. 

I had almost an intuitive perception of the draft of water, and had 
picked up considerable of the Sioux tongue. My prospective useful- 
ness induced Cameron to make me a good offer, and I accepted it. 

Cameron was a sharp, keen trader, and one of the best judges of 
furs that ever came up the river. 

The boat selected for the voyage up the Mississippi was built for 



WINONA CITY IN EMBKYO. 67 

:a supply boat on Black river. It was about forty feet long, seven or 
■eight feet wide, and eighteen inches' deep, too low for safety, in 
Lake Pepin, but the trader was anxious and adventurous, and Dous- 
man, Brisbois, Kice and Sibley had, by astute management, got 
possession of the trade, not only at Fort Atkinson, but of the entire 
upper Mississippi. Hence, if any furs were to be purchased by out- 
side traders, they were required to be sharp and adventurous. It 
was rumored that the Ewfng company of Fort Wayne, Indiana, were 
first crippled and then floored by -Kice, who succeeded Dousman in 
the management of the Choteau company below, while Gen. Sibley 
had control of the trade at the mouth of the Minnesota river. 

The great St. Louis company were also filling up the spaces be- 
tween their largest stations with smaller traders in their interest. 
Therefore transient traders had to watch their opportunities, and 
pounce down upon the tidbits as occasion afforded. 

Caineron and myself decided that if we could get safely through 
Lake Pepin in advance of the steamboat Otter, which it was under- 
stood would go through the lake as soon as the ice was out, we 
would be reasonably sure of making handsome profits on our ven- 
tures. 

My packages were light, but Cameron piled in barrel after barrel 
of whisky, pork, flour and heavy articles that greatly endangered 
■our safety. 

We started as soon as loaded, taking as pilot an old French 
voyageur named Le Yecq, and a half-breed that had been employed 
by James Eeed at times, and who was a most excellent hand, 
when on duty. We rigged a large square-sail, and had a long 
line to run out ahead in swift water, but were so favored by the 
southerly spring winds that we ran up to the foot of the lake with- 
out having had to dip an oar. At the widow Hudson's (now Eeed's 
Landing) we had a good trade, and by my advice Cameron was 
induced to sell a few barrels of pork and flour to lighten our boat 
through the lake. As the nights had been clear we determined to 
make an attempt to go through the lake by moonlight if the wind 
should go down with the sun. The night came on with weird still- 
ness and gloom, but later on toward midnight the moon came 
through the clouds and all was changed to brightness. 

Le Point had been given permission by Cameron to go down to 
Eock's, or Campbell's, a short distance below where we were to 
.await his coming. Cameron's orders were imperative to be back 



68 HISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

when tlie wind fell. The wind lulled to a calm, but Le Point did 
not come; so after many benedictions had been left at the camp we 
started through the lake. The upper air had given token by scud- 
ding clouds of fleecy vapor that the calmness of the lower stratum 
might be broken at any time, but my moral courage was not great 
enough for me to tell my fears. Cameron was very deaf, and un- 
conscious of danger that did not appeal to him through his sight; 
and as for Le Vecq, he seemed to have no judgment, and I had lost 
all taith in him long before we had reached the lake. We coasted 
along near the north shore until nearing North Pepin we were 
forced out from the jutting point by ice lodged upon the coast. Here 
for some time we halted, uncertain what to do, but discovering a 
narrow opening in the floe, that seemed to extend up to open water, 
we ventured in, rowing most lustily. We had got almost through, 
the icy strait when I heard a roar as if Dante'*s inferno had been in- 
vaded and the troubled spirits let loose. The noise came gradually 
nearer, and I was then able to comprehend its cause. It was the 
ice piling higher and still higher ujDon the distant point above us, 
and as the wind had veered around to the westward a few points, 
the ice was being driven down upon us with great rapidity. 

Time is required to tell the story, but not much was needed for 
the crisis to reach us. I was steering the boat, while Cameron and 
Le Vecq were rowing. Cameron at first did not heed my warning to 
prepare for danger, and showed more courage than discretion ; but 
when he saw that we had, as if by magic, become blockaded in front, 
and that no time was allowed us for retreat, he wrung his hands and 
cried out, as if in agony of grief, "My God, Bunnell ! what shall 
we do V I answered : "Face the danger like men ; our goods, not 
ourselves, are threatened ; we can run ashore on the ice." 

The ice was thick enough to have borne up a horse. 

Our worthy bishop (Le Yecq) seemingly was not of my opinion, 
for dropping upon his knees, he poured forth such a torrent of 
invective, or invocation, it was uncertain which, as would have 
moved anything less cold than ice. The ice, however, came crowd- 
ing on, and I instantly formed a plan to save the boat. All appeals 
to the devout Frenchman were useless, so I motioned Cameron to my 
aid, and we drew the boat to the edge of the ice on the north side 
of the narrowing channel, where we awaited its close. My plan was 
to tilt up the shore side of tiie boat as the ice approached to crush 
it, and thus make use of the overlapping ice to carry us up the 



WINOJ^A CITY m EMBRYO. 71 

inclined plane of ice that the pressure in tilting the boat would 
form. 

I unstepped the mast and j^laced it in readiness for use as a lever. 
I placed one oar beside our pilot vojageur, for use when his prayer 
should end, but all to no purpose — he could not be aroused. I called 
upon him in most vigorous terms, but in vain. Cameron again 
oifered his services, but I wished him to bale his valuables, and he 
had scant time to do it ere the floe I knew would be down upon us; 
besides he was too deaf to hear in the noise, and as the sky was be- 
coming rapidly overcast, sight could not be entirely depended upon. 
Exasperated beyond further endurance, I jerked our paralyzed guide 
from his prayerful stupor out upon the ice, and having made him 
comprehend my intention, he took the oar, the boat was tilted up at 
the right moment, and all was saved. 

We were swept toward the shore with great steadiness and 
power, but as the ice was smooth, without injury of any kind. 
Le Yecq was sent to sleep on the land, where we had transferred our 
lighter goods, but Cameron and myself returned to the boat and 
slept soundly until daylight, when a storm of wind and rain came to 
break up the ice, and we were able before nightfall to cross to Bully 
Wells' (now Frontenac) in safety. It was April, and the wind that 
iiad subsided with the fall of rain sprang up again. The lake above 
was all open, but we were held wind-bound to enjoy the pioneer sto- 
ries of Mr. Wells, who had established himself with a native woman 
some years before. Cameron chafed at Wells' recitals, and as night 
fell upon us, insisted that the wind had died out and that we could 
go on. Wells told him that if we attempted it we would probably 
swamp or water-log on Point-no-Point, as we could scarcely clear 
that iron-bound shore with the wind beating on- it as it did at the 
time. I was able to hold Cameron in check until about two in the 
morning, when, exasperated by his seemingforgetfulnessof the danger 
we had so narrowly escaped, I told him that if we beached or water- 
logged, his, not mine, would be the loss, and we started out into the 
lake to clear the point. 

We got well out into the lake and had made a good offing, before 
we caught the swell, when it was soon made manifest to me that a 
sail should be set to give us headway, or we would swamp before 
reaching the point. I proposed the sail, but Le Yecq said to 
Cameron, "Suppose you hist ze sail, you go to ze dev.'' Just then 
a white cap broke over the bow gunnel of the boat, and, taking a 



72 IIISTOKV OF WINONA COUNTY. 

wooden bucket in luind, Cjiineron gave it to the Canadian, telling- 
him to bail, and witliout reservation gave me charge of the boat. I 
called him to the tiller while I bent on the sail, and in a few minutes 
we were skimming the water like a gull. Dropping a lee-board I 
had taken the precaution to lig, we crawled off Point-uo-point, and 
rounding into the cove above, landed as daylight apjDeared. This 
second display of incapacity in Le Vecq ended his career as principal 
voyageur, and I was installed as captain and supercargo. 

We run on up to Ked Wing atler breaking our fast, and had 
already disposed of a large quantity of our heavy goods, relieving 
our boat the better to encounter the more rapid current, when look- 
ing down the river we saw the Otter steaming to the landing. Le 
Point was on board, so we»at once pulled out for the St. Croix. We 
made a rapid run to Still-AVater and Taylor's Falls, and after selling 
out everything at high pi-ices, Cameron commenced buying furs for 
cash, having ample supplies of coin for that purpose. Taking our 
way back leisurely, sometimes floating with the current, at others 
pulling enough for steerage way, we were able to see and stop at 
every trading post and Indian encampment on our way down to La 
Crosse. At Wah-pa-sha's Village, then situated on the high ground 
back of the river front, west of Main street, we stayed over night. 
Wah-pa-sha's sister, We-no-nah, (really a cousin) gave us a tent in 
which to quarter for the night, saying that it was better than our cloth 
tent, as there was a cold rain falling at the time. In recognition of 
the woman's hospitality and forethought, I gave her upon leaving in 
the morning, a six quart pan of flour from our scanty stores, as we 
had no goods of any kind left. Cameron's subsequent career in La 
Crosse was unfortunate. 

Soon after my ^return to La Crosse I made a trip to St. Louis, 
and having an Indian's memory of localities, I was able to flx the 
course of the Mississippi as far as Galena in my mind. There were 
but two steamboat pilots in those days for the entire river above 
Prairie Du Chien, and the services of those were always retained by 
the American or Chouteau Company, or by the su}>ply steamers of 
the United States contractors for the Indian and military depart- 
ments. 

Louis Morrow, one of the pilots, was in the full vigor of mature 
manhood, and a more noble specimen it would be diflicult to And ; 
but the other pilot, Lewis De'-Marah, was getting old, and his sight 
was failing him so fast, that, as he himself said, he would soon have to 



WINONA CITY IN EMBEYO. 73 

leave the river to younger ejes. Finding me interested in the course 
of the channel, De Marah would point it out to me when traveling 
with him, and in a short time after our first acquaintance he offered 
to teach and retain me with him on the river. I declined the offer, 
but my taste and passion for beautiful scenery led me to study the 
river while traveling upon it. At that time there were but few boats 
running above Prairie Du Chien regularly, and those of the smallest 
kind, such as the Eock Kiver and the Otter. The Harrises of 
Galena were so successful with the latter boat, that they soon brought 
out the Light Foot, the Time and Tide, the Senator, the War Eagle 
and others in quick succession. The demand for those steamers 
created a demand for pilots, and Sam Harlow, Pleasent Cormack, 
Rufus Williams and George Nichols came to the front and proved 
themselves as capable men as ever turned a wheel. Of the lower 
river pilots I remember Hugh White of St. Louis as one of the best, 
and his services were always in demand by the Falcon Cecilia, 
General Brooke and other boats of the lower trade. Although I was 
never a member of any legislature, I was as welcome to a free ride 
on any of the boats named, as a modern "dead head" on any of the 
subsidized railroads. As there was seldom but one pilot on a boat 
above Prairie Du Chien who knew the river well, my services were 
thought to be an equivalent for all the favors shown me, and I could 
go to St. Louis or St. Paul at will. Upon one occasion I saved De 
Marah from a blunder at night, similar to the one which happened 
him while on the Lynx in 1844. That new and beautiful steamer 
was run out in 1844 on the shore below the Keye's residence by De 
Marah. The night was inky black, and as the fast-running steam- 
boat steered a little hard, the watchman was called to aid De Marah 
at the wheel. The Lynx was on her down trip from Mendota and 
St. Paul, and was running at a fair rate of speed. As they reached 
the shore at Keye's point, a thunderstorm burst upon them ; and as 
the lightning flashed, the open sky of Pleasant Valley revealed the 
overflowing water at the lower end of the prairie, and it was mis- 
taken for the Mississippi. 

The annual fires had at that time kept down all arbol growths 
except at the water's edge, and the sandy ridge of prairie between 
the river and the open water beyond had been overlooked during the 
momentary flash of lightning. The shadows of the Min-ne-o-way 
bluffs joined with the dense foliage of the islands and shut out the 
view to the east. The Lynx was run out several rods upon the 



Y4 JirST(1IlY OK W1\<)XA COUXTY. 

overflowed land before '-fetcliing up," and when she halted, no 
means at the disj)Osal of Cai)tain Iloojter could get her back into the 
channel. The most of the men were discharged and with a few pas- 
sengers left in a yawl for Praii-ie Du Chien. 

A few days after, while at work u])on w^ays to slide the boat into 
river, the Gen. I'rooke came steaming up the channel, and was hailed 
for assistance. x\fter landing and viewing the situation, Capt. 
Throcmoilon decided to go on to Fort Snelling and discharge his 
cargo, lest some accident. might forfeit his insurance, but gave Capt. 
Hooper assurances of aid on his return. Capt. Throcmorton's great 
experience suggested work to be done during his absence, and on 
his return he was enabled to at once pull the disabled boat into the 
river and take her in tow. The Lynx was docked and lengthened, 
but she never recovered her speed*, and was soon disposed of by her 
builders. The brick and mortar thrown overboard on the prairie in 
taking out her boilers has been taken by some for the remains of an 
old building. A short time since, while strolling on the river bank 
near the locality of the disaster, I picked from the sandy shore an 
iron pulley-wheel that probably was dropped overboard by some one 
on the Lynx, as the deeply rust-eaten wheel indicated that it had 
been many years in the sand. It may be seen in the museum of the 
Winona Normal school. 

On May 21, 1844, a few weeks before the misfortune happened to 
the Lynx, Robt. D. Lester, sheriff of Crawford county, Wisconsin, 
was murdered by a Sioux of Little Ci'ow's band, named 0-man- 
haugh-tay. A fruitless search had been made for the body, which 
was known to be in the river, but as the boat from the Lynx was 
descending, on its way to Prairie du Chien, the occupants of the boat 
found the swollen body in a pile of driftwood, and towed it to 
La Crosse, where it was buried. Mr. Lester's successor in office, 
•Mr. Lockhart, 8ubse(]uently had it removed and buried at Prairie du 
Chien. The murder occurred within the limits of AVinona county, 
opposite the "Queen Bluff," and not "six miles below Reed's Land- 
ing," nor "twenty miles from La Crosse," as the historian of La 
Crosse county has stated. 

Mr. Lester was returning from an official visit to the Chippewa 
mills, and stopped at Trempealeau on his way down in a canoe. His 
old friend Reed offered him hos])itality, which he declined, but 
accepted a lunch to eat on his way. Lester stopped at a spring rivu- 
let just above the Queen bluff, and while eating his lunch, which 



WLNONA CITY IN EMBRYO. 75 

was scanty enough, 0-man-liaiigh-tay, on his way np from La CVosse 
in a canoe, landed and demanded a part of it. Lester declined a 
division of his scanty fare, and soon after started on his journey to 
Prairie du Chien. He had proceeded but a few rods, his back turned 
to the Indian, when the report of 0-man-haugli-tay's rifle, and the 
body of the sheriff 'seen falling out of his canoe informed La Bath, 
who just then came in sight, that a murder had been committed. 
0-man-haugh-tay jumped into his canoe and fled from La Bath's ap- 
proach, but not before he was recognized by La Bath, who knew the 
Indian as a vicious member of Little Crow's band. 

La Bath informed the authorities that though he did not see the 
Indian until after the shot was fired, there could be no doubt but that 
0-man-haugh-tay had committed the murder. After considerable 
delay and the use of an escort 'of troops to capture hostages, the 
murderer was delivered up and taken to Prairie du Chien. He was 
kept there in prison for some time, and then, for reasons best 
known to the authorities of that period, he was taken across the river 
in the night to a landing above McGregor, and was turned loose, as 
stated by himself to his listening auditors. 

James Reed happened to be at Keoxa (Winona) when 0-man- 
haugh-tay arrived. Wah-pa-sha and his band received the Indian 
with consideration, and while a repast was being prepared for him. 
Peed listened to the recital of the murderer, who, among his Indian 
friends, made no concealments of his motives or of the murder. 
0-man-haugh-tay 's conclusion was that the white men of the prairie 
were good to him, but that they were afraid of him. During his 
recital, after the Sioux custom, a pipe of friendship was passed 
around the circle of the tent, and noticing that Reed declined the 
proffered pipe, 0-man-haugh-tay offered it to Reed in person. The 
audacity of the Sioux tired the old hunter, and although Reed was 
the only white man present, he struck the pipe to the ground and 
told the Indian that there was one white man who was not afraid of 
a dog. That epithet applied to a Sioux was the greatest insult that 
could be offered, but it was not resented, and 0-man-haugh-tay soon 
took his departure from the village. 

Reed was a man of sterling integrity of character, hospitable, and 
devoted to his fi-iends, and had the murderer of Lester but have 
made a movement of resentment, his life would probably have paid 
the forfeit. Reed was a bearer of dispatches in the Black Hawk 
war, and had good opportunities for observation. He took dis- 



76 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

I 

patches from Prairie du Cliien to the commander of the American 
forces when no other messenger could be induced to incur the risk, 
and just after the slaughter at Battle-slough, found a young squaw 
whose father and mother had been killed. Heed took her with him 
on his return to Fort Crawford, from whence she was finally sent to 
her tribe in Iowa. James Reed had a personal acquaintance with 
all the historical personages of his time, and it is a subject of regret 
that his family and friends liave not recorded more of his experi- 
ences in pioneer life. Charles Reed, of "Reed's Landing," should 
note down his recollections of early times, for the pioneers of Wa- 
pa-sha county have had interesting experiences. 

From Reed I learned of the existence in Beef-slough of a large 
quantity of square timber and shingle logs that had been gotten out 
under direction of Jefferson Davis and other army officers for use in 
building Fort Crawford. This timber was said to have been run 
into the slough under the impression that it was the main channel of 
the Chippewa river, and as there was no outlet at that time, a large 
raft of flood-wood and trees obstructing the channel, the lumber was 
abandoned, and new material prepared and run down the proper 
channel of the Chipj^ewa. Reed's statement was confirmed to me 
by one made by James T. Rntli, who had also been a soldier at 
Fort Crawford. In company with James McCain, a Pennsylvanian, 
we broke the drifts and opened the channel of the slough, an(J were 
well rewarded for our labor. 

. During the spring and summer of 1843 Philip Jacobs and 
Dr. Snow put up a trading-house in La Crosse, and the Doctor 
gave some attention to the practice of medicine. During the month 
of November of that year lie attended my brother's wife at the 
birth of her son Porter, who was the first white child born in Trem- 
l)ealeau county. My brother's daughter, Frances Matilda Bunnell, 
now Mrs. Frank Hampson, of River Falls, Wisconsin, who was 
born at Homer, Minnesota, on February 22, 1850, was the first 
white child born within the limits of Winona county. There were 
eight children in Willard Bunnell's family, five of whom are still 
living. 

In 1843 Xathan Myrick was married and brought his wife to 
La Crosse. Accom])anying Mrs. Myrick, as companion and friend, 
was Miss Louisa Pierson, of Burlington, Vermont. Like most Ver- 
mont girls, Miss Pierson was rosy and bright, and as fearless as 
were "The Green Mountain Boys." If a horse had balked in the 



USTTERESTESTG INCIDENTS AND CUSTOMS. 77 

sand of the prairie, her hand would soothe the stubborn brute into 
forgetfulness, and he would then do his duty. No saddle or bridle 
was needed to ride her favorite chestnut, and at her call, even the 
pacing Indian ponies belonging to the firm would amble to her feet. 
Such a woman among frontiersmen would command admiration, 
and for a time, at least, her conquests were numerous and her 
influence beneficial, but soon it became but too evident that her 
preference had been given to Myrick's partner, H. J. B. Miller, and 
her whilom admirers turned their inconstant devotion to the native 
daugliters of the realm. 

Among the traders of that early period there were some who 
took' squaws for wives, either permanent or after the morganatic 
fashions of the highly civilized com-ts of Europe. The usual method 
■of obtaining a help-meet from among the Indians was to pay court 
to the parents of the maiden desired, and after incidentally inform- 
ing them of the esteem in which their offspring was held, obtain 
some approximate idea of her value. 

It was also thought advisable to make a present to the medicine- 
man, with an intimation that if the spirits were friendly to your 
suit a larger gift might be expected. Two traders of my acquaint- 
ance, Asa White and Tom Holmes, formally espoused native 
queens, and remained faithfully with them and their children 
through all changes of fortune and civilization that drove them 
farther and still farther to the frontier. Others, not so true to the 
parental instinct, hecause in higher life^ left their squaw wives, but 
their children remain in the tribe, cared for and reared by their 
mothers, vigorous emblems of the love once borne for their fathers. 



CHAPTER YII. 

INTERESTING INCIDENTS AND CUSTOMS. 

In company with my old-time friend Maj. E. A. C. Hatch, who 
has quite recently gone to a higher plane of existence, I once 
attended a virgins' feast at Ke-ox-ah (Winona), presided over by 
Wah-pa-sha. The whole band was assembled, and after elaborate 
preparation and sanctification of the ground, by invocations and in- 
cense, and sacrificial oiferings had been placed for the vestal at the 



78 HISTORY OF VV^INONA COUNTY. 

foot of the altar-pole, Mock-ali-pe-ah-ket-ah-pah, the chief speaker, 
came forward, and in a sonorous address lauded the virtues of 
chastity and warned "the denouncers" against the sin of bearing 
false witness. He also told the young braves that if they knew of 
the lapse from virtue of any virgin api)licant for vestal honors, 
it was their duty, having in keeping the honor of their tribe, to 
denounce her. These young men were selected as the flower of 
Indian chivalry, and in addition to their duties as "denouncers," 
if occasion required, they guarded the sacred precincts of the assem- 
bly from defilement. In this respect Indians surpass white people, 
as seldom, if ever, has any police regulations to be enforced. 

At the conclusion of the chief speaker's address, Wah-kon-de-o- 
tah, the great war-chief of the band, addressed his warriors in a 
quiet and affectionate manner, and told his braves to maintain the 
truth as sacred, and not offend the spirits of their ancestors. Wah- 
pa-sha then called for the virgins and matrons to come forth, after 
the manner still in vogue in Mexico, and foi- some time there was 
the silence of expectation. Again the call was made for any virgin 
to come forward and receive her reward. Two maidens came partly 
forward, but, upon reaching the line of denunciation, faltered and 
turned back from modesty or fear, when, at this crisis, We-no-nah, 
the wife of the speaker, and eldest sister (or cousin) of Wah-pa-sha, 
motioned to her youngest daughter, Witch-e-ain, .a maiden of per- 
haps fifteen summers, and then in confident tones challenged the 
assembled throng t(T say aught, if they could, against the purity of 
her maiden child. 

No answer was given to this challenge, and, after repeated calls 
by the crier of the assembly, Witch-e-ain came modestly forward 
and was crowned goddess of the feast that immediately followed. 
Her head was encircled with braids of rich garniture and scented 
grass, and presents of colored cloths, calicoes, yarns, beads and 
ribbons were lavished uf)on her as the tribe's representative of 
purity. Her fame went out among the traders, and soon after that 
vestal feast she became the wife of a distinguished trader. Like a 
caged bird, she soon pined for her prairie home, and died of con- 
sumption ere the leaves of spring bloomed to welcome her coming. 

Her mother, We-no-nah, is still living,* and visits me occasion- 

* Since writing the above We-no-nah has gone to her spirit-home. She died 
about November 1, 1882, and was buried near Trempealeau. It was she who 
gave the notice to my brother's wife, Matilda Bunnell, that so excited the war- 
spirit of the home-guard of Winoua county. 



INTERESTING INCIDENTS AND CUSTOMS. T^' 

ally, always referring to the good old times of the past, when she 
was young and Wah-pa-sha in power. Her age is not known with 
certainty, but it is probably at this time, 1882, not less than ninety 
years. Cho-ne-mon-e-kah, Green-Walk, a half-blood Winnebago 
brother of the girl, is still living, and the most expert hunter of his 
band. 

Wah-pa-sha intimated, upon one occasion, his approval of any 
choice I might make of a wife from among his people; and finally, 
an unusual thing for an Indian maiden to do, Witch-e-ain herself 
told me of her dislike of the engagement made for her with the 
trader, and asked me to take her as a fi-ee-will offering, saying that 
as she was the niece of Wah-pa-sha she would be allowed to choose 
between the trader and myself. I was compelled, kindly, to decline 
her offer, but assured her of my high esteem and faith in the person 
chosen for her by her mother. Not Rachael herself, in her highest 
tragedy, could have thrown fi*om her sparkling orbs such burn- 
ing glances of hate as were shot forth upon me by Witch-e-ain at 
my refusal of her love. Such withering but silent contempt can 
only be expressed by a woman scorned. 

Years have passed, and trader and girl are both in the spirit- 
world, or I wcmld not speak of the incident; but in this article I 
wish to show that, however different in customs, the Indians still 
have universal feelings of nature, that make them akin. 

At another feast Tom Holmes was so enchanted that he decided 
at once to make the damsel his wife. His offers were accepted, 
and, so far as I was able to trace his career, she appeared to have 
made him a good wife. 

Upon another occasion Major Hatch and myself visited Wali-pa- 
sha's village in Indian disguise, and if our presence was recognized 
it was not noticed. 

Major Hatch was a man of the finest perceptions and most prac- 
tical judgment. To a stranger he was polite, though taciturn, but 
to his friends he was open and generous to a fault. The major's 
descriptive power was quite remarkable. As early as 1859 he gave 
me a description of the Yellowstone country, that I urged him to 
have published, as well as some of his experiences among the Wah- 
pa-sha, Sioux and Blackfeet Indians, with whom he had been inti- 
mately associated, as trader and agent, for a number of years. 
The major was not indifferent to his literary attainments, for he was 
a close student, but his reply was to the effect that no description 



80 HISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

could do the Yellowstone vallej^ justice, and that any one who 
deviated from Cooper's or Ned Forrest's model of the American 
saA-age would be laughed to scorn in the great republic of letters. 
In speaking of the true interpretation of the word Minnesota^ the 
major said, "in that word you have a fair example of the extravagant 
taste for romance of Americans. The word is compounded from 
Min-ne, water, and Sota, smoke, and means literally smoky or 
clouded water, because of the clouded or smoky appearance the 
water of the river assumes in its course to the Mississi])2Di." " Sky- 
tinted water," said the major, " is entirely fanciful, as any one may 
see by looking at the river at Mendotah." 

Major Hatch served the Federal government long and well. He 
was postmaster at La Crosse in 1846 ; aided in the removal of the 
Winnebagoes in 1848 ; was ap]:)ointed agent of the Blackfeet Indians 
in 1855, and served in that extremely dangerous position in the 
Yellowstone and Big Horn country for two years. At that time 
none but those well versed in Indian character, could by any 
possibility preserve their scalps among those war-like ]3eople. Major 
Hatch became almost an idol among them, and performed his duties 
to the entire satisfaction of the government. 

On his return to St. Paul he was appointed, in 1860, deputy col- 
lector for that port, and in 1863, after again aiding in the removal 
of the Winnebagoes to the Missouri, he was commissioned major by 
the war department, and was authorized to raise an independent 
battalion to serve upon the Indian and British frontier. I was 
offered a commission by the major in his battalion. While in com- 
mand of his battalion, he devised a scheme in which Little Six and 
Medicine Bottle were finally brought to the gallows. Thomas Le 
Blanc and an associate in daring crossed the British frontier, and 
while those Sioux murderers were boasting of their crimes, they were 
captured and brought into Minnesota, bound on a dog train, and 
turned over to justice and to death. 

Major Hatch died in St. Paul of cholera morbus, September 14, 
last, aged fifty-seven years, loved and honored by his wife and six 
children, and esteemed by all who had the privilege of his acquaint- 
ance. As for myself, I regret his departure as a long-tried friend. 
I was one year his senior in age and strength of body, but not of 
mind, and in our youth had the good fortune twice to save him 
from assault where his life was endangered, — once by a vicious son 
of Decorah, and at another time bv a no less vicious white man. 



INTERESTIN^G INCIDENTS AND CUSTOMS. 81 

■who had assaulted him unawares, and who afterward committed a 
murder. Those eaily experiences were remembered as a tie between 
us, that time nor distance could wholly sever, and now that he has 
left us, I wish to record my esteem and friendship for one of the 
noblest Eomans of them all. 

There are but few of the earliest pioneers left ; James Reed died 
June 2, 1873, aged about seventy-five. 

It would be useless to attempt the destruction of a popular idol, 
for there is too little of romance in this matter-of-fact age, but it is 
well to state here that the Indians laugh when the legend of the 
"Lover's Leap" is repeated to them. 

A very casual survey of the ground at the foot of "The Leap" 
will show what a prodigious jumper the girl must have been, to have 
jumped into the lake, as manj'^ believe she did. If the legend had 
any foundation at all, it was most probably based upon the rebellion of 
some strong-minded We-no-nah (meaning the first-born girl) to a sale 
of her precious self to a gray-bearded French trader, as James Reed 
supposed, from a tradition said to exist concerning such an event. 
As there was an old trading-post, fort and mission established in 1727 
■on the north shore near the Lovers' Leap, it is more probable that some 
trader of that post made the purchase, than any at the foot of the 
lake, as Reed supposed from the Indian account of the affair. 

It may be that the girl threatened to jump from the cliff, so near 
to the old post, but if she did, like Reed, I will venture the predic- . 
tion that she was cuffed into submission to the will of her dear mother. 

I have known of but few instances of rebellion of daughters to 
the wills of their parents, when sold into matrimony ; hence submis- 
sion may be said to be almost universal. Extremes will sometimes 
meet, and here we see the untutored savage, and the belles of Sara- 
toga and of Paris join hands in sympathy. 

The American Indians have distinctive customs and traits of 
character, but none perhaps more peculiar than belong to other bar- 
barous peoples. The language of the Algonquin race may be regarded 
as the most manly in expression and in poetic beauty, but the char- 
acter of the Dali-ko-tahs should be deemed the type of all that is 
possible in human endurance, craft and ferocity. Their sun-dance, 
or We-wan-yag-wa-ci-pi can only be endured by men of the most 
determined will, and that, too, sustained by the fanaticism of a 
heathen devotion. Their sacred dance, Wah-kon-wa-ci-pi, like the 
Winnebao;oes' medicine dance, Mah-cah-wash-she-rah, is as close and 



82 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

exclusive a coinnninion of men of high degree, as one given by 
Kniglits Templars, None but the invited and initiated are ever 
allowed to be present during some of the ceremonies, but after the 
ground has been ]>repared and the dance has been inaugurated by 
its leader, the less favored barbarians are allowed to witness the 
splendor of the dresses worn on the occasion, and hear some of the 
laudations of valor, and the monotonous Ply-yi-yah that forms the 
burden of their songs. 

Tlie poetic element is not absolutely wanting in an Indian, but it 
requires a good degree of imagination in a white man to comprehend 
their efforts in song, and considerable ingenuity to connect their 
disjointed rhythms into rhyme. 

For some days ])revious to any sacred dance the chief medicine- 
men, or priests, and their neophites fast, or eat sparinglj-. If a dog 
is to be eaten at the conclusion of their fast, or if a beaver has been 
secured for the feast that will follow, they are both lauded for their 
respective (lualities ; the dog for his Mthfulness, and the beaver for 
his wisdom. The dog is well fed and told not to be offended because 
of the intention of sending him to the spirit-world, as there he will 
find all that a good dog can desire, and that his bones shall be pre- 
served in the medicine lodges of the band. 

The bones of dogs, beaver, bear and eagles are often taken to the 
high priests for their blessings ; and they are then preserved in bags 
or pouches and held sacred as charms against evil. These medicine- 
bags are a badge of membership in the sacred order, and are sacredly 
preserved from generation to generation. 

Upon one occasion I witnessed what might be termed the ago- 
nized regret of a medicine-chief at the loss of one. While intoxi- 
cated his canoe and its cargo of household goods had escaped him, 
and was picked up by a wood-chopper named Johnson, who robbed 
the canoe of its contents and then set it adrift. I recovered for the 
learned priest all but his sacred pouch, which had been cast into the 
fire as a thing of no value whatever, containing, as Johnson said, 
nothing but a bear's claw, an eagle's beak, a filthy rag, and some 
bones that he sup]>osed to have belonged to a human hand. The 
medicine-man was a half Sioux and half Winnebago, named Ke-ra- 
choose-sep-kah, to whom Black Hawk surrendered after his defeat at 
Bad-axe, and who, in company with Nee-no-humjve-cah, delivered 
liim to the military authorities at Prairie du Chien. Big-nose, as the 
Indian was more generally known, after vainly searching for the 



INTERESTING INCIDENTS AND CUSTOMS. 83 

medicine-bag, oiTered me, if I would find it, all I had recovered for 
him, which, including coin, was of at least the value of three 
hundred dollars. I never told the chief that the bag was burned 
up, and advised the thief, after compelling restitution of all except 
the bag, to leave the country, which the rascal did at once. The son 
of the great chief Big-nose stayed at my house two nights recentl}-, 
and referring to the loss of his father's medicine-bag, he regretted 
it, he- said, because it contained powerfully-charmed relics of both 
tribes, besides a piece of cloth given him by Black Hawk as a 
memento of his friendship for having saved him from butchery. I 
thought it best to tell him the bag was burned, and he seemed 
relieved when told the truth, as now he knew that the bag had not 
fallen into the hands of an enemy to work his destruction, thus show- 
ing that he had faith in "his own medicine.'' 

The only way in which a white man can fully understand an In- 
dian and secure his full confidence is to join the'tribe and be initiated 
into their medicine-lodges, like Frank H. Cashing, commissioned by 
tlie Smithsonian Institution to investigate the history of the Pueblo 
Indians as it may be traced in their present life and customs. Few 
men would be found fitted for such an oflice, and if a similar attempt 
were to be made among the Sioux, it would probably involve the 
taking part in a sun-dance, an ordeal that a white man, however 
brave, would not have fortitude enough to go through. A sun-dance is 
sometimes given by an individual who has made a vow to the sun, 
and in such cases, after having gone through the tortures of the 
ordeal, he gives away all his property and commences life anew. 
As a general rule the dance is given as a test of courage and faith 
in the religious belief of the Dah-ko-tah, that the sun is the all- 
powerful deity of the universe, who controls their destiny and 
deserves their worship. 

The high ground near the present residence of Mayor Lamberton 
was the dancing-ground of the Wah-pa-sha band, and, strange as it 
may appear, the scaffoldings for the dead were in the immediate 
vicinity. The dance or altar pole was erected on a level place, and 
•various devices and totems were then cut upon it and figured in A-ellow 
ochre and vermilion. Conspicuous among the hieroglj'phs was a 
central circle, with rays to represent the sun, and above all were 
flags and gay streaming ribbons. The ground was sanctified, afler 
the usual Indian method, by incense, down, and evergreens of cedar 
or jumper, though the white cedar was preferred, and distance marks 



84 JIISTOKY OF WmOXA COUNTY. 

set up to indicate which portion of the ground was to be regarded as 
sacred. 

Sometimes young dogs were slaughtered and left at the base of 
the pole, with head a little raised and their legs stretched out as if to 
climb up. The blood of those innocent victims was sanctified by 
the great high priest of the band, and, soaking into the sacred 
earth, it was supposed to be a sweet savor in the nostrils of the 
spirits whom it was believed were present at the dance. To show 
the high estimation in which Christianity is held by the Indians. I 
will state that I was patronizingly told by one of them that the pup- 
pies were placed on the altar to call good spirits to the dance, "just 
like Jesus." 

The final ceremonies, from all I could learn, were regarded as 
too sacred for the unanointed to witness, but I gleaned, from con- 
versations at various times, that for the most part they consist of 
cabalistic utterances in dead or extinct languages, or perhaps that of 
some living but foreign tribes held to be more potent than their 
own. As morning approaches the camp is aroused, and the whole 
village moves en ma^se to the altar-pole. Here quick preparation is 
made to greet the rising sun with the dance of his votaries and the 
shouts of his red children. Incisions are quickly made in the skin 
in various parts of the body of those who are to be tested, and 
thongs of rawhide are passed through and tied securely to the pole, 
from which the victim is expected to tear loose during the dance. 

As the sun appears a universal shout is given as an all-hail, and 
the dance begins. Drums are beaten by relays of vigorous drum- 
mers, while each dancer pipes a shrill whistle held in his mouth 
while dancing. At intervals chosen bands of singers shout their 
approval of the tortures endured, while the dancer is stimulated to 
frenzy by his family and friends to tear loose from his fastenings and 
join in the honored circle of the dance. After many plunges the 
brave neophyte breaks loose and dances until exhausted, when he is 
taken to the tepee of his family and cared for as a hero. 

Should one of the poor martyrs to his faith fail to free himself, 
his friends reproach him, or throw themselves upon him, until their 
added weight tears loose the thongs, when, without a murmur of 
pain, he will join in the dance, and, without sustenance of any kind, 
continue to dance until exhausted. Should it happen that the terrors 
of the ordeal should overcome the courage and endurance of any 
who have aspired to the roll of honor, he is at once cast out from 



INTERESTLN-G INCIDENTS AND CUSTOMS. 85 

among the braves and told to fish or work, but never to bear arms. 
One Sioux of the Wah-pa-slia band was degraded to the rank of a 
woman, and made to wear the apparel of a female. He left for a 
time and joined a western band, but his reputation for cowardice fol- 
lowed him, and he was driven back by the contempt of the squaws, 
with whom he was again made to associate. He finally settled down 
to his fate, and learned some of the industries of Sioux womanhood. 
The festival of the sun is held in midsummer, and lasts several days. 
During its continuance the whole band join in merriment and games, 
and the orators and medicine-men receive large donations as a 
reward for their most important services. The young graduates of 
the dance have medicine-bags presented them, made up, for the 
most part, of old relics of battles fought by their sires, together with 
anything most horribly disgusting that may appeal to the credulity 
of ignorance. With these sacks the medicine-men pretend to work 
spells that will cause the death of an enemy or chase sickness from 
their friends. 

The sun-dance is one of the many evidences of the Dah-ko-tahs' 
southwestern origin, as the same torture is submitted to by the 
Indians of Kew Mexico, who are also sun-worshipers. The Winne- 
bagoes are also sun-worshipers, and usually bury their dead at sun- 
rise, with head to the west. As far as I know, no northern or 
eastern tribe submits to the torturing pain of a sun-dance, except in 
a few instances, when it was imposed upon the credulity of one 
tribe by fanatical emissaries of the Sioux. 

The Dah-ko-tahs have many legends, and may be regarded as 
greatly given to romance. They believe themselves to be the very 
salt of earth, and that Minnesota was the center of creation. How 
else can it be, say they, when the water runs off from our land, are 
we not above all others ? This idea gave them self-importance and 
arrogance in their dealings with other nations. The Sioux, though 
generous and hospitable, are yet quarrelsome, and the establishment 
of the Wah-pa-sha band was the result of a long continued traditional 
quarrel, first of the Isanti, and then of the Wah-pe-ton, or New Leaf 
bands of Sioux. According to this tradition, given me by Le Blanc, 
the chiefs of the Isanti, or knife band, quarreled about the jurisdic- 
tion of the chert, or knifestone quarries in the Mille Lac country, 
and to avoid bloodshed, the ancestors of Wah-pa-sha established 
themselves upon the Me-day-wah-kon, or Good Spirit lake. There 
they remained for a number of generations, until by magic the- 



^6 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

spirits of malignant chiefs entered into the medicine lodges of the 
tribe, and again the band was torn asunder ; the peaceful portion 
emigrating from their pine forests and rice swamps to a country of 
earlier and different foliage, and the band then took the name of 
Wah-j)e-tou, or the new leaf band. It is somewhat remarkable that 
the (iiipi)ewas call the country and river immediately below the falls 
of St. Anthony, includingthe siteofSt. Paul, Ish-ke-bug-ge-see-bee, or 
•the New Leaf river, because in the early spring-time the leaves shoot 
out earlier than above the falls. The Sioux tradition goes on to relate 
that there they established themselves in comfort, some going up the 
Minnesota, where buffaloes were plenty, others, as their numbers 
increased at the Wah-coo-tay village, spread themselves along down 
to the Cannon river and to Eem-ne-cha, or the Red Wing village, 
whei'c for many, many years they fattened on the game and wild rice 
of the region about them. 

Again they tell that in this paradise-©f hunters dissensions once 
more arose among them, and, disregarding the warnings of previous 
counsels to avoid strife, the great Eed "Wing and the noble Wah-pa- 
sha became involved in that quarrel. The friends and adherents of 
both were equally strenuous in the support of their respective chiefs, 
and after a prolonged council of the entire band, ending in an out- 
burst of angry passion, the respective partisans seized their war-clubs 
and quivers and were about to fight, but before the war-whooj) was 
given for battle Wcih-pa-sha commanded silence by a wave of his 
red cap, and telling the assembled multitude to cease their strife, 
threw his totem or badge of authority, the red cap, into air. A whirl- 
wind took it up and it instantly disappeared. At the same moment 
a convulsion of the earth was felt, darkness fell upon them, and in 
the morning, when all was once again serene, they found that a por- 
tion of the bluff containing the bones of their dead, had disappeared. 
A l)arty of their principal braves were dispatched in search of the lost 
mountain, and as they descended in canoes they recognized what is 
now known as the " Sugar J^oaf," as the red cap of their chief, trans- 
formed into stone. 

The distant peak of Trempealeau mountain was soon discovered 
to be a part of their lost inheritance, and hastening on, the moving 
or moved mountain, or Pah-ha-dah, as it is called in the Dah-ko-tah 
tongue, was overtaken just as it made a vain effort to plunge into 
the lake of Me-day Pah-ha-dah. The other peaks of the Red Wing 
range had already caught uj)on the sandy point of the prairie, and 



PREHISTORIC. 89 

therefore, claiming their truant possessions, they made those peaks 
the dividing line between themselves and the Winnebagoes. 

It only remains for me to say, in proof of the entire cmthenticity 
of this tradition, that until defaced by the growing wants of a city, 
the bluff resembled in shape a voyageur cap of ancient date, and the 
red appearance of the face of the clif justified its Sioux name of 
Wah-pa-ha-sha, or the cap of Wah-pa-sha. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 



PREHISTORIC. 



Going back beyond tradition, we find in our midst evidences of 
a numerous people having once occupied the adjacent territory. 

Judge George Gale, the founder of the university at Galesville, 
Wisconsin, in his very valuable work, " Upper Mississippi, " says, 
"To us of the New World there is a 'Greece' that literally 
'slumbers in the tomb.' A nation or people which for centuries 
occupied a territory nearly as large as all Europe, and had a popula- 
tion which probably numbered its millions, have left the graves of 
their fathers and the temples of their gods so unceremoniously that 
their very name has disappeared with them, and we only know of 
their existence by their decayed walls and tumuli, and by their 
bones, exhibiting the human form, although in a far-gone state of 
decay. " 

Judge Gale's book shows great research and critical acumen, and 
the calamity which befell the plates in the great Chicago fire should 
be repaired by a new imprint of the volume. My space will only 
admit of a reference to the work, but I cannot forego the justice to 
say that, so far as I know, Judge Gale was first to notice in print 
the mounds and other earthworks in Trempealeau county, Wiscon- 
sin, and at La Crescent in Minnesota. 

Few persons have any adequate conception of the vast area cov- 
ered by earthworks in the United States, or of the immense labor 
expended in their construction. A mound in Montgomery county, 
Ohio, according to Gale, contains 311,3.53 cubic feet of earth. One 
in Virginia is seventy feet high and 1,000 feet in circumference, and 
6 



90 IirSTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

the great Ctihokia mound of Illinois is ninety feet high and over 
2,000 feet in eircumtierence, containing over 20,000,000 cubic feet, 
and one in the State of Mississippi covers an area of six acres. 

In these mounds there are sometimes found pearls, sharks' teeth 
and marine sliells, obsidian or volcanic glass, native copper and native 
silver, sometimes united unalloyed, as found only in Russia and on 
Lake Superior, where innumerable stone implements are still to be 
found that have evidently been used in extracting those metals. 
Lead has also occasionally been found, but not so frequently as 
copper. Stone implements are found in mounds and upon the sur- 
face, especially after j^lowing, wherever these ancient works appear. 
The implements are generally manufactured from syenite or some 
hard trap rock, and consist of stone pipes, hammers, axes, scrapei'S 
or flesh ers, pestles, spinners or twisters, still used by Mexican In- 
dians. Obsidian, chert and copper, spear and arrow heads are quite 
common. About the mounds of the lower Mississippi old pottery is 
quite common, but among those of the upper Mississippi it is only 
occasionally found. The mound-builders must have possessed some 
mathematical knowledge, as some of their earthworks show a good 
degree of geometrical skill, as well as military ideas of defense 
against assaults of enemies. 

Ten miles below La Crosse, on Coon prairie, there is a line of 
earthworks and mounds of considerable size and interest, and on the 
Clark farm, on the La Crosse river, the works all seem to be of a 
defensible character. At Onalaska they are also quite numerous, 
and about one mile above McGilvray's ferry on Black river there is 
an old earth fort and mounds that still remain quite conspicuous. 

At Galesville and vicinity are quite a number of mounds, includ- 
ing some built in the shape of man, and many, according to Gale, in 
the shape of animals. The most conspicuous, because most accessi- 
ble, are the mounds in and near the village of Trempealeau. One, 
west of Mr. Boer's residence, commands a fine view from its eleva- 
tion above the surrounding surface. In the neighborhood of the 
Baptist church there are also several of an interesting character. 
Near Pine Creek station there are some very fine ones. At La 
Crescent and on Pine Creek, Minnesota, there are a number of 
mounds of small size ; and coming up to Winona, on the south 
shore, at intervals they appear at Dresbach, Dah-co-tah, Richmond, 
La Moille, Cedar Creek, Homer, Pleasant and Burns valleys. Upon 
the farm of Miss Maggie Burns there are several mounds that still 



PREHISTORIC. 



91 



remain undisturbed, but along the public road several very sym- 
metrical mounds have been leveled in construction and repaii's of 
the thoroughfare. 

Upon the table of West Burns valley the Rheibeau boys plowed 
up some of the most elegantly-shaped stone implements ever dis- 






covered in any country. To my chagrin, after a vain attempt to 
purchase them, I was told that a gentleman from Milwaukee had 





induced Mrs. Rheibeau to part with them, and thus were lost to the 
museums of Winona a few celts not surpassed by any in the large 
collection at the Centennial Exposition. 

My niece, Mrs. Louise Page, found a number of arrow and spear 
heads and a few fragments of pottery in Homer, and near the Keys 



92 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

mansion she picked Irom the river bank a large stone hammer, 
which is now in the museum of the Winona normal school. The 
hammer was imbedded about two feet in the soil, and was most 
likely buried, like the silver ornaments found near it, in the grave 
of some dead warrior. The Catholic emblems in silver were those 
in common use among the Catholic Indians and half-breeds of Can- 
ada within my recolleeti(^n, and most probably belonged to some 
(^anadian voyageur, or perhaps was buried, after the Indian custom, 
with the body of some Indian (or squaw) convert to the Catholic 
faith. The high point at Keys' was a favorite burying-ground, be- 
cause of its extreme height above the river during an ovei-flow of 
the lower land of the prairie. The sites selected for their burying- 
grounds indicated to the old traders the Indian's anticipations of a 
possible overflow of the prairie. 

Upon the farm of Myles Roach, in the town of Homer, a num- 
ber of stone arrow and spear heads have been found by the sons of 
IVEr, Roach, and one of copper was found which was purchased by 
R. F. Norton, now of the village of Homer. There have also been 
found along the river front in Winona copper implements, one of 
which, found by Geo. Cole, is in the possession of his father. Dr. 
James M. Cole, of Winona. 

Most of the implements found on the surface have, no doubt, 
been lost while in use, but those found in mounds and in ossuaries 
have been placed there with the remains of the dead. The ossuaries 
of Barn Bluff and of Minnesota City were, no doubt, places of 
interment of the bones of^^the dead, which had been divested of 
their flesh by exposure upon scaflblds or trees. 

In the early days of my first acquaintance with the Dah-ko-tahs, 
no other mode of burial would satisfy their ideas of a proper sepul- 
ture, but after a time the example set by the white people of burying 
their dead had its influence, and in modern times, except among the 
wildest bands, the Sioux began to bury their dead soon after their 
demise. The body of Chandee, son of Wah-kon-de-o-tah, the war- 
chief of Wah-pa-sha, was buried upon my brother's property at 
Homer by special request of his relatives. His sister, Shook-ton-ka, 
the champion girl racer of the band, and some children of Wah-pa- 
sha, were buried near the site of the Huff" house. Afler the treaty 
was decided upon by the band, many bones of the dead were removed 
and buried in secret places at night, lest they should be disturbed by 
white settlers, whom the Indians knew would eventually occupy the 



PREHISTORIC. 93 

country. Some of the ancient mounds have been used by modern 
tribes as receptacles for their dead, but in such cases the fact is 
readily discernible, as no regard has been paid by the modern In- 
dians to the strata of earth, clay and sand, or gravel, of which tlie 
burial or sacrificial mounds have been composed. It is believed by 
some that the circle of sculls found in an ancient ossuary at Minne- 
sota City were the crania of victims to some religious sacrifice around 
the altar-pole, or else of captives slaughtered and left, as puppies 
are left in modern times, with heads to the pole, which might account 
for the position the sculls were found in. At Blufi' Siding, opposite 
Winona, along the wagon-road to Galesville, a number of mounds 
may be seen, occupying an admirable position for defense. 

The limits of my paper have been reached, and I must hasten to 
a close ; but I crave my readers' interest in behalf of my brother 
Willard, in connection with his settlement in Winona county. As 
for myself, it will sufiice for me to say that, dissatisfied with what 
appeared to me as time thrown away upon the frontier, I returned 
to Detroit and recommenced the study of medicine in the office 
of Dr. Scoville, an eminently successful physician and surgeon. 
Upon the appointment of Adrian K. Terry, uncle of Gen. Terry, to 
the surgeoncy of the 1st Mich. reg. during the Mexican war, I was 
given the hospital stewardship of that regiment, and served to the 
close of that war. While quartered in Cordova, Mexico, I was 
placed in full charge of the post hospital during the illness of Drs. 
Terry and Lembke, and returned to Detroit, Michigan, at the close 
of the war in medical charge of one detachment. Having acquired 
a taste for a free life when the gold discovery in California lecame a 
fact, I went overland through Mexico to Mariposa, where, com- 
pelled at first to fight Indians in self-defense, I finally became a 
member of the Mariposa battalion. While on duty in that organi- 
zation I became one of the discoverers of the naw famous Yosemite 
valley, the name of which was given by myself, as will appear in 
my book, "Discovery of/ the Yosemite," published by F. H. Eevell, 
of Chicago. 

During the war of the rebellion I served in the ranks as a pri- 
vate, and through successive promotions (having had conferred upon 
me a degree) reached the rank of major by a commission as surgeon 
of the 36th reg. Wis. Inf Assigned to detached duty on March 2T, 
1865, with the 1st Minn., I served in that regiment as its sole medical 
officer until its return to Washington at the close of the war. 



94 IIISTOIIY OF WIXONA COTXTV. 

I will close this paper with an extract from a series of articles 
furnished the "LaOrosse Chronicle," that I hope may be deemed a 
fitting close to my subject. 

In 1848 and later, my brother Willard was employed in moving 
the Indians. Some of them, the Winnebagoes especially, were very 
much dissatisfied, and declared they would not leave for the home 
selected for them on the Minnesota river. Will's influence was great 
among them at that time, and he succeeded in collecting about three 
hundred of them. Flavingarranged withMillerfortheuseof the ware- 
house of his old firm, he quartered them in it. They seemed contented 
enough until a short time before the steamer came to carry them up 
the river, when they set up a most unearthly yell, broke through 
their guard, seized their ponies from an adjacent corral and disap- 
peared. Other means were then resorted to, and they were removed 
in smaller squads or details ; but they would return again and again 
to their native haunts as if drawn back by some occult force. Will's 
discernment would penetrate all disguises of paint, red, green or 
blue blankets, until at last they yielded to his persisted efforts and 
remained upon the new reservation. 

My brother has assured me that many of the Indians receipted 
for by the officers at Fort Snelling he had removed over and over 
again. With Indian cunning they would assume a new name with 
each new disguise, and the officers were unable to discover or 
remedy it. 

With the Indians went Asa White and Tom Holmes, both of 
whom had squaws for wives. Miller & Myrick had already dis- 
solved partnership before the Indians were removed, and were vir- 
tually out of the Indian trade, but their influence was still more or 
less potent in Indian affairs, and they were advised with as to their 
management. My brother's persevering energy in removing the 
Winnebagoes was awarded by a permit to trade with the Wabasha 
band, and he settled u])on their reservation. 

This gave him great advantages, and obtaining the consent of 
Wah-pa-sha, rewarding him liberall}'. Will planted old Mr. Burns 
and his remaining family upon what has since been known as the 
Burns' farm, providing each member old enough with a claim. 

Will was unable to choose as well for himself as he had for the 
Burns family, for being under the impression that the site of Winona 
was subject to overflow, he located at Homer, which he named after 
his birthplace, the village of Homer, New York state. Here he 



PREHISTORIC. 95 

built the first house in 1849, and in 1850-5J made a large addition 
to the building and moved into it. Peter Burns and himself became 
interested in a scheme to conti'ol the trade of the interior, bj secur- 
ing the nearest "high- water landing" below Winona, and for that 
purpose, in conjunction with Borup, an old trader and a brother of 
Senator Alex. Ramsey, of St. Paul, they laid out the village of 
Minne-o-way, building a large hotel and storehouses to accommo- 
date the very large business destined to reward their enterprise. By 
some oversight they had neglected to comply with some provision 
of the law, and a keen-sighted man by the name of Dougherty, dis- 
covering their neglect, pounced down upon their claim, and in a suit 
that followed secured land, hotel and storehouses as his homestead. 
Burns was lucky enough, before the final decision was rendered, to 
sell his interests for $4,000. 

As to the site of Winona, known to the Dah-co-tahs as Keoxa, it 
was firmly believed by the old traders and lumbermen to be subject 
to overflow in the highest water. From the deck of a steamer pass- 
ing at the highest stage, the space left dry really appeared very small. 
In very high water all of the low land of the prairie was submerged 
and a volume suflicient to run a steamboat ran down south of the 
city, before the railroad embankment was raised. The Indians 
laughed at the supposed folly of the white men in building on tlie 
"island," and it was an anticipated joke that Will would sometime 
be seen, pikepole in hand, rescuing the floating property of this 
embryo city and hauling it out upon his higher landing. 

Poor Will ! He had been out so long upon the frontier that he 
failed to realize what money and enterprise would do to improve and 
protect a city so advantageously situated as Winona. He and his 
brave wife are both gone now from the scenes of their early hopes 
and perils. He left in August, 1861, and she in 1868, leaving a 
family of two sons and four daughters. 



CHAPTER IX. 

GEOGRAPHICAL. 

The geographical position of Winona county is between parallels 
43 and 45 north latitude, 44 passing through the center of the county, 
and between meridians 91 and 92 west, a small portion of the county 
lying west of 92. It is organized from townships Nos. 105, 106, 107 
north, of ranges No. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 west, and contains twenty 
organized townships, iifteen of which are full townships, containing 
thirty-six sections. One is organized from half a township, and one 
is formed of townships Nos. 107 and 108, of range No. 8. Four are 
irregular in form on the northern boundary, and are fractional. The 
county is located in the southeastern part of the State of Minnesota, 
and is bounded on the north by Wabasha county and partly by the 
Mississippi river, and on the east by the Mississippi, which ilows 
here in a southeasterly direction, and on the south by Houston antl 
Fillmore counties, and on the west by Olmsted and Wabasha coun- 
ties. In shape, nearl}^ a right-angled triangle, longest on the south- 
ern boundary, being about forty miles or six and a half townships 
in length, and twenty-four miles or four townships in width from 
north to south. It is regular in form on the southern and western 
boundaries, the Mississippi river forming nearly the hypothenuse of 
the triangle from northwest to southeast. 

The surface, within the distance of about twelve miles from the 
Mississip]n river, is bluify or broken, the river being about five 
hundred feet below the general surface. Houston county is a trifle 
higher in altitude ; with that exce])tion this county is the highest 07i 
this side, and contiguous to the river from its source to its mouth. 
Bold perpendicular ledges of rock form the sides of the blufl' in 
many places along the river, and a considerable portion of the south 
part of the county contiguous to the Eoot river is of the same char- 
acter. Four townships of the northwest part of the county along 
the Whitewater are also rough and rocky. The remainder of the 
sni-face is undulating prairie, irregular in extent, comprising not far 
from six townshij^s, and located in the central and western parts of 
the county. 



GEOGRAPHICAL. 97 

When tlie altitude is reached thei'e is great uniformity in tlie 
appearance of the surface, and any other highland may be visited 
without materially ascending or descending, the high lands being all 
connected by a series of ridges which form the divides between the 
streams which flow into the Mississippi and those which flow into 
the Boot river on the south and the Whitewater on the north. 

There are no swamp lands in the county, and not a regular 
quarter-section that would be benefited for agriculture by artificial 
drainage. There are a few acres in patches along the Mississippi and 
along the margins of some of the smaller streams of marsh or bog 
lands, liable to overflow, but producing excellent grass. The waters 
of the county all find their way to the Mississippi ; those in the north 
part of the county furnish the south branches of the Whitewater. 
On the north and east each township contributes a stream to the Mis- 
sissippi. The largest and most important of these is the Rolling- 
stone, which drains nearly one hundred square miles of surface, and 
affords water-power for six large flouring mills. There are also 
several unoccupied powers on the difterent branches of the stream. 

Each township of the southern tier also furnishes a stream to 
Root river. All these sti-eams are formed by springs, and are 
nearly uniform throughout the year as to supply of water, and, 
having considerable fall, afford water-power which in the future 
may be developed. 

The surplus water of the county finds its way to these streams 
through the ravines and small valleys reaching out toward the 
prairie in all directions. 

Utica, or town 106, range 9, occupies the summit, being drained 
on the northeast into Rollingstone, on the northwest into White- 
water, and on the south into Rush creek ; and this township is also 
nearly the center of the prairie surface. 

The longest, largest, main ridge of the county begins in the 
southeastern part, on the divide between the waters which flow in- 
to the Mississi]jpi and those which flow into Root river, and extends 
in^a northwesterly direction through the townships of Dresback, 
New Hartford, Pleasant Hill, Wilson and Warren into Utica. 
From this main ridge branches innumei'able extend in every direc- 
tian. The most important ones are Homer ridge between Cedar 
and Pleasant Valley creeks, and Minneiska ridge between White- 
water and Rollingstone, both ridges leading to the Mississippi 



98 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

In the south j)art of St. Cliarles in Saratoga, and the northwest 
j)art of Fremont, are to be found some broken ridges or liills, none 
of them rising above the general surface of the county. Tlie valleys 
surrounding these hills are not so deep as the valleys along the 
streams in other parts of the county, and in some places they g^-adu- 
ally rise and extend into broad upland prairies. 

In this part of the county, or among these hills, there are several 
tine groves of timber. Cheatcm's grove in the southwest part of 
Utica, Blair's grove in the northeast part of Saratoga, and Harvey's 
grove on the line between Saratoga and St. Cliarles, are the most 
notable. They contain a fine thrifty growth of oak, po])lar and 
butternut, with a dense growth of underbrush in some places. 

At the lieads of all the streams, or along their mai'gins, timber of 
various kinds is found. As we approach the top of the blutfs it 
consists mostly of white and red oak, with patches of white birch. 
In the valleys are found burr oak, hard maple, wliite ash, rock and 
red elm, basswood, hackberry, black walnut, butternut and poplar. 
The bluff lands, which include the parts of the county lying along the 
Mississippi, the Whitewater and the branches of Root river, and 
tlie ridges connecting them, are generally well timbered, especially 
on their sides facing the north, the fires of early spring burning 
the south sides before the snow has left the north sides, or before 
tliey become sufficiently dry to burn. "Where the fire is kept out 
timber rapidly springs up. 

As the line of the county extends to the middle of the channel 
of the Mississippi, and the channel sometimes passes next to the 
Wisconsin side, there is in the townships of Rollingstone and 
Winona a large amount of bottom-lands covered with timber. Oak, 
ash, elm, birch, cottonwood, willow and maple are most abundant. 

In the two townships last mentioned, there is lying between the 
bluffs and the river a sand or gravel prairie six or seven miles in 
length and about three-quarters of a mile in width, which is a few 
feet above high water, and of nearly uniform level surface. Con- 
tiguous to this prairie, and next to the blufts, is a sei'ies of terrace 
or table lands, which are timbered with the three kinds of oak 
before mentioned. The same character of table-lands also occur at 
the mouths of all the streams that flow into the Mississippi. 

As we leave the timber and ridges approaching the prairie 
throughout the whole county, there is more or less grub or brush 
land, which is usually a small growth of oak. red and white. There 



GEOGRAPHICAL. , 99 

are also patches of brush land consisting of hazelnut, wild plum 
and crab-apple. 

The bluff and ridge lands throughout the county, especially the 
part that is timbered, consist of a clay loam varying from one foot to 
twenty feet in depth. As the Mississij^pi and the larger streams 
are approached, the sides of the bluffs are in many places quite 
precipitous, the rocks cropping out to the surface. As the bluffs are 
descended, the soil changes in composition by an admixture of sand 
and lime from the decomposed rocks. 

Lands lying close by the river at tlie mouth of the valleys have 
little or no clay at the surface, but the soil is underlaid by a stratum 
of clay or loess almost impervious to water before reaching the 
gravel or sand rock of the bed of the river. 

As we ascend the streams that flow into the Mississippi, if the 
valleys are broad the soil is a stiff, tenacious clay of bluish cast, but 
darkens in color on exposure to the air. 

This clay is evidently local drift, as it is stratified and does not 
contain any boulders, drift coal, nor other matter indicating true 
northern drift. Where the valleys have retained the wash of the 
bluffs, and the water-courses have not interfered, the clay is covered 
and mixed with vegetable mould, sand and lime, in some places 
several feet deep. 

The soil of the upland prairie is a deep dark loam, and is under- 
layed by stiff clay or by rock. This soil does not materially change 
in color nor in texture by cropping. Among the broken ridges or 
hills of the south-central and west parts of the county the rocks come 
very near to the surface of the upland, and the lower ground, though 
gradually rising into upland prairie, is in places quite sandy. There 
is upon the surface of this sandy land an accumulation of decomposed 
vegetable matter very dark in color, indicating the presence of lime 
in its composition. 

The soil of the brush or grub lands is similar in appearance to 
that of the timber lands, but contains a much greater amount of 
crude vegetable matter. 

Spring wheat has been considered as the staple crop, but oats, 
corn, barley and potatoes in the order named are largely grown. 

The timbered or ridge lands have produced good crops of winter 
as well as spring wheat for twenty-five years, and winter wheat 
was also grown in the valleys near the Mississippi for several years 
very successfully. It has not, however, succeeded on the prairie. 



100 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Thougli this county does not claim to be the banner county of 
the state in wheat-raising, it is entitled to its full share of the credit 
for the popularity to which Minnesota wheat has attained for quality 
and amount to the acre under cultivation. It is said to be a fact 
that any soil which will produce good crops of wheat will also grow 
good crops of any of the cereals adapted to the climate. Whatever 
failures may have occurred in the production of the common cereals 
in this county, in no case can the failure be attributed wholly to the 
character of the soil. For the production of these grains the average 
yield compares favorably with any portion of the state. One instance 
of the marvelous productiveness of the soil may be given. Upon 
the tirst farm opened in the Eollingstone valley there was sown, in 
the "tirst week in October, 1852, some winter wheat. It was har- 
vested the first week in July of the next year, threshed upon the 
ground with a flail and cleaned with a sheet in the wind, and yielded 
thirty-seven bushels to the acre. The same ground produced nine 
successive crops of wheat, and the ninth was the best that had been 
raised. This ground has now been under cultivation for thirty years 
without any particular rotation of crops and without artifleial 
manure, and is apparently as productive as ever for any crop except 
wheat, yielding large crops annually of corn, oats, barley or grass. 
The average yield of wheat has, however, materially decreased in 
this, as well as in other counties of the state for a few years past. 
It is believed to be owing entirely to climatic reasons, as there has 
been no diminution in the yield of other grains. The grass product 
ranks next to oats in acreage, being somewhat more than corn, and 
within the last few years stock of all kinds is receiving much atten- 
tion, and so far no general diseases have appeared among swine, 
cattle and horses. 

Of other productions than those already named there is found in 
our market rye, buckwheat, beans, flax-seed, timothy and clover 
seed, grapes, tobacco, onions and honey. 

In the vicinity of the blufl's contiguous to the Mississippi, and 
along the margins of the smaller streams, crab-apples, wild 
plums and grapes are abundant. 

In the timbered belt, about the groves, and in sheltered locations, 
several varieties of the cultivated apples are grown. As reported 
by the assessors, there are at present growing in the county about 
61,000 apple-trees. 



GEOGEAPIIICAL. 101 

Of the smaller fruits, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, currants, 
etc., are grown in all parts of the county, and yield abundantly. 

In character and variety of wild plants and flowers, this county 
does not differ materially from others similarly situated. The up- 
land prairie produces grass mainly. There is, however, during the 
summer, a great profusion of wild flowers. Upon the warm hill- 
sides, or on sandy land, in early spring, sometimes before the snow 
has disappeared, the well-known anemone is the most conspicuous ; 
during May and June, blue or violet and scarlet are the predomi- 
nating colors ; in July and August, white and yellow adorn the 
roadsides and uncultivated places. In the fall the moist grounds 
are literally covered with purple and white. 

In the whole timbered belt and along the margins of the streams 
the ground is loaded with a dense growth of rank vegetation. 

Wild deer had been kept out by the Indians, but for a few years 
after the first settlements were made they gradually increased in 
numbers ; a few are yet seen every winter. 

The black bear, being somewhat migratory, has been occasion- 
ally seen. Both timber and prairie wolves were at first quite 
common ; the prairie-wolf is still annoying the flocks, but the 
timber- wolf is rarely seen. Foxes, red and gray, stay about the 
rocky ravines and bluft's. Beaver were quite plenty in many of 
the streams. Several otters have been caught, also mink, weasel, 
and large numbers of musk-rats. 

The badger, raccoon, woodchuck and polecat are common. 

The large gray wood-squirrel and the prairie gray squirrel, the 
red squirrel, the chipmuck (the black squirrel has visited us, but is 
not at home), and both varieties of gopher are numerous. 

Of the rabbit the gray is most common. 

Of the migratory feathered species that remain here a short time 
in the spring, but do not nest, the wild goose, the brant, and several 
varieties of ducks, are the most plenty. These confine themselves 
mostly to the immediate vicinity of the Mississippi river. The 
curlew is occasionally seen, also the pelican. Of those that remain 
during the summer and nest here, the wild pigeon and blackbird 
are most numerous. The bittern, the sand-hill crane and bald- 
eagle are common. The mallard and wood-duck frequent the small 
streams and nest here, but not abundantly. 

All the migratory birds common to this latitude are to be seen 
here. 



102 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Of those that remain all winter the prairie-hen is most general ; 
the partridge, the quail, the bluejay, and several varieties of owls, 
are usually about the sheltered places in the timber. 

Speckled trout were in all the small streams of this county and 
very plenty. There are a few left in nearly all of them. The state 
fish commissioners have placed young ones in some of the streams. 
The water coming from springs and being rapid is nicely ada])ted to 
their habits, and some efforts have been made to propagate them. 
There are several fine springs well adapted to fisli culture. The 
main difticulty seems to have been to guard against sudden overflow, 
as the streams are liable to rise very high and quickly. Fish com- 
mon to tlie Mississippi river run up several ot the streams in the 
spring and return to the river again. The Mississippi furnishes a 
large quantity of fish yearly, the greater portion being taken with 
the seine. The varieties generally caught are buffalo, catfish, pick- 
erel, bass and wall-eyed pike. There are also sturgeon, sunfish, 
perch, suckers, and several other kinds. 

The geological formation of the county is quite uniform in char- 
acter. The appearance of the rocks at the surface, in St. Charles, 
Saratoga, and ])art of Fremont and Utica, is somewhat different from 
those lying along the Mississippi, the Whitewater, and the streams 
that flow into Root river. Here, also, the valleys are much broader, 
and the loam, or top-soil, thicker and more evenly spread. The 
highest lands are tillable and. usually turfed all over. 

The lowest visible rock along the Mississippi, and probably 
underlying the whole county, is the St. Croix sandstone. This 
sandstone varies somewhat in appearance and texture. In the south- 
east part of the county the quarries show a fine building-stone of 
superior quality for working, of a grayish color, that hardens on 
exposure to the air. In some places the rocks are of a reddish cast, 
probably owing to the presence of iron. Some of the layers are 
quite soft and are readily excavated. In the south part, Utica, St. 
Charles, part of Fremont and of Saratoga, the sand-rock cropping 
out of the hills or low bluffs is nearly white in color, loose in texture 
and disintegrates rapidly, forming a beautiful white sand. Over- 
lying the sandstone is the lower magnesian formation, which also 
probably underlies most of the county. It is a hard, flinty, whitish 
or light gray rock, composed of lime and sand, with streaks of calcite 
along the larger streams. The upper portion only is visible, tlie lower 
part being covered with wash from the bluffs. This rock is not 



GEOGRAPHICAL. 108 

available for use, being very hard and of irregular fracture, not 
easily quarried or worked. In some places along the Mississippi 
there is seen, overlying the lower magnesian, a sandstone loose in 
texture, crumbling rapidly and largely forming the soil of the sides 
of the bluiFs. It is probably not more than lifteen or twenty feet in 
thickness. Corresponding with this sandstone, there extends through 
a part of the towns of Wilson, Hart, and part of Norton, a sandstone 
of similar texture, but deeper colored, more firm, and in some cases 
regularly and beautifully corrugated. Overlying this sand- 
stone is magnesian limestone, its layers generally regular, but vary- 
ing in thickness. This is the generally-used building stone of the 
county. This stone does not cliange on exposure, and large quanti- 
ties are used by the railroads and shipped to Wisconsin. There are 
some small specimens of fossil remains to be seen in this limestone. 
In the vicinity of St. Charles the limestone is largely composed of 
fossil remains, trilobites and cretaceous shells of several varieties. 

There are no evidences of northern drift in this county. Probably 
owing to its altitude no boulders are to be found. The clay gener- 
ally exists in pockets, and is stratified. There are some small 
deposits of loess usually in the valleys, and mound-like in appearance. 
Where wells have been sunk in different ]3arts of the county, upon 
the higher lands, the rocks are found to be of nearly uniform char- 
acter, and water is not usually found till the sandstone is reached. 
The well of Mr. Clawson, in Saratoga, presents an unusual phe- 
nomena. At the depth of seventy-five feet the drill opened into a 
crevice or a cave, and the air rushed out with great violence. At the 
distance of four feet more the rock was again struck, and water 
obtained at the depth of one hundred and forty feet from the sur- 
face. The current of air in the well changes with the wind, the 
downward current in winter freezing the water in the pipe to the 
depth of the crevice, seventy or more feet, and again rushing out, so 
as to thaw all the ice about the well. 

In numerous places along the Mississippi, especially upon the 
gravelly headlands, are yet evidences of the mound-builders. 
Where the mounds have been examined little has been discovered 
beyond stone implements, arrow-heads, and in some places skeletons, 
which are no doubt intrusive burials. Large quantities of clam shells 
and bones of various animals are also found, mixed with pieces of 
charcoal and with ashes. In one case a charred package of white 
birch bark was found of nearly a cubic foot in size, and scattered 
about the mounds is usually found much fragmentary rude pottery. 



CHAPTER X. 

RAILROADS. 

Before the ratification of the treat}' by which the Sioux surren- 
dered their hinds for settlement, a party of three, headed by Robert 
Pike, was dispatched from Minnesota City to ascertain whether a 
practicable route for a railroad to Traverse des Sioux, on the Minne- 
sota river, existed. Early in July, 1852, Mr. Pike made a favorable 
report, and urged the adoption of some plan for building the road, 
but he was then accounted an enthusiast, and his scheme dismissed 
as visionary and impracticable. Early in 1854, however, the project 
was revived, and, after several ineffectual attempts at organization, 
a charter was obtained from the legislature March 4, 1854, by 
Orrin Smith, Henry D. Huff, Abram M. Fridley, Lorenzo D. Smith, 
John L. Balcombe, Alexander Ramsey, W. A. Gorman, Henry H. 
Sibley, J. Travis Rosser, Andrew G. Chatfield, Henry McKenty, O. M. 
Lord, Samuel Humbertson, Martin McLeod, Benjamin Thompson, 
William H. Newton, James Hanna, G. Addison Brown and Robert 
Helm, under the name and style of the Transit Railroad Company, 
authorizing them to construct a railroad from Winona westward to 
the Minnesota river. In March, 1855, an amended charter was 
obtained from the legislature, and the incorporators met at St. Paul 
on the 25th of January, 1856, accepted the charter, and gave official 
notice thereof to the secretary of the territory. On the 12th of 
May the sum of $240,000 had been subscribed to the capital stock 
of the company, the subscribers being the following named per- 
sons: L. D. Smith, H. D. Huff, Wm. Ashley Jones, Charles H. 
Berry, M. Wheeler Sargent, H. H. Johnson, E. H. Johnson, H. J. 
LLilbert, E. S. Smith, David Olmsted, M. K. Drew, A. P. Foster, 
Wm. H. Stevens, John Evans, Chas. Hamilton, O. S. Holbrook, 
Orrin Smith, John C. Laird, Win. H. Laird, M. J. Laird, J. H. 
Jacoby, Royal B. Evans and L. H. Springer. All these, with the 
exception of Orrin Smith and L. IL Springer, were residents of 
Winona. The first officers of the comj)any were H. H. Johnson, 
president ; Wm. Ashley Jones, vice-president ; H. J. Hilbert, sec- 
retary and engineer ; H. D. Iluff^ treasurer. 



RAILROADS. 107 

The organization of the company was only the prehide to a pro- 
longed and bitter contest with parties interested in other localities, 
and more particularly with the owners and promoters of the town- 
site of La Crescent. After various vicissitudes, among them the 
defeat in 1854 of H. D. Huft' for the legislature by Clark W. 
Thompson on this issue, the conflict finally resulted in a victory for 
Winona 'and the Transit railroad. Qn the 3d of March, 1857, 
Congress passed an act by which the munificent gift of 1,200,000 
acres of public lands was conferred upon the state for the benefit 
of the Transit road. An extra session of the legislature was 
at once called to consider this and other grants of lands, and 
on the 22d day of May, 1857, an omnibus bill was passed con- 
firming the grants, and amending the charter of the Transit road 
80 as to authorize it to construct and operate a railroad from Winona 
via St. Peter to the Big Sioux river. In February, 1858, what is 
known as the five-million loan amendment to the constitution was 
adopted by the first state legislature, and was ratified by a vote of 
the people April 15, 1858. By the terms of this amendment state 
bonds were to be issued and delivered to tha various railroad com- 
panies at the rate of $100,000 for every ten miles graded and 
bridged ready for the iron, the state taking a first mortgage upon the 
road-bed so graded, together with the lands and franchises of the 
company, as security for the loan. The Transit company at once 
filed their acceptance of the terms of the amendment, and proceeded 
to let the contract for the grading and construction of seventy-five 
miles of the line as surveyed west of Winona. In the letting of this 
first contract, as well as in the location of the line out of Winona, 
there was a most determined effort on the part of a few men to divert 
the road from Winona, and so build it as to eventually make La 
Crescent the eastern terminus. Selah Chamberlain, of Ohio, after- 
ward the builder of several roads in the state, and the largest holder 
of the state bonds issued under the five-million loan amendment, 
was a bidder for the contract. It was understood that if he secured 
it work would be begun at or near Lewiston, and that the matter of 
the eastern terminus would remain unsettled, with a strong proba- 
bility that the road would be diverted down the ridge back of 
Winona to La Crescent. De Graff & Co., also bidders for the con- 
tract, were favored by most of the directors, who were desirous of 
beginning the work of construction at Winona, and thus at the 
outset fixing the terminus and settling that question forever. This 



10<S HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

company was composed of Col. Andrew DeGrali', B. h\ Barnard, 
Hernando Fuller and William DeGrart", Col. DeGraff being the 
head and sole manager of the concern. The contest waxed hot, 
but on the 8th day of June, 1858, the board of directors, after 
])r()tracted discussion, awarded the contract to DeGraff cfe Co. 
Brevious to this time there had been much strife between the 
various town proprietors as, to whether the road should leave the 
city by way of lower town and the Sugar Loaf valley, or from 
upper town via the Rollingstone valley. The history of this feature 
of the matter more properly belongs to that of the city of Winona, 
and will not be further discussed here. The up])er town interest 
won the victory, and on the 9th day of June, 1858, ground was 
broken at or near the present machine-shops, the event being duly 
(.•elebrated by the delighted people. 

DeGrali' & Company were strictly loyal to Winona, although 
tem])ting offers were made them to carry out the plans of the La 
Orescent men, and the work of grading the road went rapidly for- 
ward during the following summer and winter, until fifty miles of 
grading and bridging had been completed, inspected and accepted 
by the state authorities, and $500,000 of state bonds delivered to 
the company. Then came the financial crisis of 1858-9. These bonds 
were denounced as illegal and fraudulent. They became almost 
valueless in the market, and all work came to a standstill. DeGraff 
& Company were unable to pay their men for work and supplies, 
and much hardship resulted. Upon default in the terms of the 
mortgage given by the Transit company to secure the loan made by 
the state, a foreclosure was had, and on June 23, 1860, the road 
franchises, and other grants, including lands, were sold to the state 
for the nominal sum of one thousand dollars. March 8, 1861, the 
the legislature granted and transferred all claim upon the property 
to Orville Clark, Abraham Wing, John W. Kirk, Eobert Higham, 
W. H. Smith, Nelson P. Stewart and B. W. Perkins, and consti- 
tuted them a cor]3oration undei- the. name of the Winona, St. Peter 
& Missouri River Railroad C'onipany, upon condition that the 
road be fully equipped and trains running to Rochester and Owa- 
tonna at certain fixed times. No attempt having been made to 
comply with these conditions, the legislature, on March 10, 1862, 
made a similar grant to William Lamb, S. S. L'llomedieu, John 
W. Kirk, Herman Gebhart and H. C. Stimson, under the name and 
stvle of the Winona & Saint Peter Railroad Comi)any, free and 



RAILKOADS. 109 

clear of all claims and liens upon the property, and upon much more 
lenient conditions. Work was at once resumed hy the new owners, 
and on December 9, 1862, a passenger train was run by Col. De- 
Graff from Winona to Stockton and back, the day. being marked by 
another enthusiastic celebration. December 10, 1862, the first car- 
load of wheat was shipped to Winona by L. Kaymond and pur- 
chased by Asa Forsyth. From this time the work of construction 
proceeded rapidly. In 1864 the trains reached Rochester, a distance 
of fifty miles from Winona. In 1865 the road was completed sixty- 
six miles to Kasson ; in 1866, ninety miles to Owatonna ; in 1868, 
one hundred and six miles to Waseca ; in 1870, one hundred and 
thirty-nine miles to Mankato and St. Peter ; in 1871, one hundred 
and sixty-five miles to New Ulm ; in 1872 two hundred and eighty- 
four miles of track were completed west of Winona, and the grading 
extended three hundred and thirty-one miles to Lake Kampeska in 
Dakota Territory. Iij 1879 an^other line, diverging from the old 
track at Tracy, in Lyon county, was begun and pushed with such 
energy that in two years trains were running to Old Fort Pierre, on 
the Missouri river, connecting with daily stages for the Black Hills. 
The entire property, save the land grant, had, however, in Novem- 
ber, 1867, passed into the hands of the Chicago & Northwestern 
Railroad Company and become a part of that great system, although 
still retaining its name and corporate existence. The lands thus 
separated from the general ownership of the company and its 
franchises became the property of A. H. Barney and a company 
of New York capitalists, and are still so owned, excepting those 
since sold to settlers. A branch from Eyota to Chatfield was 
opened for business December 8, 1878 ; from Eyota to Plain- 
view October 22, 1878 ; from Rochester to Zumbrota November 2, 
1878 ; from Sleepy Eye to Redwood Falls August 4, 1878 ; from 
Huron to Ordway November 20, 1881 ; from Watertown to Clark 
Centre June 18, 1882 ; from Yolga to Castlewood September 29, 
1882; from Clark Centre to Redfield October 22, 1882; from 
Ordway to Columbia October 22, 1882, making a grand total of 863 
miles of this road now directly tributary to Winona. 

The following named men, prominent in the railroad history of 
the West, have been connected with the Winona & St. Peter 
company : S. S. Merrell, now general manager of the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, was general manager of the Winona 
and St. Peter railroad from February to May, 1865. Dwight W. 



110 HISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Keyes, now assistant general freiglit agent of the Chicago, Milwau- 
kee ife St. Paul raih-oad, came with Mr. Merrell to the Winona & 
St. Peter company as auditor, and was lett in cliarge of the road 
in May, 1865. John Newell, now general manager of the Lake 
Shore & Michigan Southern railroad, was at that time superin- 
tendent and cliief engineer. H. C. Atkins, now assistant general 
superintendent of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, was 
superintendent of the Winona & St. Peter railroad during the years 
1866 and 1867, being succeeded by J. H. Stewart, now superin- 
tendent of the Marietta & Cincinnati railroad. Gen. J. W Sprague, 
late general superintendent of the western division of tlie Northern 
Pacific railroad, at the same time becoming general manager of the 
Winona & St. Peter railroad. April 20, 1874, J. H. Stewart was 
succeeded by Sherburn Sanborn as superintendent, a position which 
he still occupies. 

The magnificent iron bridge across the Mississippi river used by 
this road was built during the winter of 1871-2. The draw-span of 
this bridge is said to be one of the longest in the world (363 feet). 
It takes the place of a combination wood and iron draw-span built 
in the winter of 1870-1, which fell on the 27th day of May, 1871, 
and was entirely removed. This bridge forms a connection with the 
La Crosse, Trempealeau & Prescott railroad, of which mention will 
be made hereafter. The bridge was constructed for the company 
by the American Bridge Company, of Chicago ; the piling was done 
by Frank A. Johnston, and the stonework by Jones & Butler, of 
Winona. The shops of this company are located at the west end 
of the city, are large and fully equipped for the business of keep- 
ing the road-bed and rolling stock of the road in the best condition. 
They have been fully described among the institutions of the city of 
Winona. 

St. Paul & Chicago Railway. — The coi-porate name of this com- 
pany in the original charter, dated May 22, 1857, was the Minnesota 
& Pacific Eailroad Company. By an act of the legislature approved 
March 2, 1867, the directors were authorized to change the name of 
the company or that of any of the branches of the road provided for 
in their charter. Accordingly, on the 19th day of March the board of 
directors gave the name of "The St. Paul & Chicago Railway" to 
that part of their line to extend from St. Paul to Winona and thence 
to the Iowa line. Work was begun upon this line at or near St. Paul 
in 1865, but nothing was done in Winona county until 1870, when 



EAILE0AD8. HI 

the road was built from Minnesota City to Weaver and put in opera- 
tion by the Northwestern Railroad Company. In 1871 the road- 
bed was completed between St. Peter Junction and St. Paul, and in 
December of that year was sold to the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul Railroad Company, who immediately took possession, and 
began operating the road in connection with their line from Chicago 
and Milwaukee to La Crosse, making connection over the La Crosse, 
Trempealeau & Prescott rqad and the bridge at Winona when com- 
pleted. In 1872, however, the road was extended from St. Peter 
Junction to La Crescent, on the west side of the Mississippi river, 
and thereafter all freight trains used this rcmte, being ferried across 
the Mississippi to La Crosse. Passenger trains, however, continued 
to run over the Winona bridge and the La Crosse, Trempealeau & 
Prescott road until 1875, when the magnificent iron bridge between 
La Crescent and North La Crosse was completed and brought into 
use for all traffic over the Milwaukee & St. Paul line. As a bonus 
for the construction of this line the city of Winona, on the 21st day 
of April, 1870, voted and thereafter issued $100,000 of its bonds, to 
be delivered upon the fulfillment of certain conditions by the com- 
pany. The bonds having been prematurely delivered to the con- 
struction company, suit was brought by the city, in which, after 
protracted litigation, it was finally determined that the prescribed 
conditions had not been fulfilled, and that the city have damages 
equal to the amount of the^ bonds, with interest, which sum has 
been paid. 

The La Crosse, Trempealeau and Prescott Railroad. — After the 
passage of the bill by congress, March 3, 1857, providing for cer- 
tain land grants to aid in the construction of railroads in Min- 
nesota, and among them the Transit railroad, with its eastern 
terminus at Winona, the next important project was to connect 
Winona and the Transit railroad with the railroads in Wisconsin 
and Illinois, and through them with the railroad system of the 
United States. It was also proposed by means of this connection 
to cut oft' La Crosse, Winona's most formidable rival, from the 
benefits of northern and western connections, as it was thought 
that but one road would ever cross the Mississippi river in this 
section of country. It was therefore resolved to keep the matter 
of this "cut off;" or eastern connection, in the hands of Winona 
men. In the winter of 1858-9, in the midst of the pinching 
hard times brought on by the financial crisis of that time, Capt. 



112 JIISTOUY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Sam Whiting, Thomas Simpson and M. K. Drew started out 
one severely cold day to look out a practicable route for a 
railroad east from Winona to a point of intersection with the pro- 
posed line of the Milwaukee & La Crosse railroad. They cut 
their way from Altoona, now Bluff Sidini;^, through the swamps, and 
camped the first night in the heavy timber. The next morning, 
after eating frozen bread and meat for breakfast, they proceeded 
with their work, and in about half-an-hour came out upon a prairie 
covered with fenced fields and farm-houses. They had spent a night 
in the snow, which Capt. Whiting said was equal to any of his 
arctic experiences, within half a mile of a substantial and comforta- 
ble farm-house. The people of Winona had been so occupied with 
their own great prospects and those of the country west of them, that 
they had no knowledge of this well-settled country just east of them. 
The following spring Z, H. liake and Thomas Simpson were again 
sent over the proposed route, antl instructed to go to La Crosse to see 
if that city would not unite with Winona in building this- connection, 
the extreme hard times having somewhat modified the ambitions and 
claims of Winona. A preliminary survey of the route was made by 
these gentlemen, which coincides almost exactly with the line as 
afterward built. They met with a very cool reception at La Crosse, 
being informed that that city would have nothing to do with the 
{)roject, and that they would prevent if possible the granting of a 
charter by the Wisconsin legislature. Subsequent investigation, how- 
ever, developed the fact that several years before a charter had been 
granted by the legislature of Wisconsin to some parties to build a 
railroad from a point at or near La Crosse to Point Douglas 3, 
opposite Hastings, to be called the La Crosse, Trempealeau, Lake 
Pepin & Prescott railroad, and that this old charter had been 
kept alive. Possession of it was obtained, the company reorganized, 
and Timothy Kirk, Thomas E. Bennett, M. K. Drew, William 
Mitchell, Thomas Wilson, Thomas Simpson, A. W. Webster, and 
five men from Trempealeau, were elected directors. Thomas Simp- 
son was elected president ; A. W, Webster, vice-president ; J. H. 
Newland, secretary, and Thomas E. Bennett, treasurer. The com- 
pany began at once to locate the line, obtained riglit of way, etc., 
in order to secure vested rights before the Wisconsin legislature 
could convene and repeal the charter. But no money was to be 
had. N. F. Ililbert was employed as chief engineer, to be paid 
whenever the company became able to pay. Others were employed 



RAILROADS. 1 1 8 

upon similar terms. To board the force, a subscription in provi- 
sions and supplies was taken up among the citizens of Winona. 
Upon this subscription being read at a large meeting of all interested, 
the following items appeared together: "P. W. Gaines & Co., ^ 
bbl. wliisky. Robert Clapperton, 1 loaf bread." 

Wm. Lamb, who had been appointed superintendent of con- 
struction, rose and interrupted the reading with the remark that 
there was altogether too much bread for that quantity of whisky. 

The company succeeded in holding their charter, and work was 
kept up until an agreement was made with parties interested in 
the Chicago & Korth western company to complete it and make 
it a part of that great system, which was done in 1870. The road 
is still owned and operated by that company, but under the original 
charter and organization. 

Green Bay, Lake Pepin cfe Minnesota Railroad. — In February 
1873, a proposition was made by the officers of the above-named 
road to extend its line from Merrillan, Wisconsin, to Winona, pro- 
vided the city would grant them a bonus of $100,000. As the 
line would form a valuable connection with the lake system of 
navigation, and also furnish the city directly with many of the 
products of the Wisconsin forests, a very decided disposition to 
accept this proposition was manifested by the citizens of Winona. 
A series of public gatherings terminated in a large meeting of 
citizens, at which it was determined by a general expression to 
accept the proposition, President Ketchum, of the railroad com- 
pany, being present at the meeting. A committee of eight lead- 
ing citizens was selected and "instructed to proceed to St. Paul 
and procure from the legislature tlien in session autliority for 
the city to take the necessary steps in granting the required aid. 
This committee accordingly went to St. Paul and had the proper 
bill introduced for the purpose, but only one day remaining of the 
session it failed to pass from lack of time. The committee returned, 
and the company, learning of the failure to secure legislation, modi- 
fied their proposition and suggested that the citizens should secure 
them the sum named by subscription or otherwise. Anotlier meet- 
ing of citizens was held, and a committee appointed to wait upon 
and confer with the city council upon the matter in hand. As the 
result of such conference tlie city council, on March 14, 1873, adopted 
the following resolutions : 

'^Be it resolved^ by the city council of the city of Winona, that 



114 HISTORY OF WINONA COtTNTY. 

fifty thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be practicable, 
shall be raised for the purpose of securing the terminus of the Green 
Bay & Lake Pepin railroad at the city of Winona, under and 
pursuant to the recommendation of the committee appointed by the 
city council to confer upon said matter, on March 12, 1873. 

'■''And it is farther resolved^ that the city of Winona hereby 
pledges its faith to repay to each and every person, his heirs or 
assigns, all sums of money which said person or ]>ersons shall ad- 
vance for that purpose, with interest on the sums so advanced not 
to exceed the rate of ten per cent per annum; jjvovided aknays^ 
that the obligation so made and taken shall in no event bind the 
city to such repayment unless the proper legal authority for such 
repayment be obtained. 

'■'•Resolved^ That the recorder be authorized and is hereby required 
to have prepared, and to issue and deliver under his hand as recorder 
and the seal of said city, to each person advancing money for the 
above purpose, a certificate for all sums so advanced by each person 
respectively, bearing interest as aforesaid. 

'-'■ Resolved, Tiiat as soon as practicable j)roper legislation author- 
izing and legalizing the present action of the city council, so far as 
such legislation may be necessary, or any other needed legislation, 
shall be obtained." 

Upon the basis of this action on the part of the city council a 
canvassing committee was set at work, and the sum of $35,000 
subscribed by the citizens for the purpose set forth above. The 
railroad company, upon being notified of the result, finally accepted 
the situation, and proceeded during the summer and fall of 1873 to 
build the road as projiosed. An act of the legislature authorizing 
tlie city to make good its agreement with the subscribers, but un- 
wisely providing for making up the amount to $50,000 for the 
com})any, was approved February 5, 1874, the act providing, how- 
ever, that the question should be submitted to the people at a general 
or special election upon five days' notice by publication. A special 
election was accordingly called for and held on February 23, 1874, 
which resulted in a defeat of the proposed bonds, largely on account 
of the provision for making up the sum to be paid the company to 
$50,000, the vote standing 275 for to 785 against it. The citizens 
were justified in this vote for the reason that it was sought to make 
the city liable for $15,000 more than the amount of the subscrip- 
tion, a provision in the bill insisted on by the representatives of the 



KAILROADS. 115 

-company, but for which the subscribers, ahuost without exception, 
were in no way chargeable. Chagrined and disappointed at this 
result, and there being grave doubt of their legal liability, the 
subscribers refused to pay their subscriptions ; but suits were insti- 
tuted by the company in the United States circuit court against 
them, and a test case being carried to a final decision it was held 
that the subscribers were liable, and the several amounts were 
accordingly paid over, each subscriber receiving, according to the 
original agreement, stock of the company to the amount of his 
subscription, which stock was not and never has become of any 
considerable value. 

There still being a widespread feeling that the subscribers to the 
bonus had suffered an injustice, another act of the legislature was 
obtained March 6, 1876, providing for a special election in April of 
that year to determine whether the city would indemnify the sub- 
scribers by an issue of its bonds in the amount of the subscriptions 
actually paid, the- city to take the stock originally issued to the sub- 
scribers. Accordingly an election was called and^ held on April 3, 
but although every moral, if not legal, obligation rested upon the 
city to indemnify its public-spirited citizens for the money paid by 
them to secure a railroad connection of conceded value to the town, 
the proposition again failed to carry, the vote being 737 for to 1004 
against the bonds, and here the matter rests. The road has since 
practically passed into the hands of John I. Blair, of New Jersey, 
and its name has been changed to the Green Bay, Winona & St. Paul 
Railroad Company. 

Winona and Southwestern Bailroad. — In February, 1856, the 
legislature of the territory incorporated the Winona & La Crosse 
Railroad Company, with authority to build and operate a railroad 
from Winona to a point opposite La Crosse, Wisconsin. February 
9, 1872, the state legislature passed an act reviving this old charter 
and amending it so as to incorporate the Winona & Southwestern 
Railroad Company, composed of the following named persons, viz : 
William Windom, Thomas Simpson, Wm. H. Yale, J. C. Fasten, 
John Robson, William Mitchell, H. W. Lamberton, M. G. Norton, 
E. S. Youmans, R. D. Cone, Thomas Wilson, M. K. Drew, E. D. 
Williams, Geo. P. Wilson, Thomas Abbott and Ignatius O'Ferral, 
and authorizing the building, equipment and operation of a railroad 
from Winona to the Iowa line east of range 14 and west of the 
fifth principal merixlian, and also granting the right to extend the 



116 HISTORY O?^ WINONA COUNTY. 

line, by the most feasible route, from Winona to St. Paul and 
Minneapolis, the road to be completed and equipped within four 
years from the date of the act. 

At a meeting of the incorporators held at Winona April IH, 
1872, William Mitchell was elected president; E. D. Williams, vice- 
president; Thomas Simpson, secretary, and M. G. Norton, treasurer. 
William Mitchell, John llobson and H. W. Lamberton were made an 
executive committee, and E. S. Youmans, Ignatius O'Ferral and 
M. G. Norton were appointed commissi(mers to receive subscriptions 
to the stock of the company, to collect five per centum thereon 
for the expenses of a survey and for the purchase of necessary mai)S, 
profiles, etc., for the use of the company. Stock to the amount of 
$67,500 was subscribed. At the same session of the legislature 
an act was passed authorizing the city of Winona and the towns and 
villages on the proposed line of the road to vote a five per cent tax 
in aid of the road. Under this authority the city of Winona, on 
April 9, 1872, at a special election voted bonds -to aid in the con- 
struction of the road to the amount of $150,000. Several of the 
towns in Winona and Fillmore counties, and the village of Chat- 
field, voted liberal bonuses to the road. Two or more surveys were 
made under the direction of N. F. Hilbert, one by way of Saratoga 
and Fremont, the other by way of the Money Creek valley. For a 
time there was every prospect that the road would be built. It 
would have furnished an invaluable outlet for the lumber and other 
products of the Winona manufactories, and would have been a 
potent element in tlie growth of the city. The severe financial 
crisis of 1873, however, and the subsequent hard times, brought 
delays and embarrassments which prevented tlie building of the 
road, and it still remains one of the ''glorious possibilities." In 
1875 it was voted by the company to accept the proposition of certain 
Iowa parties to build a narrow-gauge road from Ilesper, Iowa, to 
Houston, Minnesota, provided the company would build a similar 
road from Winona to Houston. Money was raised and a prelimi- 
nary survey made, but nothing further came of the project. The 
charter was extended by the legislature of 1873, and by reason of 
the surveys and o^her work done thereunder is considered to be 
still alive. Both the line to the southwest and the one from Winona 
to St. Paul are still feasible, and would be valuable to the builders 
as well as to Winona and the territory tlirough which they would 
pass. 



CHAPTER XI. 



NAVIGATION. 



The " Father of Waters " forms the eastern boundary of Winona 
county, and with its various channels and sloughs constitutes the 
only navigable water in the county. Probably the first white man 
who traversed the forty-five miles of its length in which we are now 
interested was Father Hennepin, who in the month of April, 1680, 
explored the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois to the falls 
of St. Anthony. In the month of May, 1689, Nicholas Perrot, 
accompanied by Le Sueur, Father Marest and others, sailed up the 
Mississippi from the mouth of Wisconsin river to the mouth of the 
St. Croix, and formally took possession of the country in the name 
of the king of France. In September of the year 1700 Le Sueur 
passed upward with a party of Frenchmen to explore and work 
some reported mines near the mouth of the Chippewa river. In the 
year 1766 that enterprising Connecticut Yankee, Jonathan Carver, 
traveled extensively in the Northwest, and on October 29 of that 
year passed by the future county of Winona, noting in his journal 
some shrewd observations upon the numerous mounds which he 
saw along the shores and bluffs. In September, 1805, Lieut. Zebu- 
Ion Pike visited this region by order of President Jefferson, to expel 
British traders, who were found violating the laws, and to form alli- 
ances with the Indians. In the summer of 1819 a party of officers 
and soldiers, with their wives and children, passed by our county 
in keelboats on their way to establish a post at the mouth of the 
Minnesota river, by order of John C. Calhoun, then secretary of 
war. The next year Gov. Cass of Michigan headed an exploring 
expedition by way of the lakes, and, descending the Mississippi in 
canoes, spent the afternoon of August 4 at Wapashaw village, the 
site of the present city of Winona. 

Previous to the year 1823 it had been supposed that the rapids 
at Rock Island were an insurmountable barrier to the navigation of 
the upper Mississippi ; but on the second day of May of that year 
the Virginia, a steamer one hundred and eighteen feet in length, 
left her moorings at St. Louis, destined for Fort Snelling. Success- 
fully passing the rapids, this pioneer craft made her way slowly up 



118 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

the Mississippi, producing the greatest terror and consternation 
among the Indians, who supposed that it was some enormous water- 
spirit, coughing, puffing out liot breath and splashing the water in 
all directions. This pioneer steamer passed Wabasha prairie toward 
the last of the month and reached P''ort Snelling in safety. From 
this time occasional trips were made as the necessity of the govern- 
ment and trading-posts required. Among the great number of steam- 
ers wliich have passed and repassed the county in years gone by, all 
old settlers will remember the Minnesota Belle, Gray Eagle, War 
Eagle, Northern Belle, Nominee, Ben Corson, The Adelia, Frank 
Steele, Keokuk, Jeanette, Tishimingo, Aimie Johnson, Addie John- 
son, Phil. Sheridan, and many others. 

Of the captains of all these and other unnamed steamers Capt. 
Smith Harris and Capt. Orrin Smith are most frequently mentioned. 
The latter was one of the earliest proprietors and admirers of the 
town site of Winona, and the former, being interested in Kasota, and 
otlier towns on the Minnesota river, was never tired of pointing out 
the disadvantages of Wabasha prairie. It is said that during the 
higli water in 1 852, in order to demonsti-ate the truth of his state- 
ment that Smith's town was on a mere sand-bar in the Mississipjn, 
he ran his boat straight by Minneowah up into Lake Winona, and 
out across near the Denman farm into Crooked Slough and the river 
again. Captains Hatcher and Bryant, long in the service, afterward 
made their homes in Winona. Before the day of railroads great 
importance attaclied to the coming and going of these river steamers, 
which formed the only connection with the outside world. The 
familiar whistle of a steamboat would frequently cause a stampede 
even from the church service or prayer meeting, particularly if it 
was the first boat of the season. 

The following table shows the arrivals of the first boat for a 
period of years commencing with 1856: 

1856. Alhambra, April 8. 1870. Keokuk, April 5. 

1857. Hamburg, April 2. 1871. Addie Johnston, March 18. 

1858. Brazil, March 2.3. 1872. Belle of La Crosse, April 9. 

1859. Grey Eagle, March 18. 1873. Union, April 3. 

186(). Chippewa, INIarch 13. 1874. Northwestern, April 6. 

18()1. Northern Light, March 26. 1875. Lake Superior, April 12. 

1862. Keokuk, April 2. 1876. Dubuque, April 10. 

1863. Keokuk, March 20. 1877. Red Wing, April 11. 

1864. Union, M:irch Hi. 1878. Penguin, March 12. 

1865. Lansing, March 30. ' 1879. Maggie Keaney, April 4. 
186(). Addie .Johnston, Ai)ril 13. 1880. Belle of Bellvue, March 22. 

1867. City of St. Paul, April 13. 1881. Josie, April 24. 

1868. Diamond Jo, March 21. 1882. Robert Harris, March 1. 

1869. Buckeye, April 6. 



COURTS AND OFFICERS OF THE COURTS. 



119 



The following table shows the dates of the closing of navigation 
for a series of years: 



1856 November 27 

1857 November 19 

1858 ■ December 2 

1859 December 3 

1860 •• November 24 

1861 November 27 

1862 December 1 

1863 November 27 

1864 December 4 

1865 December 5 

1866 December 9 

1867 December 5 

1868 December 8 

1869 December 18 



1870 December 15 

1871 November 22 

1872 November22 

1873 November29 

1874 November 30 

1875 November20 

1876 December 1 

1877 December 8 

1878 December 13 

1879 December 12 

1880 November20 

1881 Jamiary 2, 1882 

1882 December 6 



CHAPTER XII. 



COURTS AND OFFICERS OF THE COURTS. 

The territorial courts of record were organized under the act of 
congress passed March 3, 1849, called the "Organic act," supple- 
mented by acts passed from time to time by the territorial legis- 
lature. By the organic act three judges were provided for, which 
were appointed by the president, "by and with the advice and con- 
sent of tiie senate." One was styled "chief-justice," the other two 
"associate-justices." These together constituted the supreme court, 
one term of which was required to be held annually at the seat of 
government of the territory. It was also provided that the terri- 
tory should "be divided into three judicial districts," in each of 
which a district court was required to be held by one of the justices 
of the supreme court, at such times and places as the territorial 
legislature might prescribe, and that "the said judges shall, after 
their appointment, respectively, reside in the districts which shall 
be assigned them." Each district court, or the judge thereof, was 
by such act empowered to appoint its own clerk, which clerk was 
to hold his office at tlie pleasure of the court. The supreme court 
and district courts were invested with chancery as well as common 
law jurisdiction. The extent of this jurisdiction of these courts was 
substantially the same as like courts under the present constitution 
of the state ; that of the several district courts was general. By 



120 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

act of the territorial legislature the territory now included within the 
limits of Winona county was made a part of the first judicial dis- 
trict, and so remained until the adoption of the constitution. Pre- 
vious to February 23, 1854, what is now Winona county was a part of 
the county of Fillmore. On the day last above named Winona 
county was formed and organized for judicial and other purposes. 
Up to this time the writer is not aware that any term of the district 
court was held in P'illmore county, though all other county business 
affecting this section, such as filing plats of town sites, recording 
deeds and the levy of taxes, was done at the county seat of F'illmore 
county, then located at Chatfield. 

At the date of our county organization Hon. Wm. H. Welch 
was chief-justice of the territory, to whom was assigned the first 
judicial district. He was therefore the first judge of the district 
court in and for this county. He resided at Red Wing, in the 
county of Goodhue. He continued to fill that ofiice until January 
1, 18.58, when the territorial judicial officers were superseded by 
judgef^ elected under the state constitution adopted at the fall elec- 
tion in 1857. Much of the good order of our judicial affairs in ter- 
ritorial times, and the ease and regularity with which our state courts 
were organized and went into efiect,^were due to this judge. W^hile 
he was not a man of great learning or superior ability, as the world 
recognizes learning and ability, yet he had the rare quality in a 
judge of commanding universal confidence, a feeling among all that 
the judicial authority was reposed in proper hands. Judge Welch 
died at his home in Red Wing. 

At the fall election in 1857 Hon. Thomas Wilson was chosen as 
judge of the third judicial district of the state, comprising the coun- 
ties of Houston, Fillmore, Olmsted, Wabasha and Winona. With 
the beginning of the year 1858, pursuant to a ])rovision of the state 
constitution, but before the formal admission of the state by congress 
Judge Wilson entered upon his duties as judge, and continued to 
hold until 1864, when, having been appointed to the supreme 
court, he resigned the office of district judge, and Hon. Lloyd 
Barber, of Olmsted county, was appointed to fill the vacancy so 
made. He was elected at the fall election in 1864, for the full term 
of seven years, and held the office until succeeded by Hon. C. N. 
Waterman, January 4, 1872. Judge Waterman held the oflfice 
until his death, which occurred February IS, 1873, and was suc- 
ceeded by Hon. John Van Dyke, who was appointed for the 



COURTS AN-D OFFICERS OF THE COURTS. 121 

remainder of the year 1873. At the fall election of that year Hon. 
Wm. Mitchell was elected for the full term of seven years, 
from the beginning of 1874. He discharged the duties during this 
term, and in 1880 was re-elected for another term, to commence with 
the ensuing year. At . the session of the legislature of 1881 the 
number of judges composing the supreme court was increased to 
five. This made it necessary that two judges should be appointed 
to the supreme court until after the next ensuing general election. 
Judge Mitchell was selected as one of the new judges, and Hon. C. 
M. Start, then attorney-general of the state, but residing in the 
third judicial district, at Kochester, Olmsted county, was ap- 
pointed district judge, to succeed Judge Mitchell, At the general 
election in November, 1881, Judge Start was elected for a full term, 
commencing with the year 1882. At this writing, January 1, 1883, 
Judge Start is in the discharge of his official duties. 

Of the seven judges who have presided in our district courts, 
three. Judge Welch, Judge Waterman and Judge Van Dyke, are 
dead. All the others are still living within the district, and 
engaged in the duties of their profession. 

Clerks. — As before stated, during our territorial existence clerks 
of district courts held by appointment of the judge and during his 
pleasure. The first clerk of the district court in and for Winona 
county was Martin Wheeler Sargeant. He was appointed by Judge 
Welch in 1854, and held until superseded by the appointment of 
John Keyes, on or about July 14, 1856. The record of Mr. Keyes' 
appointment cannot be found, but his first official act as clerk 
bears date on that day. Mr. Keyes continued to hold the office 
until after the admission of the statein to the Union under the state 
organization, his last official act as clerk bearing date May 25, 
1858. Under the constitution the office of clerk was made elective, 
and at the general election in October, 1857, Henry C. Lester was 
elected clerk, and entered on the discharge of his duties on the re- 
tirement of Mr. Keyes. He held the office until April 27, 1861. 
He resigned to enter the volunteer service of the United States in 
the war of the rebellion. He was succeeded by E. A. Gerdtzen, 
who was appointed in place of Col. Lester until the next general 
election, at which he was elected, and by subsequent elections held 
without interruption for nearly seventeen years. In November, 
1877, John M. Sheardown was elected, has been re-elected, and still 
holds the office. 



122 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Of the five persons who have held the office, two, Mr. Sargeant 
and Mr. Keyes, are deceased; Col. Lester has removed from the 
state, while Messrs. Gerdtzen and Sheardown still reside at the city 
of Winona. 

DistHct and County Attorneys. — Under.the territorial organiza- 
tion, the United States attorney, as lie was called, usually attended 
at the sessions of the district courts, and performed most of the 
duties now devolving upon county attorneys. An officer called a 
district attorney was also provided for by territorial statute, and was 
elected in each of the organized counties. In the act organizing 
the county of Winona, approved February 23, 1854, such officer 
was to be elected at an election to be held in A])ril of that year. 
The election was duly held, and C. F. Buck, Esq., then residing at 
Minneowa, was elected. We may say in passing that the village 
of Minneowa was a rival of Winona for metropolitan honors, and 
stood on the Mississippi river, about one mile above the present 
village of Homer. The cui-ious in such matters may still find some 
traces of it on the river bank, and especially in the office of the 
register of deeds, where the plat was recorded. Its proprietors 
were Isaac Van Etten, William L. Ames, brother of Oakes Ames, 
of credit mohiller and Union Pacific railroad fame. Governor 
Willis A. Gorman, and S. K Babcock, all of St. Paul. The 
fact is noteworthy as showing the confidence of shrewd and far- 
seeing men in the tlien future existence of the city of southern 
Minnesota at or near this point. Their selection was probabl}'^ made 
more from an examination of the territorial map than of the respect- 
ive sites of Minneowa and Winona. If not, time has demonstrated 
that, however close they shot to the mark in this their judgment 
was slightly at fault. But to return to the district attorney. Mr. 
Buck held the office until the beginning of 1856. Edwin M. Bierce 
had been elected in the fall of 1855, and held the office dui'ing the 
years 1856 and 1857. B3' the constitution adopted in that year 
it was provided that "each judicial district might elect one prose- 
cuting attorney for the district." Under this provision Sam Cole, 
Esq., was elected "prosecuting attorney" for the third judicial dis- 
trict, comprising the counties of Houston, Fillmore, Olmsted, Wa- 
basha and Winona. Although this office was wholly unknown to 
territorial laws, continued in force by the constitution, and no state 
legislation had been had to sup[)ly the deficiency, still Mr. Cole, as 



COURTS AND OFFICERS OF TJIE COURTS. 125 

an officer of the courts, qualified with the judges at the beginning of 
the year 1858. As no legislation was ever liad upon the subject of 
the duties of this office, we shall probably continue in ignorance as 
to what they were. Practically Mr. Cole did about what the United 
States attorney had done in territorial times, and which comprised 
about all that was required under the statutes of the district attorney. 
The effect of it was in a large degree to supersede the last-named 
officer, and for two years no district attorney was elected in "Winona 
county. In this county at least the constitution operated as an 
extinguishment of the office. 

By act of February 6, 1860, the office of county attorney as now 
existing was created. Under this act the board of supervisors of 
Winona county, on the 15th day of March, 1860, appointed one 
A. S. Seaton county attorney, who held the office until the 1st 
of January, 1861. 

At the general election in 1860 Hon. William H. Yale was 
elected, and held the office one term of two years. On the 1st of 
January, 1863, he was succeeded by Hon. William Mitchell, who was 
county attorney during the years 1863 and 1864. Mr. Yale, in the 
fall of 1864, was re-elected, and held during the years 1865 and 
1866. He was succeeded at the beginning of 1867 by Hon. George 
P. Wilson who, by re-election was continued in office until the 
beginning of 1871, when he was succeeded, by Norman Buck. Mr. 
Buck held during the years 1873 and 1874, and was succeeded by 
A. H. Snow, Esq., who by re-election held from the beginning of 
1875 to the 1st of January, 18^9. Mr. A. N. Bentley then suc- 
ceeded for one term, followed by Mr. M. B. Webber, one term, 
closing with 1882. At the fall election in 1882 Mr. Patrick Fitz- 
patrick was elected, and now holds the office. Of the twelve persons 
who have held these offices, only one (Mr. Cole) is known to have 
died. Both A. S. Seaton and E. M. Bierce left this county about 
1860, since which little or nothing seems to be known of either. 
Mr. Buck is now associate justice of the territory of Idaho. Hon. 
George P. Wilson is following his profession at Fargo, Dakota 
Territory. All others still reside in the city of Winona. 

Sheriffs. — The first sheriff of the county was John lames. He 
was elected on the first Tuesday in April, 1854. He was succeeded 
by Cliarles liaton, who was elected in the fall of 1855, and held the 
office for two years. At the election in 1857 Mr. F. E. Whiton was 
elected, and held during the years 1858 and 1859. At the fall elec- 



126 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

tion in 1859 Messrs. L. R. King and E. D. Williams were opposing 
candidates for this office. The canvass was close and spirited, and 
the register of deeds, whose duty it was "to canvass the votes," was 
unable to determine which had been the successful candidate. The 
greatest number of votes cast at the election for one office was 2,023. 
As allowed by the register, the whole immber of votes cast for both 
candidates for sheriff was 1,970. In reaching this result votes were 
rejected as irregular, and the conclusion was arrived at that each 
candidate had received 985, making it "a tie." It thus became 
necessary to decide "by lot" which of the candidates was elected. 
Various stories were told as to how this "casting of lots" was per- 
formed — one to the effect that a game of "euchre" was played 
between two persons, each representing one of the opposing candi- 
dates. The writer cannot affirm that such was the fact, though the 
circumstantiality of the account, other things considered, gives it 
some weight. But, however the lot was cast, Mr. King was declared 
elected, and to him was awarded the certificate. The case was then 
taken by appeal to the district court, Judge Wilson presiding. After 
a long and patient hearing the decision of the canvassing officer was 
affirmed, and Mr. King was declared sheriff. By re-election from 
term to term he held the office without interruption for eiglit years. 
J. F. Martin was his successor, beginning with the year 1868. Mr. 
Martin was twice re-elected and held for six years, and was succeeded 
at the close of 1873 by Wm. H. Dill. Mr. Dill was re-elected three 
times in succession, and held the office in all eight years, ending 
with the year 1881. Mr. E. Y. Bogart succeeded and is now (1883) 
in office. Ex-Sheriffs lames, Whiton and King are deceased. 

Probate Cmtrts. — By the act of congress organizing the terri- 
tory probate courts were established. A special election, to be held 
in April, 1854, was authorized for the election of county officers by 
act organizing the county of Winona. A judge of probate was 
one of the officers to be elected. Andrew Cole was elected. He 
held tlie office until January 1, 1855, when he was succeeded by 
Alfred P. Foster. Mr. Foster filled the office until October 10, 1856, 
when it was made vacant by the removal of Judge Foster from the 
territory, and on that date Sam Cole was appointed to fill the vacancy. 
E. II. Murray succeeded by election, and held during the years 1857 
and 1858, followed by Warren Powers, who was elected in the fall 
of 1858. By re-election Judge Powers held until his death, which 
occurred in June, 1865. He was succeeded by Mr. Norman Buck, 



BANKESTG IN WINONA COUNTY. 127 

who was appointed to fill the vacancy in July of that year. In the 
fall of 1865 Judge Buck was elected. He held the office until the 
fall of 1867, when he resigned, and was succeeded for the remainder 
of the year by appointment of C. N. Wakeiield. At the general 
election in the fall of 1868 Jacob Story was elected to the office. 
Judge Story has been re-elected at the expiration of each succeeding 
term, and is still the incumbent of the office. Aside from Mr. E. A. 
Gerdtzen's tenure of the office of clerk of the district court, which 
was about seventeen years. Judge Story has enjoyed a longer official 
term than any other officer of Winona county. 



CHAPTEE XIII. 



BANKING IN WINONA COUNTY. 



As is generally the case in new towns, several branches of 
business are conducted by the same person or firm. It was so in 
Winona in the banking business. The United States land office 
for the Winona land district, having been opened in Winona in 
December, 1851, land agents, money loaners and speculators in real 
estate soon followed. 

The first office of this kind was opened in June in 1855, by Will- 
iam Ashley Jones, Charles H. Berry and E. S. Smith, under the 
firm name of Jones, Berry & Smith. They were succeeded by 
Berry & Waterman, who added to their law business that of receiving 
deposits and selling exchange on different points. This was done 
more as a convenience to others than of profit to themselves. This 
was continued until others engaged in more exclusive banking 
business. 

Early in 1856 Timotliy Kirk and his brother had a banking office 
on the corner of Eront and Main streets. 

John Mobley opened a banking and exchange office near the 
corner of Second and Main streets in 1856, and did considerable 
business-for some two years, and retired in 1858. 

J. T. Smith had an exchange and loan office, in 1856 or 1857, on 
Center street, between First and Second streets. He was here about 
three years. 



1'2<S IIISTOIIY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Voiglit & Bergentlial had a banking and loan office, in 1856 
and 1857, on Front street, near where Krumdich's elevator now 
stands. 

Bcmietffi Bank. — In the fall ot 1855 Thomas E. Bennett opened 
a bank and loan office, and succeeded to the business of Voijilit & 
Bergentlial, in a building on the levee. In tlie winter following 
Taylor, llichards tfc: Burden purchased Bennett's business, and in 
May, 1857, the firm was changed to Taylor, Bennett & Co., and in 
1858 it was again changed to Burden, Bennett & Co., and in 1859 
was dissolved and the business was continued in the name of 
Thomas E. Bennett until 1861. 

Bank of Southern Minnesota. — The Bank of Southern Minne- 
sota was organized in 1861. Lemuel C. Porter, Thos. E. Bennett, 
Wm. Garlock and others wei-e stockholders and directors. L. C. 
Porter was made president and Thomas E. Bennett cashier. This 
bank was merged in the First National bank in August, 1864. 

The Bank of Winona. — This bank was located on Center street, 
in the building now occupied by the Winona Deposit Bank. Bank 
of Winona commenced business in May, 1863, Samuel McCord 
and II. N. Peabody being the ])rincipal partners, and the manager 
was I. Voswinkle Dorselin. Subsequently the business was done 
under the name of McCord & Dorselin. In December, 1868, 
Dorselin, appearing to be the owner of the concern, closed 
business and went into bankruptcy. On the final winding up of 
business, in August, 1869, it paid its creditors about twenty-five 
cents on a dollar. 

The United National Bank. — The United National Bank was 
organized in 1865, with Thomas Wilson, Otto Troost, Charles Ben- 
son, A. W. Webster and Thomas E. Bennett as stockholders and 
directors, with a capital of $50,000. A. W. Webster was president 
and Thomas E. Bennett cashier. 

This bank was located on Second street, in the building since 
used by the Savings Bank, and in January, 1871, was sold out by its 
stockholders to the First National Bank of Winona. 

The Winona Deposit Bank was organized and commenced busi- 
ness in 1868. H. W. Lambert<cm was president and I. J. Cummings 
cashier. It was a private bank, and changed to a national organiza- 
tion under the name of Winona Deposit National Bank, in which 
name the business was conducted two or three years, when they dis- 
continued the nati(mal organization and returned to the original 



BANKING IN WINONA COUNTY. 12*.) 

name of Winona Deposit Bank. Its present officers are H. W. 
Lamberton, president, and W. C. Brown, casliier. 

Winona County ^«7?>?-.— Zaphna H. Lake and A. W, Webster 
organized the Winona County Bank in 1859, and' they filed their 
organization papers and deposited Minnesota railroad bonds with 
the state auditor to secure the payment of their circulating notes 
under the then existing laws of the state. This was the first and 
only bank having circulation in Winona. They did a straightfor- 
ward, legitimate banking business for several years, and went out 
of business in 1865. Mr. Webster took part in the organization of 
the United National Bank, and Mr. Lake engaged in other business 
in Winona. Their banking office was near the corner of Second 
and Main streets. 

T/ie Bank of St. Charles, at St. Charles, Winona county, was 
organized as a private bank in the spring of 1869, with a capital of 
$30,000. The stockholders were E. S. Youmans, of Winona ; S. T. 
Hyde, J. S. Wheeler, J. W. Brockett, of St. Charles, and H. R. 
Heath, of New York city. The stockholders were directors. E. S. 
Youmans was president and J. S. Wheeler was cashier. 

J. C. Woodard, in June, 1877, succeeded to the Bank of St. 
Charles, and the business is now conducted in the name of J. C. 
Woodard, banker. ^ 

The First National Bank of Winona (successor to the Bank of 
Southern Minnesota) was organized August 20, 1864, with a capital 
of $50,000. The original stockholders wei-e Thomas E. Bennett, 
Gabriel Horton, Lemuel C. Porter, George W. Neft; William Gar- 
lock, William Wedel, each of whom was elected a director. In 
October, 1864, at a meeting of the directors the following officers 
were elected, viz : L. C. Porter, president ; William Garlock, vice- 
president ; Thomas E. Bennett, cashier. L. C. Porter has been 
elected president at each annual meeting of the directors since the 
organization of the bank to this time, a period of eighteen years. 
The following persons have been elected cashiers at dififerent times 
since 1866 : I. J. C\immings, G. A. Burbank, Herman E. Curtis, 
C. H. Porter and E. D. Hurlbert, who is now filling that position. 
William Garlock resigned the office of vice-president in 1 868. C. II. 
Porter was elected vice-president in 1881, and is at this time filling 
that office. 

Second National Ba?ik.— The Second National Bank of Winona 
was organized April 29, 1871, with a capital of $100,000: The 



130 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

incorporators were Thomas Simpson, John H. Prentiss, .]ose])h A. 
Prentiss, Plenry Stevens, Mark Willson, Gustavus A. Burbank and 
W. H. Richardson. Eacli of the above stockholders was elected 
a director, and the bank engaged in active business in August, 1871, 
with the following officers : Thomas Simpson, president ; G. A. 
Burbank, cashier. Mr. Burbank resigned in October, 1871,' and 
Mark Willson was elected assistant cashier, and in February, 1872, 
E. H. Bailey became cashier. 

In .lanuary, 1873, Joseph A. Prentiss was chosen cashier and 
Mark AVillson vice-president. In January, 1875, Mr. Willson 
resigned and Lester R. Brooks became vice-])resident, aiid in 
1876 was made cashier. In 1878 Thomas Simpson resigned his 
position as president, which he had filled from the first organization 
of the bank, and was succeeded by Joseph A. Prentiss. In 1880 
William H. Garlock was chosen cashier and L. R. Brooks vice- 
president, who, with J. A. Prentiss, president, are the present 
officers. 

T/w MercfianU National Bank of Winona was organized May 18, 
1875, with a capital stock of $100,000, and at the first meeting of 
the stockholders the following persons were elected directors: 
Mark Wills(m, G. W. Bennett, N. F. Hilbert, H. D. Perkins, C. H. 
Berry, Conrad Bohn and C. C. Beck. Mark Willson, president ; 
N. F. Hilbert, cashier ; H. D. Perkins, vice-president. 

The bank opened for business in July 1875. On April 9, 1879, 
N. F. Hilbert resigned his position as cashier, and was succeeded 
by J. M. Bell. July 1, 1879, it was voted to change tlie organiza- 
tion from a national to a state bank under the laws of Minnesota, 
and to transfer its entire business to the new organization. 

The Merchants Bank of Winona succeeded to the Merchants 
National Bank, and was organized in August, 1879, with the follow- 
ing directors : Charles H. Berry, H. D. Perkins, J. M. Bell, Mark 
Willson, (1 C. Beck, L. J. Allred and C. Heintz, and who proceeded 
to the election of officers, as follows : Mark Willson, president ; J. M. 
Bell, cashier; H. D. Perkins, vice-president. 

In December, 1879, J. M. Bell tendered his resignation as cashier, 
which was accepted, and Geo. F. Crise was elected in his place. The 
officers of the bank at this time are Mark Willson, president; 
Chas. H. Berry, vice-president, and Geo. R Crise, cashier. 

The Winona Savings Bank was organized .July 1, 1874, and 
lasted' five years. The depositors were notified to withdraw their 



EARLY SETTLEMENT, PIONEERS, ETC. 131 

deposits July 1, 1879, and were paid in full, principal and interest. 
The trustees were William Mitchell, W. H. Laird, H. E. Curtis, 
F. A. Rising, Thomas Wilson, E. S. Toumans and C. J. Camp. 
The officers were Wm. Mitchell, president ; W. H. Laird, vice-presi- 
dent; F. A. Rising, treasurer. 

The bank was located on Second street, in the old United National 
Bank building. 

The. foregoing is believed to be a correct history of banks and 
of the banking business in Winona county since its early settlement. 
It is possible that other parties and facts have been overlooked, but 
the writer has endeavored to include everything pertaining to the 
subject. 

From the time the first deposits were received and the first drafts 
on eastern banks were drawn by Berry & Waterman, in 1855, the 
banking business has grown with the increased mercantile and 
manufacturing business of Winona in proportion until this time. 
We have now iu this city, in successful operation, four banks, two 
of which are working under the national banking laws, one under 
state organization, and one a private bank. 

The whole amount of capital invested at this time in the bank- 
ing business in Winona county aggregates $250,000, not including 
surplus and undivided profits. 

The amount of deposits in the banks in Winona is about 
$900,000, and bills discounted are about the same amount. The 
rates of interest charged by the banks are from seven to ten per 
cent per annum. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GENERAL HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY— ITS EARLY SETTLE- 
MENT, PIONEERS, ETC. 

The local history of this county, as an organization, hardly ex- 
tends beyond the personal recollections of the present generation. 
Many of its earliest settlers are yet residents of this locality. Less 
than a third of a century ago the country lying west of the Missis- 
sippi in the State of Minnesota was the almost exclusive domain of 
bands of savages — the possessions of the aborigines, occupied by the 



132 HI8T0KY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

same race and by the same nation of people who held it wlien the 
western continent was first discovered. 

Its early settlement by the pioneer successors of this savage race 
was begun somewhat after the same general plan, although on a very 
much smaller scale, of that adopted by tlie Europeans in their first 
occupancy of North America. They made claims and held them by 
their rights of discovery. This part of the country was, first discov- 
ered and held in possession by the French. 

To maintain a proper connection with the past, a brief synopsis' 
of historical events relative to this section of country, prior to the 
time this county was created, has been compiled as an introductory 
chapter to this record of events and incidents of more modern times. 

After the discovery of the western continent, the maritime 
nations of Europe sent out expeditions to make explorations. The 
parts of the continent first visited in these voyages were taken 
possession of in the name of the government represented. When 
these explorations were extended inland the localities were claimed 
by the same powers. It was in this manner that the whole Missis- 
sippi valley became at one time a part of the foreign possessions of 
France, acquired by their rights of discovery and held by their power 
as a nation. 

In 1534 Jacques Cartier, a French navigator, discovered the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence and sailed up the St. Lawrence river, supposing 
from its size and depth that he had found the western passage to the 
Indian ocean, for which he was seeking. He claimed the newly 
discovered country in the name of the sovereign of France. As an 
emblem of his first discovery, and as a symbol of possession, he 
erected a large wooden cross on a conspicuous elevation of land. 
This was the first claim mark of France in this part of North 
America. 

The French afterward extended their explorations west to the 
great lakes, assuming possession in their progress. It was not until 
1654 that they reached the region of Lake Superior. The real 
explorers of this part of the country were the fur traders. They 
advanced with their traffic as far west as Green Bay in 1659. 

In these expeditions, from the time the cross was erected by 
Cartier, these adventurous ex|)lorers were usually accompanied by 
zealous representatives of different orders in the Roman Catholic 
church, apparently to maintain religious advantages coequal with 
the civil and military authority claimed over the extended possessions. 



EARLY SETTLEMENT, PIONEERS, ETC. 183 

Father Joseph Marquette accompanied Louis Jolliet with tive 
French or Canadian voyageurs up the Fox river from lireen Bay. 
Crossing the portage to the Wisconsin river they descended it to its 
mouth and discovered the Mississippi river on June 17, 1673. 

To Father Marquett lias been given the honor of having been 
the first to discover the upper Mississippi. "The river had, however, 
been visited by Europeans prior to this date. In 1541 tlie lower 
Mississippi was crossed by Hernando de Soto, a Spanish adventurer, 
in his exploration of that part of the country. 

In 1679 Father Louis Hennepin accompanied Robert La Salle on 
his expedition along the shores of Lake Michigan to Illinois, where 
he spent the winter. In the following spring, 1680, he was intrusted 
by La Salle to make explorations. With two French voyageurs he 
went down the Illinois river to its mouth, and then ascended the 
Mississippi. On his voyage up this river he was made prisoner by 
a war party of Dakota Indians and taken into the Mille Lac region, 
on the headwaters of the Mississippi. He was here found by Du- 
Luth, who was exploring the country of the Dakotas by way of Lake 
Superior. Father Hennepin visited the Falls of St. Anthony, to 
which he gave its present name. He was the first to explore the 
Mississippi above the mouth of the Wisconsin, and the first white 
man that ever visited the vicinity of this county. ^ 

In 1682 La Salle descended the Illinois to' its pnction with the 
Mississippi, down which he continued until he entered the Gulf of 
Mexico. He took possession of the cotintry through which he 
passed in the name of France, and gave it the name of Louisiana. 

In the spi4ng of 1683 Capt. Nicholas Perrot, a Canadian, with 
twenty men, established a fort or trading-post in what is now the 
State of Minnesota, below and near the mouth of Lake Pepin. 
This was the first location occupied by a white man on the west 
side of the Mississippi. It was soon abandoned by Perrot to carry 
on his trafiic elsewhere. In 1688 he returned with forty men, and 
again took possession of his trading-post below Lake Pepin. 

In 1689 Capt. Nicholas Perrot, in the name of the king of 
France, by formal proclamation took possession of all of the country 
on the headwaters of the Mississippi. Not long afterward the 
whole countj'y from the Alleghanies to the Pacific ocean was claimed 
by the French and called the territory of Louisiana. 

This territory remained in possession of France until 1760, when 
the country west of the Mississippi was ceded to Spain, and in 1763 



KM JII8TORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

all of tlio country east of the Mississippi claimed by the French was 
formallv ceded to Great Britain. 

In 1800 the country west of the Mississippi known as Louisiana 
was retroceded to France, and in 1803 the United States acquired 
possession of it by purchase from the French government. 

By act of congress in 1804 Louisiana was divided ; the southern 
part was called the territory of Orleans, the northern portion the 
district of Louisiana. 

In 1812 Orleans was admitted into the Union under the title of 
State of Louisiana, and the district of Louisiana given the name of 
Territory of Missouri. 

In 1821 the Territory of Missouri was divided ; from the southern 
portion the Territory of Arkansas was formed, and the State of Mis- 
souri created and admitted. 

The country north of the State of Missouri was left without ter- 
ritorial organization. In 1834 it was placed under the jurisdiction 
of the Territory of Michigan, and in 1837 under the judicial authority 
of the Territory of Wisconsin. 

In 1838 the Territory of Iowa was created. It embraced all of 
the country north of the State of Missouri between the Mississippi 
and Missouri i-ivers to the northern line. 

The State o|jIowa was constituted from the southern part of this 
tei-ritory and admitted in 1846. The northern portion was left with- 
out territorial organization until by act of congress, March 3, 1849, 
the Territory of Minnesota was created. 

Tlie largest ])ortion of this territory, that lying west of the Mis- 
sissippi, was the northeastern part of the "Louisiana Purchase." 
The portion lying on the east side of the river was a part of the 
territory of Wisconsin not included in the boundaries of the State of 
Wisconsin when admitted in 1848. 

The territory of Minnesota, when organized, was without divi- 
sions, except two or three counties on the east side of the Mississippi, 
which had been created while they were a part of the Territory of 
Wisconsin. 

By proclamation Governor Ramsey divided the territory into 
three judicial districts. The country west of the Mississippi and 
south of the Minnesota formed the third judicial district, to which 
Judge Cooper was assigned. The first court was held at Mendota 
in August, 1849. 

Govenior Ramsey, by proclamation, made the first apportion- 



EARLY SETTLEMENT, PIONEERS, ETC. 135 

ment of council districts. The settlements on tlie west bank of the 
Mississippi, south of the Crow village to the Iowa line, were included 
with a part of St. Croix county on the east side of the river and con- 
stituted the first council district. The settlements on the west side 
of the river were of half-breed Sioux. 

The first territorial legislature held its session in St. Paul, the 
capital of the territory. It began on September 3 and adjourned on 
November 1, 1849. The members from the first council district 
were : James S. Norris, in the council ; Joseph W. Furber and 
James Wells, in the house. David Olmsted, of Long Prairie, was 
president of the council ; Joseph W. Furber, of Cottage Grove, 
speaker of the house. 

James Wells was the first representative to the territorial legis- 
lature from the country along the west side of the Mississippi. He 
was an Indian trader living on the shores of Lake Pepin, twelve 
miles below Red Wing. Among his friends and associates he was 
generally known as' "Bully Wells." He was elected by the half- 
breeds and a few traders and government employes at the election 
held on August 1. The total votes polled were thirty-three. At this 
election Hon. H. H. Sibley was elected delegate to congress without 
opposition. 

The first territorial legislature, at its session in ] 849 (October 27), 
ci-eated several counties, two of which, Dakota and Wabasha on the 
west side of the Mississippi, included all of the territory south of the 
Minnesota river— Wabasha in the eastern i)art and Dakota lying 
west along the Minnesota. 

In 1853 (March 5) the county of Wabasha was divided by act of 
the territorial legislature and a part of the southern portion desig- 
nated as Fillmore county. In 1854 (February 23) Fillmore county 
was divided, and from the portion along the river the counties of 
Houston and Winona were created — Houston next to the Iowa line 
and Winona between Houston and Wabasha counties. The bound- 
aries given Winona county in the act by which it was created have 
since been maintained unchanged. These outlines of liistory gene- 
alogize this county from the days of the advent of the first white man 
to the present time,. a period of little more than two hundred years. 

In this abstract of jurisdiction an omission has been made — the 
proprietary of this part of the country before it was so formally 
taken possession of by Captain Perrot. At the time France assumed 
control it was held by tribes of savage Indians. Of them, prior to 



136 MISTOKV OF WINONA COUNTY. 

that period, but little is known with any degree of certainty. Hav- 
ing no written records tlieir earliest traditions luive long been tor- 
gotten, their more modern history only known by its connections 
with that of their successors, the white race. 

Traditions, with mounds and relics antedating traditionary lore, 
afford speculative study for the antic^uary, and present corroborative 
evidence to the historian that in the unknown periods of the past 
this section of country was inhabited, and that its population was 
pt'ohahly of the Indian race. Their first occupancy is veiled in dark 
obscurity. Their rights of possession have, however, been continu- 
ously acknowledged and recognized from the time jurisdiction was 
claimed for France in 1689 until the treaty by which their lands west 
of the Mississippi, in what is now the State of Minnesota, were pur- 
cliased and ceded to the United States, when their title was formally 
transferred to their successors. 

The Dakota nation, which held this country, was probably (me 
of the largest wai-like nations of the aborigines of North America. 
When first visited by Europeans their territory extended from 
Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains. This Indian nation was 
composed of numerous general divisions and subdivisions or bands, 
having a language common to all (only varied by dialects), with man- 
ners, customs, etc. , differing but little in different localities. Although 
united as a confederacy for common defense or warlike purposes, 
each division held a separate interest in the localities they occupied. 

The eastern division of the Dakota nation was the Mdaywakan- 
tonwan, or Spirit Lake villagers. It was this division that made 
prisoner of Father Hennepin in 1680. At that time they were in 
possession of the country on the east side of the Mississippi to Lake 
Superior. The country south of the lake was held by the Ojibways, 
who were the first to hold communication with the traders. They 
were the first supplied witli fire-arms, which gave them such an ad- 
vantage over the more warlike Sioux that they drove them back and 
took possession of their homes in the Mille Lac region. The Sioux 
were forced to the southward and westward, but successfiilly main- 
tained their lands on the- west side of the Mississippi, and a strip 
along the east side, from about a hundred and fifty miles above the 
Falls of St. Anthony to about one hundred and fifty miles below. 

There were seven bands in this division. The villages of three 
of them were on the Mississippi, below the falls ; the others were on 
the lower part of the Minnesota river. 



CHAPTEK XV. 



TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS. 



By treaty in 1805, througli Lieut. Pike, the first representative 
of our government that visited this part of the "Louisiana pur- 
chase," this division of Sioux made the first sale of any of their 
lands. For the establishment of military posts the United States 
purchased from them a section of country nine miles square, on each 
side of the Mississippi, which included the Falls of St. Anthony and 
the present site of Fort Snelling. A section of country nine miles 
square, at the mouth of the St. Croix, was also secured for the same 
purpose. It was not until several years after that this purchase was 
utilized by government. The corner-stone of Fort Snelling was laid 
on the 10th of September, 1820, but it was not occupied by soldiers 
until the following year. The site was first taken possession of by 
Col. Leavenworth with a company of soldiers in 1819. 

The transportation of troops, supplies, material, etc., for the 
fort was principally by keelboats, which at that time, and for some 
time afterward, were used in the navigation of the Upper Missis- 
sippi. The trip from St. Louis to this point was a long and tedious 
one. The first steamboat that ever came up the Mississippi to Fort 
Snelling at the mouth of tl^ Minnesota river was a stern-wheel boat 
called the Virginia, in 1823. 

By treaty in 1830 government secured from this part of the 
Sioux nation the section of country known as the "Half-breed Tract," 
for the benefit or exclusive use of their descendants of mixed blood. 
This tract of land was, on the west side of the Mississippi and Lake 
Pepin, fifteen miles wide, and extending down the river, from 
Barn Bluff, near Red Wing, thirty-two miles, to a point opposite 
Beef river, below the present village of Wabasha. 

In 1837 a deputation of chiefs of this division of Dakotas was 
induced to visit Washington, where they made a treaty, by which 
they "ceded to the United States all their lands east of the Missis- 
sippi river, and all of their islands in said river." This treaty was 
ratified by the senate on the 17th of July, 1838, when the Sioux re- 
moved all of their bands to the west side of the Mississippi. 



188 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Until 1851 the Aldaywakaiitonwan Sioux were the only division 
of the Dakota nation with whom the United States had made formal 
treaty stipulations for the sale of any part of their lands. They 
were the only branch of the whole Sioux confederacy who received 
annuities from the government. Under the treaty of 1837 they re- 
ceived annually, for twenty years from the date of the treaty, $10,000 
in money, $10,000 in goods, $5,500 in provisions, and $8,250 "in 
the purchase of medicines, agricultural implements and stock and 
for the support of a physician, farmers and blacksmiths, and for 
other beneficial objects." In the first article of this treaty it was 
provided that a portion of the interest on the whole sum invested — 
$5,000 annually — was "to be applied in such manner as the presi- 
dent may direct." This occasioned some trouble, as it was proposed 
to expend this sum for the purposes of education, schools, etc., which 
the Indians strongly opposed. This fund was not used, but allowed 
to accumulate until the treaty of 1851 before settlement was effected 
and the amount paid over to them. 

At that time these seven bands comprised a population of about 
2,200 in number. The nominal head chief of the division was Wa- 
basha, who was also chief of a band. His village was at Wabasha 
Prairie, and had a population of about 300. The Red Wing band — 
chief, Wakoota — numbered about 300; the Kaposia band — chief, 
Little Crow — had about iOO; the Black Dog band — chief. Gray Iron — 
had 250 ; Cloud Man's band, at Lake Calhoun, 250 ; Good Road's 
band, about 300 ; Six's band — chief, Shakopee — about 450. The last 
four bands named were on lower part of the Minnesota river. 

By treaties made in 1851 the Sioux sold their lands in what is 
now the State of Minnesota. The Sisseton and Wahpaton divisions 
in the west, called the "upper bands," signed the treaty at Traverse 
des Sioux, July 23, 1851, and the "lower bands," the Wahpakoota 
and IMdaywakantonwan divisions, signed the treaty at Mendota, 
August 5, 1851. 

These treaties were amended by the senate at Washington the fol- 
lowing year. The amendment was ratified by the '"lower bands" 
at St. Paul, Se])tember 4, 1852. 'The treaties as amended were 
formally ratified by the president's proclamation, dated February 
24, 1853. 

By this sale the Dakotas relinquished possession of their lands 
in this vicinity — their title to it, held from time unknown, was 
extinguished for ever. Prior to this, occupancy of these l9,nds by 



TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS. 139 

the whites was considered trespass, except by special permit or 
license from government. 

After the treaty in 1851, and before its ratification, settlements 
were made or commenced by the whites, without action on the part 
of the government, and without much show of opposition from the 
Sioux. It was during this period that the first bona-fide settlements 
were made within the boundaries of what is now known as Winona 
county. Previous to this, however, Indian traders and government 
employes had located temporarily at difierent places along the 
Mississippi, some of whom remained and afterward became citizens 
of the county. 

The Mississippi river is the eastern boundary of this county, 
and from time immemorial has been what may be called the grand 
highway between the north and the south, and, through its tribu- 
taries, the means of communication between the east and the west. 
Over its waters the savages paddled their canoes, and the Canadian 
voyageurs propelled their batteaux. It was the course over which 
the early traders carried on their traffic. Their goods, brought 
from the east by way of the great lakes, and down the Wisconsin 
river, were transported up the Mississip])i to their trading stations 
in the north. The furs for which they were exchanged were returned 
over the same route. With the increase of this commercial business 
Prairie du Chien became the emporium of the fur-traders, and held 
its importance for nearly a century. 

During this period French names were given by the traders and 
voyageurs to persons, places and things which were in common 
use, the names designative of localities which served as land- 
marks in their adventurous expeditions being the most important. 

There are not more than one or two localities in this county that 
can now be identified by the names thus given, and in no instance 
has the name been preserved. 

The most familiar, if not the onl}^ locality, is that of the prairie 
on which the city of Winona is now situated. This was designated 
as the ''Prairie aux Aile," the literal translation of which is the 
"Wing Prairie." Its signification is unknown except as a matter 
of opinion. 

This prairie and vicinity was the home of one of the most influ- 
ential of the Dakota chiefs. It was the grand gathering-place of 
his once numerous warriors. The Dakota name of this chief was 
Wa-pa-ha-sa. It was hereditary. Besides being chief of his own 



140 IIISTOHY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

band, he was the head chief of the bands along the Mississippi. 
These official positions were also hereditary. The early voyageurs 
gave him the name of AVa-pa-sa. The more modern traders and 
river men called him Wa-ba-shaw, and gave the same name to the 
prairie on which his village was located. It was known as Waba- 
shaw prairie until the name was superseded by Winona, its present 
one. Win(ma ( Wee-no-nah) is a Dakota name, signifying a daughter, 
the lirst-born child. It is a name usually given to the iirst-born 
child, if a daughter, and never conferred upon a locality by the Sioux. 
The name was selected by the early settlers on Wabasha prairie as 
the name of the post-office established there, and was afterward 
adopted by the town proprietors for the village. When the county 
was created the same name was conferred upon it. 

The following story in JSTeiPs History of Minnesota gives another 
name to Wabasha prairie. The story is apparently founded on the 
Dakota legend of Maiden's rock, on the eastern shore of Lake Pepin. 
This is the only instance known where the name of "Keoxa" has 
ever been given to Wabasha's village on this prairie. It is indeed 
a query whether it is a Dakota name. 

"In the davs of the great chief Wa])ashaw there lived at the vil- 
lage of Keoxa, which stood at the site of the town which now bears 
her name, a maiden with a loving soul. She was the first-born 
daughter, and, as is always the case in a Dahkotah family, she bore 
the name of Weenonah. A young hunter of the same band was 
never happier than when he played the flute in her hearing. Having 
thus signified his aifection, it was with the whole heart reciprocated. 
The youth begged from his friends all that he could, and went to 
her parents, as is the custom, to purchase her for his wife, but his 
proposals were rejected. 

"A warrior who had often been on the war-path, whose head- 
dress plainly told the number of scalps he had wrenched from 
Ojibway heads, had also been to the parents, and they thought that 
she would be more honored as an ijmiate of his teepee. 

'■'■ Weenonah, however, could not forget her first love, and though 
he had been forced away, his absence strengthened her affections. 
Neither the attentions of the warrior, nor the threats of parents, nor 
the persuasions of friends could make her consent to marry simply 
for position. 

"One da}' the band came to Lake Pepin to fish or hunt. The 
dark green foliage, the velvet sward, the beautiful expanse of 



TREATIES WITH THE IJSTDIANS. 143 

water, the shady nooks, made it a place to utter the breathings of 
love. The warrior sought her once more and begged her to accede 
to her parents' wish and become his wife, but she refused with 
decision. 

"While the party was feasting Weenonah clambered to the lofty 
bluff, and then told to those who were below how crushed she had 
been by the absence of the young hunter and the cruelty of her 
friends. Then cliaunting a wild death-song, before the fleetest runner 
could reach the height she dashed herself down, and that form of 
beauty was in a moment a mass of broken limbs and bruised flesh. 

"The Dahkotah as he passes the rock feels that the spot is 
Wawkawn." 

The name of Wabasha rightfully belonged to this locality. Its 
alienation was not from premeditated design. Before Wabasha 
prairie was settled, or even a white settler had located in what is 
now Winona county, the settlement on the "half-breed tract" was 
called Wabasha. The first postoffice along the river was established 
there and given the name of Wabasha postofhce, although it was for 
a while at Heed's Landing. It having been thus appropriated, but 
little effort was ever made to reclaim it. But few of the settlers 
cared about preserving or adopting it in a second-hand condition. 

When keelboats and steamboats took the place of the canoes and 
batteaux in the navigation of the river, the names conferred on 
localities by the Dakotas and French were quite generally dropped, 
and less expressive ones usually substituted. Where Dakota or 
French names have been retained in this state, they have in very 
many instances been so modified by "Yankee improvements" that 
it is diflacult to trace their derivation. 

In this county no distinctive name of locality or landmark given 
by the French has been retained. Neither is there a single 
instance where the name given by the Dakotas to mountain or 
stream, hill, valley or prairie, has been preserved and is now in use 
by the whites. Nothing designated by the Sioux, the immediate 
predecessors of the present generation, is now known by its Dakota 
name. 

It is not so much a matter of surprise that Indian names have 
not been retained, or that they are now unknown to the present 
inhabitants of the county, if the abruptness of the change of occu- 
pants is taken into consideration. When the Sioux relinquished 
possession of their lands here they at once left this vicinity. Tito 

9 



144 IirSTOUV OF WINONA COUNTY. 

white settlers found the country without a population. The two 
races were strangers — unknown to each other; no association or 
intercourse ever existed between them. 

There are two or three instances where the Eni^-li^h interpretation 
has been substituted for the original Dakota. White Water is the 
name of a river which runs through" the northern part of the county. 
It is the translation ot the Dakota '' Minne-ska," signifying "AVhite 
Water." The village at the mouth of that stream in Wabasha county 
is called Minnoiska. The name of Rolling Stone is another instance. 
Tills is an interpretation of the name given by the Dakotas to the 
Rolling Stone Creek, ''Eyan-omen-man-met-pah," the literal trans- 
lation of which is "the stream where the stone rolls." Its true 
signification is not known. It was called by the French traders of 
more modern times "Roche que le Boule." These names were 
obtained from O. M. Loi-d, who acquired them from Gen. Sibley. 

Wabasha and the most of his people left their homes on the 
Mississippi in 1S52. Nothing marks the localities in this county as 
evidence of where, for so many generations, their race once lived. 
Even the old and deeply worn trails, over which they filed away 
toward the setting sun, are now, like the wakes of their canoes, 
obliterated and unknown. Some "old settlers" may perhaps from 
memory be able to point out the general course of these trails, over 
which they explored the country in their "claim hunting" excur- 
sions, and on which they were accustomed to traverse the country 
until the plow and fences of imj^rovements debarred further use of 
them. 

The Sioux were, by the conditions ot the treaty, transferred to a 
reservation on the head-waters of the Minnesota river. Here they 
were taught and encouraged to adopt a new system of life and be- 
come an agricultural ])eople. It was supposed that some progress 
was made toward civilization, but, as in many similar philanthropic 
efforts, the ultimate results proved a failure. The Sioux massacre 
of 1862 originated with the bands of Wabasha's division, which had 
given the most encouraging prospects of their becoming "good 
Indians. " The first outrages were perpetrated by some of Shakapee's 
band. A war party was at once organized with the bantls of Gray 
Iron, Little ('row and detachments from other divisions. The band 
of Wabasha and the R,in] Wing band were compelled to participate 
in the proceedings, and the whole Dakota nation was soon involved 
in the affair. 



TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS. 145 

This chapter would perhaps be considered incomplete without 
mention of one of the chiefs of Wabasha's band who was more gen- 
erally known to the earlj settlers of Winona county than any other 
of the Indians who originally claimed this part of the country. The 
most of the " old settlers " probably remember " Old To-ma-ha," the 
old one-eyed Sioux, who kept up his rounds of visitations to the 
settlements until about the time of his death, which occurred in 1 860 
at about one hundred years of age. When on his customary visits 
among the whites he was usually accompanied by a party of his own 
descendants and family relatives — from ten to twenty in number. His 
figure was erect and movements active, notwithstanding his advanced 
age. His dress on these occasions was a much worn military coat and 
pantaloons of blue cloth trimmed with red, and an old stove-pipe hat 
with the same color displayed. Pie always carried with him a large 
package of papers inclosed in a leather or skin pocket-book, and also 
a lai'ge silver medal, which he wore suspended from his neck in a 
conspicuous place on his breast. His large red pipe-stone hatchet 
pipe, with a long handle, was generally in his hands. It was his 
usual custom to attract attention by his presence and then allow the 
curious to examine his pipe and medal, when, if there appeared to be 
a prospect of getting money for the exhibition, he would produce his 
pocket-book and allow an examination of its contents, for which 
privilege he expected, and usually received, at least a dime, and 
perhaps from the more liberal a quarter of a dollar. This Indian 
was a historical character. His pocket-book contained his commis- 
sion as a chief of the Sioux nation, given him by Governor Clark, of 
Missouri territorj^ in 1814, who at the same time presented him 
with a captain's uniform and a medal for meritorious services ren- 
dered the government as a scout and messenger. His papers con- 
tained testimonials and recommendations from prominent govern- 
ment officials and other persons. Mention is made of him in the 
reports of officials who had jurisdiction in the northwest territories, 
one by Lieut. Pike, who was sent by the goveynment of the 
United States in 1805 to explore the northern part of the " Louis- 
iana purchase," then recently acquired, and to make treaties with 
the Dakotas. In 1812, when the Sioux joined the English in the 
war with the United States, Tomaha went to St. Louis and gave his 
services to light against the British forces. He had the confidence 
of the military officers, and in all of the frontier difficulties on the 
upper Mississippi, where fighting was done, he was employed as 



146 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

scout and messenger. When his services were no longer required 
by government he returned to his Dakota liome. 

When the Sioux left this vicinity and w^ent to their reservation 
on the Minnesota river, Tomaha remained to die in the locality 
where he was born and where he spent his youth. He sometimes 
visited his friends on the reservation, but never made it his home. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE FUR TRADP:RS. 



The first white men to establish themselves among these Indians 
were- the fur traders and voyageurs — the early pioneers of com- 
merce. Of the hardy adventurers who in generations past engaged 
in commercial pursuits in this vicinity nothing is now known. 

The earliest of these traffickers, who had a fixed place of busi- 
ness in this county, of which there is even a traditional record, was 
Francois La Bathe. His business location was in the northern part 
of the county, oi] the Mississip])i. The date of his establishment 
of a trading station in this vicinity is not now definitely known. He 
had trading posts in other localities along the river at the same time — 
one at Bad Axe, below La Crosse. His more permanent stations 
were usually under the charge of partners and assistants or clerks. 
Mr. O. M. Lord informed the wi-iter that Hon. N. W. Kittson, of 
St. Paul, was in the employ of La Bathe & Co. for a year or two, 
in 1840, or about that time, and had charge of a trading station 
above the Rolling Stone. The location of the station was described 
by Mr. Kittson as being above Minnesota City, at the foot of the 
bluff, where the slough leaves the mainland (Haddock's slough). 
The land in this vicinity is now owned by D. L. Burley, who has 
occupied it about thirty years. Mr. Burley says he has never seen 
any indications that would lead him to think the locality had ever 
been occupied for any purpose prior to his taking possession of it. 
Others say La Bathe's trading post was above that place. Near 
where the river leaves the mainland, about four miles below the 
mouth of the White Water, there is a hluft and a location that re- 
semble the descri])tion given to Mr. Lord. At that place the early 



THE FUR TRADERvS. 147 

settlers of 1852 found the ruins of a large cabin. The writer saw 
it frequently in 1854. There was a huge stone fireplace and chim- 
ney then standing entire, in a tolerable state of preservation, but 
the logs were a mass of ruins, and bushes were growing up among 
the logs where the house once stood. 

It is said that La Bathe spent the most of his life with the Da- 
kotah Indians ; that though of French descent he was in some way 
related to them either by birth or marriage, or perhaps both. His 
influence with the Indians was an advantage to him in his commer- 
cial transactions. He was intimately connected in business affairs 
with prominent traders. His history is unknown in this vicinity. 
La Bathe went with the Sioux to their reservation on the head-waters 
of the Minnesota river, where he was killed by the savages with 
whom he had spent his life. He was among the first victims at the 
outbreak of the Sioux massacre in 1862. 

Although there were quite a number of traders who lived on the 
Wisconsin side of the river, at La Crosse and at what is now Trem- 
pealeau and Fountain City, who traded with the Sioux on the west 
side of the river, there are but two or three others of this class to 
mention who were established in business and had a residence In 
Winona county. First among these were Willard B. Bunnell and 
Nathan Brown, both of whom came into the Territory of Minnesota 
after it was organized. 

"Bill" Bunnell had been for five or six years prior to his coming 
here living on the east side of the Mississippi, at La Crosse and at 
what is now Trempealeau village, but the most of the time in what 
was called the Trempealeau country, hunting, trapping and trading 
with the Indians. His Indian trade was principally with the Win- 
nebagoes who were living in that vicinity and in the Black Eiver 
country. He had, before coming to the Mississippi river, been a 
trader in the vicinity of Green Bay, with the Menomines and Chip- 
pewas. From his fluency in speaking the language of the Chippe- 
was the Sioux for some time after his arrival in this vicinity were 
jealous and suspicious of him as a friend of their hereditary enemies. 
He was unable to secure their confidence until he had learned their 
language and proved himself to be a "professional" hunter and 
their friend. He joined them in their hunting excursions, and for 
the time adopted their style of "undress," — a breech-clout, buckskin 
leggings and moccasins. In this rig, with his rifle or fowling-piece 
and blanket, he spent weeks with them on Root river and its tribu- 



148 ULSTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

taries. He was the lirst white resident of this locality to explore 
the country back of the bluffs. 

Willard Bradly Bunnell located as a licensed trader with the 
Sioux of Wabasha's band, August 20, 1849. His house was on the 
bank of the river, in what is now the village of Homer. It was 
built of hewed logs, and had a shingled roof — the first shingled 
roof ever put on any structure in this part of Minnesota. This was 
the first permanent improvement made in the settlement of the 
county. To this place Bunnell brought his family. It was the 
home of an estimable wife and their three children. It was here 
that the first white child was born. Frances Matilda Bunnell was 
born February 20, 1850. She was the first white native resident of 
this part of the territory. 

Mrs. Bunnell was the first white woman that came into this part 
of the Territory of Minnesota to live — the first to make her home 
within the boundaries of Winona county. She was a model re])re- 
sentative of a frontier woman. Although remarkably domestic in 
her habits, and observant of matters connected with her household 
duties, which make home desirable, she was able to paddle her own 
canoe, and was a sure shot with either the rifle or fowling-piece. 
While in general appearance and manners ladylike and modestly 
feminine, she had remarkable courage and self-possession, and was 
decisive to act in cases of emergency, when danger threatened her- 
self or family — qualifications that were respected by her dusky 
neighbors, the friends of the trader. Possessing good mental abili- 
ties, her experience in frontier life and intuitive knowledge of 
Indian character gave her an influence over the wild customers who 
visited their trading-])ost, that was as much a matter of surprise to 
herself as to others. The Indians i-espected and feared her although 
cmly a "woman." 

Mrs. Bunnell was of French descent. Besides speaking French, 
she was able to converse fluently with the Chippewas, Winnebagoes 
and Sioux, and had some knowledge of other dialects. She was 
brought up in the Catholic faith, but in the latter part of her life 
she professed the Protestant religion, and became a member of the 
Methodist church. Mrs. Bunnell died in April, 1867, at about the 
age of forty-five. Some of her children are yet residents of this state. 

The house, a story and a-half building, built by "Will" Bun- 
nell in 1849, is still standing in the upper part of the village of 
Homer, at what was once called BunnelFs Landing. The building 



THE FITR TRADERS. 149 

and grounds are now the property of Dr. L. H. Bunnell, a younger 
brother of the trader. The house has been moved a little back 
from where it was originally built, and, to keep pace with the times, 
this relic of the first settlers' early home has been somewhat modern- 
ized by a covering of clapboards and painted. It is still a com- 
fortable dwelling, and is occupied by Dr. Bunnell as his residence 
and permanent home. 

Willard B. Bunnell took an active interest in the early settle- 
ment of this county, and was connected with many of the incidents 
of pioneer life which will be noticed in the progress of events. He 
died in August, 1861, at about the age of forty-seven. His death 
was caused by consumption. 

IS'athan Brown came into the territory as a trader September 29, 
1849. His location was on the river below Bunnell's, in what is 
now the southern part of the county. Mr. Brown was then a young 
man without a family. His cabin in which he made his home was 
a one-story log building, 12x16. His storehouse, 12x16, was a 
story and a-half, of hewed logs. These buildings were covered with 
shingled roofs and substantially made. 

Although Mr. Brown was a trader with tiie Indians, he did not 
hold his position through a license from government. He made a 
sort of miniature treaty with Wabasha and his braves, and pur- 
chased from them the privilege of occupying as much of the locality 
as he chose to carry on his business. For this permit he paid them 
$50 — making payment in flour and pork from his store. Mr. Brown 
states that "during the early days of his residence there, while 
engaged in trade with the Winnebagoes and Sioux, he never locked 
his cabin door, not even when absent from home, and never lost 
anything by theft, through either Indians or white people." 

Mr. Brown and Mr. Bunnell, as the last of the Indian traders, 
appear to constitute a connecting link between the past and present 
condition of this part of the country. Both settled here while the 
land was held by the Sioux. Both were residents of Winona county 
after its organization. 

Following in the order of pioneer life, the missionaries have been 
among the first to venture into countries inhabited by the savages, 
and the first to attempt to improve their condition. Their zealous 
efforts entitle them to be called the pioneers of civilization. Fore- 
most among these have been the missionaries connected with the 
Catholic church. 



150 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

In the earliest explorations of this part of the country, the 
traders were ai;coinpanied by the priests. The early French traders 
and voyageurs were of that religious belief, and their descendants, 
for all of them intermarried with the Indians, were taught the same 
faith. These missionaries were the first to visit the Dakotas — the 
first to visit the west side of the Mississippi river. 

From the days of the Rev. Louis Hennepin to more modern 
times they held a strong influence over the traders and voyageurs, 
and their descendants, and perhaps, to a limited extent, succeeded 
in influencing the savage natives by their teachings. 

The flrst Catholic missionaries of more modern times, of whom 
there is even traditionary knowledge in tliis section of country, were 
at the half-breed village where now stands the city of Wabasha, 
There the first church in southern Minnesota was built in 1845. 
With the exception of the very Rev. A. Ravoux, the names of these 
missionaries are unknown. 

The first attempt to establish a Protestant missionary station in 
this vicinity, of which there is any record, was in 1836. Rev. 
Daniel Gavan, a Frenchman, sent out as a missionary by the Evan- 
gelical Society of Lausanne, Switzerland, established a mission for 
the benefit of the Sioux of Wabasha's band. At that time the 
Sioux held possession of the east side of the river. Mr. Gavan 
located on the Wisconsin side, and built his cabin near Trempealeau 
mountain. He remained here until the fall of 1838, when he 
visited the missions on the Minnesota river, at Lac qui Parle, for 
the purpose of learning the Sioux language from the missionaries, 
who were then translating the Scriptures into that tongue. 
While thus engaged he became acquainted with and afterward 
married Miss Lucy C. Stevens, who had been a teacher in a mis- 
sion school at Lake Harriet, near Fort Snelling. Miss Stevens 
was a niece of Rev. J. D. Stevens, a missionary. Mr. Gavan, 
after his marriage, removed to Red Wing, where he remained 
until 1845. 

In 1838 the Rev. Jedediah D. Stevens came into this vicinity in 
the double capacity of mivssionary or teacher, and "Indian Farmer." 
Mr. Stevens was one of the earliest Protestant missionaries to visit 
the Dakotas on this side of the river. In the spring of 1835 he 
with his family came to Ft. Snelling, and shortly afterward removed 
from there to Lake Harriet, as missionary to "Cloud Man's" band 
of Sioux, where he reniained until the fall of 1838, when he was 



THE FUR TRADERS. 151 

appointed "Indian Farmer" to the Sioux of Wabasha's band, at 
Wabasha j^rairie. Maj. Talliaferro, the Indian agent for the Sioux, 
aided some of the early missionaries by such appointments, with 
the design to benefit the savages by thus providing them with 
means of civilization. 

Late in the fall of 1838 Mr. Stevens moved his family to his 
appointed field of labor, but was not favorabl}^ received by the 
Indians. He, however, located himself on the Wisconsin side of the 
river on the island, about opposite where Laird, Norton & Go's 
saw-mills now stand, where* he built a comfortable log cabin for his 
family, and a stable for the team of horses he brought with him. 
He there passed the winter with his wife and children and a young 
girl, an assistant and companion of Mrs. Stevens. Mr. G. W. 
Clark says the ruins of this cabin were to be seen when he came 
here in 1851. Expecting to get his winter supply of provisions from 
down the river before the close of navigation, he brought only a 
small supply with him, and was seriously disappointed to learn that 
no supplies could be procured from that source. He was compelled 
to go to Prairie Du Chine for the provisions he had ordered. This 
trip, over one hundred miles distant, he made with his team on the 
ice, leaving his family alone. It was during this winter that Mr. 
Gavin, who had been living near Trempaeleau, was visiting the 
missions on the Minnesota river. 

Neither Mr. Stevens nor his family were in any way molested 
or disturbed by the Sioux during the winter, but he failed to secure 
the confidence or friendship of Wabasha or his people, although he 
was able to converse with them in their own tongue. They were 
dissatisfied with his appointment as "Indian Farmer," and from 
the time of his arrival had refused to recognize him as a govern- 
ment agent, or in his capacity as a teacher. In the spring, when he 
began to make preparations to build on the prairie, their dissatis- 
faction began to assume a threatening form of opposition. His 
perseverance excited their hostilities to the extent that he was 
ordered to keep 6n the east side of the river, where he was then 
living, and not attempt to locate on their lands. Deeming it unsafe 
to remain with his family, against the opposition exhibited, Mr. 
Stevens resigned his position and left the locality. He went down 
the river and found more civilized society. 

The young girl (now Mrs. Griggs) who lived with Mrs. Stevens 
on the island during that winter, resides near Minneapolis. 



152 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Tliis appointment of Mr. Stevens to the position of Indian 
farmer at Wabasha Prairie was tlie lirst special appointment made 
for the Sioux in tliis locality. It was made in accordance with the 
terms of the treaty in 18:^7, by which they sold their lands on the 
east side of the Mississippi, with all of their island in the river. 
This treaty was not ratified by government until the following year, 
1838, only a short time before Mr. Stevens was assigned to the 
locality. 

Although the Sioux continued to occupy the islands and lands 
on the east side of the river in comradh with others, during their 
stay in this vicinity, they never assumed jurisdiction over them. 

The Sioux were jealous of the rapid advances of the white people, 
and firmly opposed any measures which gave them privileges on 
their lands. The trader was to them a necessity. The Cathc^lic 
missionaries had for generations been mysteriously associated with 
the presence of the trader and tolerated. But the missionary Indian 
farmer they were not prepared to receive — they were indifferent as 
to what Mr. Stevens knew about farming or schools. It was sup- 
posed by some that the Indians were influenced in this matter by 
the traders and half-breeds, with a design to drive Mr. Stevens of! 
and make a vacancy in the position. This may have been the case ; 
but it was evident that Wabasha did not favor measures that 
tended to civilization. Afterward, when the treaty was made for 
the sale of their lands, in 18.51, he opposed the sale until tlie 
treaty was ready for signature, and then acquiesced only because he 
feared the treaty would be made without his touch of the pen. He 
was opposed to the terms of the treaty, and in a speech in opposi- 
tion to it, he said to the commissioners in council: "You have 
requested us to sign this paper, and you have told these people 
standing around that it is for their benefit ; but I am of a different 
0])inion. In the treaty I have heard read you have mentioned 
farmers and schools, i)hysicians, traders and half-breeds. To all 
these I am p]>posed. You see these cliiefs sitting around. They 
and others who are dead went to Washington and made a treaty 
(in 1837), in which the same things were said : but we have not 
been benefited by them, and I want them struck out of this one. 
We want nothing but cash turned over to us for our lands.'' 

At about the time that Mr. Stevens was appointed Indian farmer, 
a government blacksmith was also assigned to this band. His 
name, the place where located, or the length of time he was here, 



THE FITR TRADERS. 153 

is somewhat uncertain. It is said by some that he was located near 
La Bathe's trading station. Of this nothing reliable is learned. 
About the same time a blacksmith was assigned to the half-breeds. 
Oliver Cratt, from Fort Snelling, was appointed to that position, 
and he located himself at the half-breed settlement, now Wabasha. 
Whether he also supplied Wabasha's band is not known. 

Dr. Bunnell, of this county, says that he learned from some 
old Indians, Sioux and Winnebagoes, and from descendants of half- 
breed natives of this vicinity, that the first blacksmith appointed to 
Wabasha's band was a half-breed Sioux. That he located himself 
on the very site where W. B. Bunnell afterward settled, and which 
is now the property of Dr. Bunnell. He says that in cultivating 
his garden, in that locality, he has found cinders and scraps of iron 
that would confirm the statement. The tradition of the Indians 
is that the half-breed blacksmith did not stay but a short time on the 
west side of the river. To avoid threatened danger to himself he 
moved his blacksmith-shop onto an island opposite Homer. In this 
way he held for awhile his position of an employe under govern- 
ment. 

The doctor also states that after W. B. Bunnell was located at 
his trading station, he found on the island an old anvil and evidence 
that a blacksmith had occupied the locality. The island was given 
the name of "Blacksmith Island" by the trader, and it is yet 
known by that name. 

The Sioux of the "lower bands" along the river were all opposed 
to the payment of teachers or for the establishment of schools, etc., 
from their annuities. No schools were ever established with Wa- 
basha's band. It was not until several years after the treaty of 1837 
that the consent of any of this division was obtained. Little Crow, 
of the Kaposia band, was the first to ask for a school, in 1846. The 
mission schools were previous to this, and until after the treaty of 
1851, supported at the expense of missionary societies. 

In 1842 James Reed was appointed Indian farmer to Waba- 
sha's band, and held this position under government for three years 
afterward. He built a log storehouse on Wabasha prairie, which 
he used as his headquarters when engaged in his official duties. 
This building stood about where S. C. White's store now stands, on 
the corner of Second and Center streets, in the city of Winona. 

The lands cultivated by the Sioux, under the management and 
instruction of Mr. Reed, were in the mouth of what is now called 



154 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Gil more valley, the bottom lands in front of the residence of C. 0. 
Beck. Prior to this the same locality had been used by generations 
of Sioux s(|uaw8 for cultivation after their primitive manner. This 
was the favorite planting-grounds of Wabasha's village, although 
other localities were also used for purposes of cultivation. The 
mouth of Burns valley was another favorite locality and the special 
home of the chief Wabasha and his family relatives. The main 
village f)f this band was on the slough at the upjjer end of the prairie, 
near where the railroad machine-shops are now located. 

James Eeed was a native of Kentucky. When a young man he 
enlisted as a soldier and was stationed at Fort Crawford, Prairie du 
Chine. After his discharge he adopted' the life of a hunter and 
trapper, and sjjent the greater part of his life among the Indians 
along the upper Mississippi. As was common among men of his 
class, he took a wife or two among the people with whom he was 
living. His last wife, to whom he was married in 1840, or about 
that time, in Prairie du Chine, was a half-breed Sioux, a cousin of 
the chief Wabasha, and said to be a sister of Francois la Bathe, the 
trader of whom mention has been made. 

The section of country fixed upon by James Reed as his favorite 
locality was the Trem])ealeau country, where he was successful in 
raising stock on the free ranges of governinent lands. He made it 
his home at what is now the village of Trempealeau. It was here 
he was living when he was appointed Indian farmer for the 
benefit of the Sioux on Wabasha prairie. He did not change his 
residence while holding this othcial position. 

Mr. Eeed lived in the Trempealeau country until his death, 
which occurred but a few years ago at what is called the '' Little 
Tamerack," in the Trempealeau valley. 

How much the Indians were benefited by the instructions of an 
inexperienced agriculturist it is now difiicult to determine. The 
first settlers on Wabasha prairie found some parts of broken plows 
among the ruins of the old storehouse used by Mr. Reed. An old 
breaking ]ilow was found and taken possession of by some of the 
settlers at Minnesota city. This was claimed and carried away by 
some of the squaws in 1852. 

It is questionable whether the people of this band were benefited 
by agents of g(n'ernment or missionaries while they remained in 
this section of countrv. 



THE FUR TRADERS. 155 

instance where a missionary was ever permitted by Wabasha to 
locate within what are now the boundaries of this county. 

The Catholic missionaries were the religious instructors of the 
half-breeds. To what extent they had influence with this band is 
now unknown. From several graves disclosed by the caving of the 
bank of the river, in the lower part of the city of Winona, a number 
of large silver crosses and other Catholic emblems were taken by 
some boys fishing in the vicinity. One of these crosses was pur- 
chased by W. H. St. John, a jeweler in Winona, who exhibits it in 
his store as a relic of the past. The graves were evidently those of 
females. 

In the summer of 1848, the Winnebago Indians were removed 
from the reservation in the northeastern part of Iowa, which they 
had occupied for a limited time, to a reservation established for 
them by government on Long Prairie, on the east side of the Mis- 
sissippi, about forty miles back from the river, and about one hun- 
dred and forty miles above St. Paul. 

They were opposed to the arrangements, and objected to their 
removal to the locality selected for their future home. Military aid 
was required to induce them to move. After considerable delay a 
part of them were persuaded, to start up the Mississippi in their 
canoes, under charge of H. M. Kice, accompanied by a company 
of volunteers from Crawford county. Wis., in boats. The other 
portion was induced to start by land, with their ponies, under the 
care of Indian agent Fletcher, with a company of dragoons from 
Fort Atkinson, and a train of baggage wagons. By agreement these 
two parties were to meet at Wabasha Prairie. 

The party by water reached the prairie and landed near where 
Mrs. Keyes now lives, where they camped. The land party came 
into this part of the country by following up what is now called 
Money Creek valley, and arrived at the prairie by following the 
Indian trail on the divide between the Burns and Gilmore valleys. 
This trail led down a steep ravine back of where George W. Clark now 
lives. It was here necessary to let the baggage wagons down with 
ropes attached to the trees on the east side of the ravine. This trail 
over the ridge was afterward known to the early settlei-s as the 
' ' Government Trail. " 

When the Winnebagos reached Wabasha Prairie they revolted, 
and decidedly refused to go farther. With the exception of one 
small band, who remained on the bank of the river, they all went 



ir)6 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

round tlie lake to the mouth of Burns valley, whei-e they camped 
with Wabasha's band, which had collected there, and with whom they 
were on friendly terms. 

Finding it necessary to have more aid, reinforcements were sent 
for. While the government officials were waiting for help from 
Fort Snelling, the Winnebagos negotiated with Wabasha for the pur- 
chase of the prairie, and expressed a determination to remain here. 
Wabasha and his braves joined in with them — took an active inter- 
est in their proceedings, and encouraged them in their revolt 
against the authority of Indian agent J. E. Fletcher and his 
assistants. 

A steamboat brought down from the fort a comjmny oi soldiers 
and two pieces of artillery, which were landed at the camp on the 
lower part of the prairie. 

A council with the Indians was agreed upon, the day appointed, 
and the place selected. The location was above the camp and back 
from the river. To guard against a surprise the officers in charge 
made tlieii- strongest preparation tor defense, in case an attack 
should be made. The teamsters and every available man of the 
party was armed and detailed for active duty. On the day fixed all 
of tlie warriors of the combined tribes of Winnebagos and Sioux, 
many of them mounted on their ])onies, marched around the head 
of the lake from Burns valley and moved down the prairie. When 
about half a mile from the council grounds, where the Indian agent 
awaited them surrounded by his forces, a detachment rode forward 
as if to reconnoiter. The whole body of Indians then moved down 
as if at a charge, and began the wildest display of their capacity to 
represent demons, on foot and on horseback. Their manceuvers 
might indicate a ])eaceful display or represent a threatened assault. 
It was supposed at the time that an attack was designed by the 
wild devils. 

One of the land escort, McKinney, pointed out the locations and 
described the incidents to the writer, and said that he certainly 
expected to lose his scal]:» that day. As he watched their wild evo- 
lutions, circling on every side, charging with fierce yells and firing 
of guns, his scalp seemed to fairly start from his head. His fear 
of attack was, however, second to his astonishment and admiration 
of the extraordinary and unexpected display. 

The council was held without any attending difficulty, but the 
agents failed to secure the consent of the Indians to move on up the 



EARLY LAND TITLES. , 157 

river. After a delay here vf about a month the Winnebagoes con- 
sented to go to Long Prairie. Many of them, however, went back 
to Iowa, or crossed the river to their old homes in Wisconsin. 

Wabasha was arrested and taken up to FortSnelling for the part 
he had taken in the affair. The sale of Wabasha Prairie to the 
Winnebagos was never consumnated, or agreed to by the Sioux. 
The negotiations for it were simply "talks" to delay any move- 
ments. The Winnebagos were then desirous of going to the Mis- 
souri river country, instead of up the Mississippi. 



CHAPTEK XVII. 



EARLY LAND TITLES. 



Following the trader, the missionary and the government em- 
ploj'e, the town-site hunters, the pioneer land speculators, crowded 
the advance of civilization. In this county the town-site speculators 
were in the van of settlers seeking permanent homes. In the selec- 
tion- of town sites the traders had some advantage in securing the 
first choice of locations ; but their selections did not always prove 
to be the most successful speculations. The professional town-site 
operators were generally more than their equals in management 
after selections were made and the tide of immigration began its 
movement. 

It may perhaps be truly said that the first town-site claimants — 
the first to secure locations for town sites in what is now Winona 
county — were the traders W. B. Bunnell and jSTathan Brown. Bun- 
nell's selection for his trading station was made more directly with 
a view of convenience for the special business in which he was en- 
gaged, but with the design of making it his future home. The 
Territory of Minnesota had just been organized, and he was aware 
that the time was not far distant when the Sioux would be compelled 
to move back and give way to the advance of the white race and 
civilization. 

His selection was made in anticipation that when this part of the 
country should become settled it would be an important business • 
point. Bunnell was familiar with the back country and with the 



158 . HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

river, and took possession of his chosen locality with tlie impression 
and an honest belief that he was securing the best steamboat landing 
and town site on the west side of the river, between Lake Pepin 
and the Iowa line, and there waited the progress of events. 

Nathan Brown's trading-post was a to.wn site. B. W. Brisbois, 
a trader residing at Prairie du Chine, and F. S. Richards, a ti-ader 
at the foot of Lake Pepin, made choice of this locality with the same 
ideas of the future development of the country that had influenced 
Bunnell. They selected Mr. Brown as a proper person, one in 
whom they had confldence and considered trusty, to join with them 
in this speculation, and hold the location by establishing a trading 
station. The location was not the choice of Mr. Brown. At the 
time this proposition was made to liim he was at St. Anthony, where 
he had about decided to locate himself. He consented to become a 
partner, but not with the design of making it his future home. By 
agreement they were to take his share off from his hands whenever 
he should choose to leave, and to pay him for holding the situation. 
This they failed to do jvhen required, and Nathan Brown became a 
permanent resident of that locality. Brisbois and Richards furnished 
Brown with goods for the Indian trade, and he here carried on quite 
a flourishing business, principally with the Winnebagoes, who lived 
across the river in the Trempealeau country. His trade with the 
Sioux was more limited. He also engaged in furnishing wood for 
steamboats, employing choppers during the winter for that purpose, 
paying them principally from his store. 

Another town site was selected by Chute and Ewing about three 
fourths of a mile below Brown's, in which Capt. D. S. Harris had 
an interest for awhile. This was also a trading station. A Canadian 
Frenchman held the locality for about a year, when he left, and 
Jerry Tibbits took his place. Mr. Tibbits is still a resident of that 
vicinity, living in the town of New Hartford. This town site was, 
after two or three years, attached to the one held by Mr. Brown and 
its name of Catlin drojiped. 

This trading station Nathan Brown held for the company from 
1849 to 1855, when it was duly entered at the United States land 
office as a town site under the name of Dacota. 

As a speculation it did not prove to be a successful undertaking 
or a profitable investment for its proprietors. A few settlers made 
it their home for awhile, but were compelled to. leave and earn a 
living elsewhere. Mr. Brown says he could not afford to support 



EARLY LAiSTD TITLES. 161 

tlie settlers who located there, and bought out all who had an interest 
in the town and converted the tillable land into a farm. 

It failed as a steamboat landing, but the railroad station, Dacota, 
on the river road, marks the location of the ancient town site and 
trading station of Brisbois, Richards and Brown, Indian traders and 
town-lot speculators. 

Nathan Brown yet lives on the same claim, and near the site of 
the cabins he built there in 1849. He has a large farm in that 
vicinity, and is now the oldest resident in the county or in southern 
Minnesota, having occupied the same locality about thirty-four 
years. 

Mr. Brown and Mr. Bunnell came here about the same time. In 
conversation relative to early days Mr. Brown said : ' ' The first 
time I ever saw Bunnell was in the spring of 1849. I was going 
down the river, footing it on the ice, on my way from St. Anthony 
to Prairie du Chine. Finding the traveling unsafe, I left the river 
at Holmes', now Fountain City, and took the trail along the bluffs. 
I got wet crossing the Trempealeau river, and as it was then dark I 
camped. In the morning, after going a short distance, I came to a 
cabin which I found occupied by Bunnell's family. He had been 
living there during the winter." 

Aside from the trading stations already mentioned, there were 
no other settlements made or commenced in this vicinity until after 
the treaty with the Sioux in 1851, when the first settlement was 
made on Wabasha prairie. 

This prairie had but little to recommend it to the attention of 
either the town-site hunter or settlers seeking choice locations for 
farms and homes in the new country which the Sioux were soon to 
relinquish to the whites. It was a sandy ]3lain, apparently level as 
viewed from the river, and scantily covered with a stunted growth 
of wild grass. A few trees and bushes fringed the immediate bank 
of the river, while but a single tree stood on any other part of the 
prairie on which the city of Winona now stands. A striking con- 
trast with its present appearance — covered as it now is with such 
■ vast numbers of lofty and beautiful shade-trees, giving it a resem- 
blance to a forest, with varied thickets of undergrowth through 
which broad avenues and partial clearings had been made. The 
one lone tree was in the lower part of the city. It stood in the 
valley, between Third and Fourtli streets, in' front of where the 
Washington school building now stands. 
10 



162 mSTORY OF WINONA COITNTV. 

Id the time of high water, when the Mississippi seemed to dis- 
i-egavci boundaries, this prairie was but an island, apparently so low 
and level that it was but little above the water which lapped onto its 
banks. A rushing torrent then flowed through the slough above, 
where now the embankments of the railroads form a dam. In the 
rear a broad current of water, three fourths of a mile wide, separated 
it from the mainland. 

Bunnell, the trader, living three or four miles below, had learned 
through the traditi(ms of the Indians from the Sioux, with whom he 
was intimate and had familiar acquaintance, that the whole of 
Wabasha prairie had been entirely submerged during some of the 
most extreme floods of the river. 

No story was more current during the earlier days of the settle- 
ment of this locality, or told with more apparent candor and truth- 
fulness, than that about the general overflow of high-water on this 
prairie. From the traditionary evidence flrst cited, it soon reached 
the stage where positive proof could be i-eadily made. Many of 
the old expei'ienced river men claimed, and positively asserted, that 
they had passed over the highest part of the prairie on rafts and 
with boats. Not to be behind in experience, steamboat men stated 
that they, too, had found there sufflcient depth of water for any boat. 

The story that steamboats had passed over may possibly have 
started from the fact that during the high water of 1849 a small 
steamboat did get aground on the lower part of the prairie. The 
pilot of the Lynx mistook the channel one dark, stormy night, and 
ran his craft out on the low land, just below where the house of Mrs. 
Keyes now stands. To return the boat to the river it was necessary 
to take everything out of her, even her boilers and the brickwork 
of the arches in which they were set. 

It was said that during the high water of 1852 it was not uncom- 
mon to hear the raftsmen hail the residents of the prairie with, 
''You'd better get out o' there or you'l get drowned out. I've seen 
that prairie all under water.'' A raftsman was considered a green 
one if in his experience he had never seen Wabasha prairie covered 
with water. 

Strangers^ — passengers on the steamboats^ — were commonly enter- 
tained as they ap]>roached the i)rairie with the stereotyped remark, 
"It looks like a nice place to build a town, but it overflows." The 
persistent repetition of such remarks was as annoying to the settlers 
as it was irritating to tiie proprietors of the embryo city plotted there. 



EARLY LAND TITLEH. 163 

The proprietor of a rival town site was holding forth on this 
subject to a crowd of passengers, as the steamboat approached the 
prairie from below, saying, " It is true it does look like a nice place 
to build a town, but, gentlemen, I have passed over the highest 
land on Wabasha prairie in a boat." He was here interrupted by 
a passenger, a resident of the prairie, the dignified and gentlemanly 
appearing Rev. H. S. Hamilton, who removed his hat as he stepped 
forward and gravely said: "Excuse me, sir, but can it -be possible 
that your name is Noah ? There is no record that any one has 
passed over that prairie since the days of that ancient navigator of 
the deep." The town-site blower was forced to retreat from the 
laughter of the amused crowd of passengers. 

To Capt. Orin Smith belongs the credit of selecting Wabasha 
prairie as a location for a town site. He was the founder of the city 
of AVinona. At that time he was a citizen of Galena, Illinois, and 
the captain of the steamboat Nominee, running between Galena 
and St. Paul. He had seen western towns spring up like magic, 
enriching the lucky proprietors. Land speculations and town-site 
operations were the most common topics of conversation among his 
passengers. From a desire to engage in some profitable speculation, 
should opportunity ofifer, he watched for a chance to secure a town 
site on the river. His observations convinced him that eventually, 
when the Indian title should become extinct on the west side of the 
river in the Territory of Minnesota, an important point must spring 
up, and he early comprehended that Wabasha prairie possessed the 
most favorable and decided advantages for the rapid growth of a 
large commercial town when the country should become settled. 

The treaty with the Sioux in 1851 presented an opportunity 
which Capt. Smith at once took advantage of, although the treaty 
had not been ratified and the Indians were still occupying the 
country. He was familiar with the river, and was aware that there 
were but two locations suitable for steamboat landings on Wabasha 
prairie. One, the present levee — the other about a mile below. 
Capt. Smith was aware, from his own personal knowledge (he had 
navigated the upper Mississippi many years), that Wabasha prairie 
was not subject to an entire overflow, neither had it been submerged 
within the traditional recollections of the "oldest inhabitants" 
among the whites ; yet he was to a certain extent influenced by the 
Indian traditions, by Bunnell's opinion and by the opinions of some 
of the old I'iver men of his acquaintance in his first choice of location. 



164 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

He selected the lower landing for his town site because the banks 
were higher, the shore bolder, with a good depth of water at all 
seasons of navigation. He was also aware that the upper landing 
was subject to overflow, although available and satisfactory at other 
times. He therefore decided to secure and control both landings. 

In accordance with this plan he made his arrangements to take 
j)Ossession, and selected as his agent in this transacti<m Erwin H. 
Johnson, tlie carpenter on his steamboat, the old Nominee. He 
made a written agreement with Johnson to hold the two claims he 
had selected, for which Johnson was to have an undivided half of 
both claims. Capt. Smith also agreed to pay Johnson twenty- 
five dollars per month and furnish all necessar}"^ subsistence. John- 
son was to engage in banking steamboat wood, which Captain 
Smith proposed to have cut on the islands opposite during the 
winter. 

Capt. Smith landed Erwin H. Johnson from the Nominee at 
the lower landing on Wabasha prairie at about ten o'clock at night, 
on the 15th of October, 1851. He also left with him two men, em- 
ployed as wood-choppers. One of these men was Caleb Nash. The 
name of the other is unknown ; he left on the return of the Nomi- 
nee down the river. 

Johnson was furnished by Capt. Smith with a small quantity of 
lumber for a shanty, a yoke of oxen and abundant supplies of pro- 
visions and blankets. These, with Johnson's tool-chest, a few neces- 
sary tools, a bucket or two, an iron pot, a bake-kettle, an iron spider 
and a few dishes, comj^rised the entire outfit. 

They camped for that night on the beach where they landed, 
and slept under a few boards which they laid against the bank above. 
The next day they built a small cabin on the same localicy where 
they had passed the night. This structure was about 10x12, with 
a shed roof sloping toward the bank. The back end of this cabin 
was the bank against which it was built. A fireplace was formed in 
one corner, a hole above in the lower part of the roof afforded exit 
for the smoke. The material used for this fireplace was the brick 
thrown from the Lynx when aground about half a mile below in 
1849. 

This shanty, as it was called, was the first "claim shanty" put 
up on Wabasha prairie. It stood on the beach, below the high bank 
of the river, nearly in front of where the planing-mill of the Winona 
LumbiT (>)mpany now stands. Johnson built a stable for the oxen 



EARLY LAND TITLES. 165 

on the bank ten or fifteen rods back from tlie river. This was made 
of poles and covered with coarse grass from the bottoms. In the 
absence of any other means of conveyance a crotch of a tree was 
used as a sled to transport such things as the oxen were required to 
haul. Johnson afterward built a rough sled for his use in banking 
wood on the island during the winter. 

I^ot long after Johnson's arrival on Wabasha prairie another town- 
site speculator made his appearance in this locality. On the 12th of 
November, 1851, Silas Stevens, a lumber dealer in La Crosse, landed 
from the Excelsior at the upper landing, about where the L. C. 
Porter flouring-mill now stands. With him came Geo. W. Clark, 
a young man in his employ, and Edwin Hamilton, a young man 
from Ohio, looking for a chance to speculate in claims, who had 
been induced to come up from La Crosse, where he had been stop- 
ping for a short time. 

Mr. Stevens brought with him lumber for a shanty, a cooking 
stove, and a liberal supply of provisions, blankets, etc. It was about 
eleven o'clock at night when this party left the steamer Excelsior. 
Mr. Stevens was aware that Capt. Smith had made a claim here 
and placed a man on it to hold possession, and the party at once 
made search for his cabin. The night was intensely dark, and they 
were compelled to hunt for sometime before they found Johnson. 
His locality was unknown to either of them. Mr. Stevens had a few 
days before been up the river as far as Bunnell's landing, and from 
the bluff above had seen some men and a yoke of oxen on the lower 
end of the prairie, but no cabin was in sight. 

Fortunately, by following down the bank of the river, they dis- 
covered the shanty and were furnished by Johnson with thJ best 
accommodation the cabin afforded,— a bed of hay on the floor 
where all slept together, covered with blankets. Johnson had not 
then completed his shanty. He afterward improved the interior by 
putting up a shelf or two to hold his supplies and dishes, and two 
double berths, one over the other in one corner. These were made 
of poles, his supply of lumber was insuflicient. For comfort these 
berths were filled with dry prairie-grass, covered with blankets. 

This party took breakfast with Johnson before beginning the 
business of the day. Up to this time the question of boundaries to 
their claims had not been considered either by Capt. Smith or John- 
son. Capt. Smith had simply proposed to claim the two landings, 
with at least 160 acres of prairie in each claim, and as much more as 



166 MIsroHY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

they could control. It now became necessary to have their bounda- 
ries more accurately defined. 

Mr. Stevens had come up for the express ])ur[)0se of securing one 
of the landings, not being aware that Capt. Smith proposed to hold 
them both through Johnson, who he supposed was only an employe, 
without an individual interest in the matter. Mr. Stevens expected 
to take possession of and hold the upper landing through an employe 
of his own, Mr. C^lark, who had come for that j>urpose. He was 
somewhat surprised to find that Johnson had already laid claim to 
it, with the ap])roval of Capt. Smith, but no im])rovements had been 
made. Not being of an aggressive nature, Mr. Stevens hesitated to 
take advantage of this and take possession witliout Johnson's con- 
sent, which he could not obtain. 

After a general consultation, in which the whole party partici- 
pated, it was finally agreed that the land along the river should be 
divided into "claims" of half a mile square, and that Johnson 
should have the first choice of two of the claims, one for Capt. 
Smith and the other for himself 

Accordingly, on the morning of November 13, 1851, the 
first claim-stakes were driven on Wabasha prairie, and the first 
defined claims made within what are now the boundaries of Winona 
county. The stake agreed upon as the starting-point was driven on 
the bank of the river below the present residence of Mrs. Keyes. 
From this stake a half-mile was measured off with a tape-line up the 
river, where another stake was driven. This half-mile was chosen 
by Johnson for Capt. Smith and was called "Claim No. 1." The 
next half-mile measured off up the river bank was called "Claim 
No. 2." This was at once chosen and claimed by both Stevens and 
Nash. 

Mr. Stevens expected that claim No. 2 would be awarded to 
him. He had been influenced by the recommendations and per- 
suasions of Capt. Smith to come u}) and select a claim to hold 
possession, and he now supposed that after Smith and Johnson he 
was entitled to the next choice ; but he was again disai)pointed, and 
again gave way to Johnson's decision in the matter. Nash, sup- 
ported by and under the instructions of Johnson, claimed it by 
seniority as a settler. He had been a resident on the prairie about 
three weeks, and claimed the land by his rights of first discovery. 

The next half-mile, claim No. 3, was assigned to Mr. Stevens. 
It could hardly be called his choice, (^laim No. 4 was awarded to 



EARLY LAND TITLES. 167 

Johnson as per agreement. The next half-mile, claim No. 5, was 
selected by Edwin Hamilton, who claimed precedent. He had seen 
the prairie some weeks before from the deck of a steamboat while 
on a trip up the river with Mr. Stevens. No farther measurements 
were made at this time, but the next half-mile was duly awarded to 
George W. Clark, the junior settler and the last of the party. No 
one disputed his rights to claim No. 6. 

These claims, made as described, were afterward designated by 
the numbers then given and by the names of the persons to whom 
they were awarded by this party until after the government survey 
of the public lands in this part of the territory. The township lines 
were surveyed in 1853, but the subdivisions were not completed 
until 1855. 

The following copy of a lease is presented as documentary evi- 
dence to show that these claims were generally known by the num- 
bers given, and also as a relic of early days in this locality. 

" Wabasiiaw, July 8th, 1852. 

•'Whereas I have this day m.jved into the shanty on Claim No. 5, called 
Hamilton's claim, on Wabashaw prairie, Minnesota territory ; therefore I here- 
by a^'ree with John L. Balcombe, Edwin Hamilton and Mark Howard, the 
owners of said (^laim, that in consideration of the use of said shanty, I will, to 
the utmost of my ability, prevent all other persons from occupyino- or injuring 
said claim, and that I will vacate said shanty and surrender the possession 
thereof, together with the whole claim, to said owners whenever requested to 
do so by them or either of them. O. 8. HoLnRooK. 

" Witness: Walter Brown, 

" George G. Barber." 

The original paper, of which this is a copy, is in the hands of 
Mrs. Calista Balcombe, the widow of Dr. John L. Balcombe, now 
living in the city of Winona. The shanty spoken of stood about 
where the present residence of Hon. H. W. Lamberton now stands, 
on the corner of Fourth and Huff streets. This shanty was never 
destroyed ; the body of it is still preserved. When the Hamilton 
claim became the property of Henry D. Huff, the shanty was moved 
from its original site and attached to the cottage in which Mr. Hufi 
lived for several years, and which is now the residence of Mr. Lafay- 
ette Stout, No. 52 West Fourth street. 

On the same day that these claims were measured off and located, 
Mr. Stevens, with the assistance of Clark and Hamilton, built a 
shanty on claim No. 3. This shanty stood a little east of Market 
street, between First and Second streets. To move his lumber and 



1()8 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

supplies to the place selected the services of flolinson's ox-team and 
crotch-sled were obtained. 

Mr. Stevens went back to La Crosse the same evening on a boat 
which chanced to come down. Mr. (ylark remained to hold ])08se8- 
sion ot the claim for him. Clark was to receive eighteen dollars per 
month and all necessary supplies furnished. He was to occupy 
his time in cutting steamboat-wood on the island convenient for 
banking. Hamilton remained and lived with Clark in the Stevens 
shanty. He also chopped tor Mr. Stevens. No one ever accused 
Mr. Stevens of having made a big speculation on steamboat- wood 
cut on government land that winter. , * 

The last boat down in 1851 was the Nominee. About November 
21 Capt. Smith passed Wabasha prairie without lauding. 

Mr. G. W. Clark says that on December 4 he with Johnson went 
down the river in a canoe to La Crosse. The weather was pleasant 
but cool. This was their first trip from home. After having accom- 
plished the objects of their visit, they started back on the fifth and 
arrived at Wabasha prairie on the sixth. The river closed a day or 
two after. 

While on this trip to La Crosse Johnson hired two men, Allen 
Gilmore and George Wallace, to come to Wabasha prairie with him 
and work for Capt. Smith cutting wood. To accommodate these 
men Johnson secured another canoe, in which he toolj one of the 
men while Clark with the other managed their own, the one in which 
they went down. The weather had become very cold, with the 
wind strong from the west. Soon after they started it increased to 
a fierce gale. The spray from the waves as they struck against the 
bows of the canoes soon covered everything about them with ice and 
chilled them through. Being unable to manage their canoes against 
such a strong head-wind they landed, and towed them along the 
shore until they arrived at Nathan Brown's trading-station, which 
they reached about dark, almost frozen. Mr. Brown was absent, 
but finding the door of his cabin unfastened the party took possession 
and soon started a hot fire in the stove with the abundance of dry 
wood i)rovided. Finding a plentiful supply of provisions they made 
themselves comfortable for the night, and the next day safely 
reached the prairie. This was December 6, the date of the arrival 
of Allen Gilmore and George Wallace at what is now the city of 
Winona. 

Brown's was then, the only stopping-place below Bunnell's, and 



EARLY LA]S^D TITLES. 169 

it was. often made a haven of rest to the weary traveler. Mr. Brown 
usually lived alone and he enjoyed these forced visits to his cabin, 
more for the company they afforded than for the profit of it. He 
seldom made any charge for his accommodations. 

Bunnell's was a favorite stopping-place. It was the only place 
on the west side of the river where travelers could be comfortably 
accommodated with sheets on their beds and clean table-cloths. It 
was the only place on the west side of this river in the part of the 
territory where a white woman lived. Mrs. Bunnell was a good 
cook, and her guests, usually appreciated her efforts to make them 
comfortable. 

In connection with his business as a trader, Bunnell employed quite 
a number of men, cutting steamboat-wood and in cutting oak-timber 
for rafting. The following were living on the west side of the river 
during the winter of 1851-2, or afterward made it their residence : 
Harry Herrick, Leonard Johnson, Hirk Carroll, Henry J. Harring- 
ton and a man by the name of Myers, who came after January 1, 
1852. They boarded at Bunnell's.' 

Two young men, Jabez McDermott and Josiah Keene, were 
in his employ until after the holidays, and "kept bach" in a small 
cabin on the banks of the river a little below Bunnell's. 

Peter Gorr, with his wife and three children, and Augustus 
Pentler and his wife, lived together in a cabin on an island opposite 
Bunnell's landing. Gorr and Pentler worked for Bunnell until in 
February. 

Soon after the river was frozen over, or as soon as it was safe to 
travel on the ice, Israel M. Noracong and William G. McSpadden 
came up from La Crosse. They brought with them two yoke of 
oxen and a large sleigh-load of lumber and supplies, which they 
took up Wabasha prairie to the mouth of the Eollingstone valley. 
They put up a shanty a little north from where Elsworth's flouring 
mill now stands, in Minnesota city. These men were engaged 
during the winter in cutting black-walnut logs. 'Black-walnut 
timber then grew plentifully along that stream. 

About the same time John Farrell came up from La Crosse, 
bringing with him ox-teams and supplies and quite a number of men. 
He established a logging camp on the Wisconsin side of the river. 
His cabin and stables were at the foot of the bluff, about where the 
wagon-road across the bottoms strikes the mainland. He had 
selected his location and cut a quantity of hay early in the fall. 



170 iirsTom ov winona roT-r<TY. 

Some of the most vahijil>le oak timber on the islands o])])osite 
the city of Winona was cut down during that winter by Farrell's 
gang of choppers. Many of the logs were never removed from 
the places where they were cut. 

To aid in floating the heavy oak logs when they were rafted in 
the spring, almost an equal quantity of the finest ash-timber was also 
slaughtered and taken away. 

Tiie total number of white inhabitants living within the bound- 
aries of what is now Winona county at the close of the year 1849 
was six — W. B. Bunnell, wife and three children, at Bunnell's 
landing, and Nathan Brown. 

The total white population at the end of 1850 was seven. This 
increase of one over the preceding year was from natural cause — by 
the addition of another child to Bunnell's family. During the 
winter of 1850-1 Bunnell and Brown had a few transient wood- 
choppers in their employ, wlio lived on the islands. 

Tiie total white population December 31, 1851, was twenty-one, 
all of whom, if the family of Bunnell is excepted, were engaged in 
the same occupation, cutting timber on public lands. It was then 
a common practice for people who chose to do so to appropriate the 
timber on lands belonging to the United States for individual use 
and for purposes of speculation. Such operations were not con- 
sidered dishonorable. Tlie choicest pine, oak, black-walnut, ash 
and maple timber was cut on public lands, rafted down the Missis- 
sippi and sold by men respected for their business enterprise and 
honorable dealings with their fellow-men as individuals. It will be 
safe to say that fifty per cent of the timber on the islands in the 
Mississippi was cut for steamboat wood and other ])urposes while 
the title to lands was in the United States. 

Among the enjoyments of holidays observed by the bachelor 
settlers on Wabasha prairie was tlie Christmas dinner given by Clark 
and Hamilton December 25, 1851. Hamilton was chief cook, and 
made an extra effort foi' special dishes on this occasion. 

Mr. Clark says that in addition to the best of their common fare, 
good wheat-bread, hot corn-bread, ham, goo<l butter, syrup and 
strong coffee, Hamilton got up a most delicious s({uirrel pot-pie, and 
for dessert a splendid pheasant-jtic. Neither vegetables nor fruit 
were on this bill of fare. Tlu'V had already learned to dispense 
with such delicacies. 

To this feast Johnson, Nash, Gilmore and Wallace were invited. 



THE PIOKEERS. 



171 



All without a single apology promptly responded to the alarm for 
help from the Stevens shanty. 

This was the first special assemblage of the settlers on Wabasha 
prairie for social enjoyment. No rivalries or claim jealousies existed 
among them at that time. With this little party on the outskirts of 
civilization genuine friendship in the rough was the prevailing feel- 
ing exhibited, uninterrupted by the hilarities which accompanied. 
As a closing ceremony at this first reunion of the settlers on the 
prairie, Hamilton gave as the parting toast, "May the six bachelors 
here assembled be long remembered by each other." This was 
responded to by a shake all around as they separated. 

The success of the Christmas dinner-party induced Johnson to 
return the "compliments of the season," and extend a general in- 
vitation to all to assemble around his hoard on ISTew Year's da-y. 
This was marked as another of the really enjoyable days of that 
winter to the lonely bachelors of the prairie. The crowning dish 
on this occasion, the one most vivid in the recollection of Mr. Clark, 
was an unlimited supply of wild honey, which Johnson had secured 
from a bee-tree on the island. 



CHAPTER XVITI. 



THE PIONEERS. 



QmxE a number of persons came up from La Crosse on the ice 
about the fiirst of January, 1852, to see the country and select claims 
on Wabasha prairie. As everybody stopped at Bunnell's, he, too, 
became infected with the prevailing epidemic of claim-making from his 
guests. Although he had no confidence in the success of Capt. Smith's 
undertaking to build up a commercial port on "that sand-bar in the 
Mississippi," Bunnell had the shrewdness to surmise that there 
might be a chance for speculation in the attempt, provided he could 
sell out before it should be again flooded with water. He at once 
concluded to take a chance in the venture, and decided that he, too, 
would have a claim on Wabasha prairie. 

At that time Capt. Smith's claim on the lower landing, claim 
No. 1. was considered the most valuable and the most desirable as a 



172 JIISTOllY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

town site. No. 4 was estimated as the next in value. Nos. 2, 8, 5 
and were valued in the order named. 

Having determined on making a claim Bunnell went up to the 
prairie and looked the ground over. He lound that the most de- 
sirable lo(;ation8 had already been taken. Notwithstanding this he 
fixed upon one of the unoccuj)ied claims, and selected claim No. 4 
for his purpose. This claim he considered really the most valuable. 

To get possession Bunnell stated to Johnson that he had been 
looking for a claim, and had found one that suited him just above 
the Stevens claim that was not occupied, and he intended to take 
possession of it. Johnson replied by telling him that he could not 
have it ; that he had already made a claim there and should hold 
it. Bunnell inquired how many claims he expected to hold ; that 
he was already holding two at the lower end of the prairie. This 
Johnson denied, and explained to him that the one he was living 
on was Capt. Smith's and that the other belonged to Nash. 

Bunnell then tried to convince Johnson that it would be to the 
advantage of all who had claims there to give him an interest on the 
prairie, for the Sioux were then talking of driving the whites away 
until the treaty was ratified ; that with his influence over them he 
would be able to prevent trouble. Johnson replied that he would 
not give up that claim to any man, that he was not afraid of trouble 
with the Indians, that he should hold both claims as long as he 
staid there. Finding that Johnson could not be influenced by argu- 
ment, he left with the threat that he would have it, even if he had 
to help the Indians drive them all off from the prairie. 

Not long afterward Bunnell drove up to the prairie again and 
brought with him on his train two fine-looking young Sioux braves 
in their holiday attire. He saw Johnson and told him the Sioux 
were getting to be more dissatisfied with the settlers for coming on 
their lands without their permission ; that there would soon be a 
disturbance unless something was done to keep them quiet ; that he 
sliould not try to control them unless he could haye that claim ; if 
the settlers got into trouble they would have to go to some one else 
for help. 

Although no serious difficulty was anticipated, the alarm was 
given as soon as Bunnell came on the prairie with the Sioux and the 
"boys" who were on the island chopping came home in a hurry. 
After explaining matters to the others, Bunnell told Johns«)n he had 
come up on purpose to have a talk with him about that claim, and 



THE PIONEERS. 173 

asked him what he was going to do about it. " Nothing," was John- 
son's reply, and remarked that he did not believe such good-natured 
looking fellows as Bunnell had on his sleigh would do any harm if 
they were well treated. 

Bunnell had taken a dram or two and was excitable. He lost 
his temper, talked loud and made a great many violent gestures. 
The Sioux sat quietly in their places on the train and indulged 
themselves with their pipes and some of Bunnell's tobacco. They 
were impassive and apparently indifferent spectators of the pro- 
ceedings. 

Johnson, believing that this was a ruse of Bunnell's to try and 
frighten them, told him that he "did not scare easy and could not 
be bluffed with a little noise." Bunnell was annoyed that his dra- 
matic display was a failure, and as he got on his sleigh answered : 
" You will have to take care of yourself if the Indians get after you; 
I shall not interfere again." Johnson laughed and gave some 
derisive reply, telling him "not to bother himself about the affairs 
of others until he was asked." 

The next trip Bunnell made to "Wabasha prairie he brought with 
him two men, Harrington and Myers, and built a small log shanty 
or pen on Johnson's claim at the upper landing. The logs used in 
the construction of this claim shanty were once a part of Indian 
farmer Reed's old store cabin, the ruins of which furnished material 
sufficient for the body of the crib. It was covered with broad strips 
of elm bark brought from the Indian tepees in the mouth of Burns' 
valley. 

.In this little pen, not more than six feet square and not high 
enough for a man to stand up in, Bunnell left Myei'S to hold the 
fort and guard the claim, which he had now taken possession of in 
a formal manner. Bunnell furnished Myers with supplies and 
brought up some lumber and put up the framework of a board 
shanty, but did not complete it for want of material to cover it. 
Myers remained in quiet possession of the claim for about a week, 
when, considering everything safe, as he had not been disturbed or 
observed any hostile movements, the settlers on the prairie being 
absent on the island, he ventured down to Bunnell's for a little 
recreation and relief from his lonely and uncomfortable confine- 
ment. 

Although no demonstrations had been made, Johnson had 
watched these proceedings and closely observed all of the movements 



174 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

of Myers. It was a gratification to see the man with his gun leave 
the prairie. He at once took advantage of the absence of tlie occu- 
pant of the cabin and deniolislied the improvements. He leveled 
tlie structure with the ground, and then deliberately cut the old logs 
and the himber into hrewood. 

Bunnell was enraged when he found that Johnson had destroyed 
his shanty, and threatened to whip him the next time he saw him. 
Myers did not return to Wabasha i)rairie. He was dismissed by 
Bunnell for neglect of duty and left the country. 

Bunnell sent messages to Johnson warning him to leave the 
prairie, or the next time he came up he would whip him like a dog. 
Johnson sent back answers that he was prepared to defend himself 
and his claims ; that if Bunnell came on the prairie again it would 
be at his perih 

Neither of these men were cowards, and serious trouble was 
anticipated. They were small men — hardly of medium size, John- 
son a little larger and heavier of the two and of coarser make-up. 
Bunnell was firmer built and active in his movements, a dangerous 
antagonist for a much larger man in any kind of a fight. 

Satisfied that ''talk" would not win the claim and irritated by 
Johnson's successful opposition, Bunnell, in company with Harring- 
ton, drove up to the prairie one evening for the purpose of assault- 
ing Johnson if a favorable opportunity offered. Both had stimulated 
to a fighting degree and were primed for the purpose. 

Going first to the Stevens shanty, Bunnell there found Clark 
and Nash, who had called on a social visit. He inquired for 
Hamilton and learned that he was at Johnson's. Gilmore and 
Wallace were on the other side of the river at Farrell's. After a 
short visit they left without betraying the object of their evening 
visit on so dark a night. 

Tliey went directly down to Johnson's shanty. Bunnell knocked 
at the door. On being told to "come in" he entered, saying, as he 
inished toward Johnson, who with Hamilton was sitting by the fire, 
''Get out of this if you want to live.'' Johnson sprang for his 
revolver, which was in his berth, but the attack was too sudden ; he 
had no op})ortunity to use it before he was knocked down and dis- 
armed. 

Hamilton bolted from the shanty at the first clash of the combat 
and ran for help. He arrived almost breathless at the other shanty, 
a mile away, and gave the alarm by excitedly exclaiming, " Bun- 



THE PIONEERS. 175 

nell is killing Johnson ; come down quick as you can." Clark and 
Nash at once started back with Hamilton on a run for the scene of 
conflict. When about half way they were met by Johnson, who, 
although apparently injured, returned with them. They found that 
the shanty had been demolished, but the assailants had disap- 
peared. 

Johnson was taken up to Clark's shanty, where he was provided 
for and carefully attended. He was found to have been badly 
bruised about the head, chest and arms. His face and hands were 
badly swollen and covered with blood, but no bones were broken. 
It afterward proved that no serious injuries had been received. 
Johnson had been terribly beaten by Bunnell and was compelled to 
lay up for repairs. 

When the battle-ground was visited in the morning the fuU 
extent of damages to the "pioneer claim shanty" was revealed. 
The fii'st evidence of actual settlement on Waba'feha prairie had been 
destroyed. The pile of brick and stone which formed the fireplace, 
with some broken dishes, marked the locality where the little cabin 
once stood. It had been turned over and with its contents thrown 
on the ice of the river. 

Johnson's supplies and other traps were secured and carried up 
on the bank, where they were sheltered with the lumber from the 
shanty. The stable and cattle had not been disturbed. Johnson 
and ISTash lived with Clark until their shanty was reconstructed. 
Johnson's revolver and double-barreled gun were carried off by 
Bunnell as trophies of his victory. 

Soon after this affray, Peter Gorr and Augustus Pentler came 
over from the island to visit the settlers on the prairie. Mr. Gorr 
had his rifle with him, which he was induced to leave with Johnson 
after hearing the incidents of his quarrel. Johnson then sent word 
to Bunnell that he would shoot him on sight if he ever made his 
appearance on the prairie again. 

Bunnell had no design to interfere with the occupancy of the 
claim at the lower landing. His attack on Johnson and destruction 
of the shanty was for retaliation and to intimidate him. He became 
satisfied that he would not be able to hold the claim at the upper 
landing without some sei'ious fighting, and, having no desire to kill 
Johnson or be killed himself in the attempt, he decided to abandon 
his claim speculation on Wabasha prairie and turn his attention to 
what he thought was something better nearer home. The scheme 



176 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

of building up a town along the bluff's above the present village of 
Homer was started about this time, in which Bunnell was for awhile 
interested. Bunnell returned to Johnson the revolver and gun he 
had taken from him, peace was negotiated, and the "little differ- 
ence " that liad existed between the parties "dropped" without 
further action. Bunnell, however, became more emphatic in main- 
taining and more free in expressing his opinions of " that sand bar up 
there," and more zealously advocated his tlieory that the "main 
land" was the only place for a permanent settlement. 

This was the first attempt at "claim jumping" ever made in the 
settlement of this county. It was afterward a common occurrence. 

M. Wheeler Sargeant, an early settler, once gave a very appro- 
priate definition of a claim in an address before the Winona Lyceum 
in 1858. He said: "A claim is a fighting interest in land, osten- 
sibly based upon ])riority of possession and sustained by force." 
Many of the old settlers will readily recognize the pertinency of this 
description. The law of might, as well as the law of right, was often 
the means by which possession of claims were retained. 

Soon after this first claim quarrel, a claim association or club was 
was formed for the mutual protection of settlers in holding possession 
of their claims. The first meeting was called to meet at Bunnell's 
about March I. The prime movers in the matter were some resi- 
dents of La Crosse who had recently selected claims on the west side 
of the Mississippi. They came up prepared to complete the busi- 
ness and the organization was created at this meeting. It was called 
the Wabashaw Protection Club. The important matters of consti- 
tution and by-laws were duly discussed and gravely adopted, and 
officers elected with customary formality. The settlers from Wa- 
basha prairie attended the meeting, but were in the minority and 
failed to secure any of the offices. The officials were residents of 
La Crosse. Mr. George W. Clark was a member of the club and 
was present at that meeting. He says from the best of his recol- 
lection the president was George G. Barber, the secretary, AVilliam 
B. Gere. 

The Wabasha Protection Club was the first regular orgsmization 
of any kind among the settlers ever formed in the county. 

It was not entirely a fable coined by Bunnell when he repre- 
sented to Johnson that the Sioux were dissatisfied with the manner 
in which the settlei-s were taking possession of their lands before the 
treaty was ratified. Whether Bunnell was aware of the fact or not 



THE PIONEERS. l79 

is not now positively known ; but it is very probable that he knew 
the Indians designed to demand a bonus from the settlers for the 
privilege of remaining undisturbed. It was supposed that the treaty 
would be ratified during that winter, but it was not fully confii-med 
by government until the next year. 

During the winter some officious personages had given the 
Indians begging letters addressed to the settlers recommending that 
contributions be given to the Sioux of Wabasha's band to keep them 
quiet and peaceable until the ratification of the treaty. That the 
Indians were needy, and to prevent dissatisfaction the settlers were 
advised to contribute to their wants, and suggested that a barrel of 
flour, or its equivalent in money, be given for every cabin built on 
their lands. 

Some of Wabasha's band came over from the other side of the 
river where they were camped and presented their written docu- 
ment. To avoid any difficulties or annoyance from them, Johnson 
agreed to give them the flour, but told them they must wait until 
the Nominee came up in the spring. To this tliey consented and 
went ofi* apparently satisfied with the arrangement. Johnson sup- 
posed this was one of Bunnell's tricks to alarm them and that was 
the finale of it ; but in the spring the Indians returned and demanded 
the flour. This "shanty tax" assessed by the Sioux was paid by 
a few of the earliest settlers. 

The Sioux and Winnebago Indians visited the settlers on Wa- 
basha prairie frequently during the winter and were at all times 
friendly. There was not a single instance where it was known that 
tliey disturbed a settler or his property, not even in the absence of 
the owner. 

Johnson rebuilt the shanty on Capt. Smith's claim, but put it on 
the bank a little way back from the river and a few rods below 
where it first stood. This was an improvement on the first struc- 
ture. It was about 8 x 12. The fireplace so much valued by 
Johnson in his first cabin was omitted in its reconstruction. John- 
son induced Augustus Pen tier with his wife to occupy this shanty. 
He boarded with them and made it his home until he built a shanty 
on his claim at the upper landing. Mr. Pentler lived in this place 
three or four months and then made a claim on the river below 
Bunnell's along the blufis, where he lived for several years. He is 
now living in the western part of the state. 

Mrs. Pentler was the first white woman among the early settlers 



180 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

to make Wabasha prairie her phice of residence — the first white 
woman that settled in what is now the city of Winona. 

About March !• Silas Stevens and his son, William H. Stevens, 
came up from La Crosse on the ice. They brought with them a 
pair of liorses, wagon and sleigh. This was the first span of horses 
brought into the county by a settler. There had been no demand 
or use for horse-teams. In banking wood and liauling logs ox-teams 
were the most useful and economical. Bunnell kept a saddle-horse, 
which in winter he drove harnessed to a kind of sleigh called a 
train, a kind of conveyance peculiarly adapted to travel over un- 
broken trails drifted with snow. 

On the arrival of Silas Stevens Mr. Clark delivered up to him 
his claim and gave possession of the shanty and other property en- 
ti-usted to his care. About this time, or not long afterward, Mr. 
Nash put up a small log cabin on claim No. 2. Clark and Gilmore 
occupied this with Nash as their headquarters until they built shan- 
ties on their own claims. This shanty stood about two blocks back 
from the river on what is now High Forest street. It was about 
10 X 12, built of small logs and covered with bark. The bark for 
the roof and the lumber used in its construction was taken from the 
old Indian huts or tepees, which were standing on the prairie about 
a mile above the upper landing. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

FIRST IMPKOVEMENTS. 

During the latter part of the winter and early in the spring of 
1S52 quite a number of claims were selected, and on some improve- 
ments commenced. These "betterments " were simply a few logs 
thrown together, forming a sort of pen and designed to represent 
the nucleus of a future residence. When the Indians assessed the 
settlers they did not consider these improvements sufficient to justify 
the levying of a tax, notwithstanding the importance attached to 
them as evidence that the land was claimed and settled upon. 

The claim made by (xeorge W. Clark in the fall previous was 
staked off and possession indicated by a few logs. The half mile west 



FIRST IMPROVEMENTS. 181 

of it was taken by Jabez McDermott and the next by Josiah Keen. 
These two young men had been living at Bunnell's Landing, but 
about the time they made tlieir claims they went up to the Kolling 
Stone, where they engaged in getting out black walnut logs with 
Noracong and McSpadden. 

Clark also selected a location across the slough, which he held in 
the name of his brother, Scott Clark, then living in New York. 
This claim is now the farm on which George W. Clark resides. 

Allen Gilmore made his claim next west of the one selected for 
Scott Clark. He built a log cabin in the grove west from where the 
Clark school-house now stands. It was from Allen Gilmore, and 
because of his living nearest, that Gilmore valley was given its pres- 
ent name. Mr. Gilmore occupied this locality until his death, which 
occurred March 29, 1854. It was purchased from the administrator 
of the estate. Dr. John L. Balcombe, by Orin Clark, a brother of 
G. W. Clark, who came into the county that spring. Mr. Clark 
occupied it for many years. He now lives in the city of Winona, 
but still retains possession of the grove. The other portion of the 
claim is owned and occupied by Mr. Celestial Peterman. 

George Wallace made choice of a location back of the lake, 
where John Zenk now lives. It also included what is now Wood- 
lawn cemetery. 

Peter Gorr made a claim on the river just above Bunnell's. He 
here built a small log cabin, which he occupied with his wife and 
three children. 

In narrating some incidents of early days, Mr. Gorr says that 
during the winter of 1850-51 Augustus Pentler worked for Bunnell 
by the month chopping on the islands. In the spring he returned 
to Illinois, where his wife was then living. During the summer 
Pentler and Gorr came up the river together and stopped off at La 
Crosse, where they remained for a few days, but not finding employ- 
ment, they crossed the Mississippi and came up the river on foot 
over the trail along the bluffs. At Brown's they stopped to rest and 
get something to eat. Mr. Brown furnished them a luncheon, but, 
learning that they were going up to Bunnell's for work, he declined 
to receive pay for the refreshments provided. 

In speaking of Mr. Brown he very emphatically remarked : "I 
have known Nathan Brown a great many years. He was the 
whitest white man among all the old settlers in this county. He 
always had the courage to do right and never wronged any man 



18'2 lllSTOUV OF WINONA COUNTY. 

willtnlly that 1 over heard. lie feared no man, but lie treated 
everybody with deeency and gentlemanly. That was the reason 
why lie was respected by everybody. Even the 'cussed' Indians 
respected him and had eonlidence in his integrity. Sti-angers as 
well as acquaintances were always welcome to his hospitalities. No 
one ever left Brown's suifering from hunger if he made his wants 
known." 

Gorr and Pentler worked by the month tor Bunnell during that 
season. In the fall they built a comfortable log cabin on the island 
opposite Bunnell's and brought their families from Illinois, with the 
design of settling on the Sioux lands in the spring. They moved 
across the river about the last of February, 1852, and made their 
first settlement in this county. 

About the time of the quarrel between Bunnell and Johnson, 
some difficulties occurred from business transactions between Bun- 
nell and Gorr. These cho])pers took sides with Johnson against 
their employer. Johnson went down with his oxen and sled and 
moved them off from the island and drew the logs for the shanty. 

Mr. Gorr selected this location as a temporary stopping-place 
for his family to live until he found a more suitable place for a per- 
manent home. Bunnell objected to his occupying it. Anticipating 
trouble about the matter, Johnson and the settlers on Wabasha 
prairie went down and helped put up the cabin. Bunnell met them 
and strongly protested against their building a shanty on his claim. 
Gorr started toward him in a threatening manner and told him to 
"■dry up and go home." Bunnell, being alone, considered discre- 
tion the better part of valor, and did not interfere with the house- 
raising. 

When W. B. Bunnell and Timothy Burns, lieutenant-governor 
of the State of Wisconsin, with others, originated the scheme of 
making that locality a town site, they found Gorr an encumbrance. 
Lieut. -Gov. Burns offered him twenty-five dollars for his cabin, with 
a promise of further payment in lots when the town site was sur- 
veyed, provided he would abandon the locality. This offer Mr. 
Gorr accepted, and on June 6 made a claim in what is now Pleasant 
valley, about a mile above where Laird's flouring-inill stands. He 
built a log house on it and moved his family there on June 9. 

The valley was for several years known as Gorr valley — until it 
was given its present name. Mr. Gorr was the first to settle in this 
\-alk^y. and among the first in this county to make farming a busi- 



FIRST IMPROVEMENTS. 188 

ness occupation. He settled here with the design of making it his 
permanent home, and occupied this farm about ten years, when he 
sold out and invested in other farming lands. Mr. Gorr is yet a 
resident oi the couTity and is now living on the bank of the Missis- 
sippi, above the village of Homer. The locality was once the town 
site of Minneowah. His house is within ten yards of the site where 
he built the log cabin which he sold to Lieut. -Gov. Burns in the 
spring of 1852. 

Henry J. Harrington made a claim in the mouth of Pleasant 
valley, of what is now known as "Hamilton's Farm." During tlie 
season of navigation Mr. Harrington was employed as mate on one 
of the steamboats ruiming on the upper Mississippi. Early in the 
spring of 1852 he brought his family to BunTiell's, where they 
boarded until he had a shanty built on his claim. His first cabin 
was a low one-story structure, made of small logs or poles, roofed 
with bark from the Indian tepees in that vicinity. This shanty 
stood in a grove on the table east of the present farm buildings and 
on the opposite side of the stream. Here Mrs. Harrington, with a 
family by the name of Cliamberlain, lived until Mr. Harrington 
built a more permanent house on the west side of the stream. 

This second building was a very comfortable story and a half 
hewed log house, about 16x20, with a cellar under it, walled with 
stone. This building formed a part of the old farm buildings on 
"the farm." Mr. Harrington made some improvements. He had 
about ten acres of breaking fenced in with a rail fence, which he 
planted to corn. He also cultivated a garden and set out some fruit- 
trees. It was his design to open up a stock farm here, but he did 
not live to carry out his plans. He died in 1853. His funeral was 
on Sunday, June 12. 

Mrs. Harrington leased the house and cultivation to Patrick jSTevil, 
who came into the county that fall. She stored her household go(xls 
in a part of the house and went down the river among her friends to 
spend the winter, leaving the care of her property to her agent, 
George M. Gere, Esq. Early in the spring Mr. Gere sold the 
claim to M. K. Drew for $4:00, giving a quit claim deed subject to 
the lease of Mr. N'evil. Some incidents relative to this claim will 
illustrate the uncertainty of real estate transactions while the title to 
the land was in the United States. 

Mr. Nevil lived on the Harrington place through the winter, and 
in the spring made a garden and planted the enclosed field with 



184 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

corn. During- tliis time he made a claim in the v^alley opposite to 
Gorr's, where he liad some breaking" dcme and built a shanty. This 
is now the farm of his son, Jolin Nevil. Having an oj)portunity to 
dispose of liis crop to a cash customer, lie sold his lease to John C. 
Walker, a recent arrival with a family, and moved on his own claim. 

In this transaction Mr. Nevil gave Walker a quit claim deed and 
possession of the house. Walker then assumed to be the proprietor 
and real owner of the claim, and successfully resisted all attempts 
of Mr. Drew to acquire possession, even after the lease had expired 
or was declared void. - He barricaded the house and with his family 
closely guarded the ]>remises. Under no pretext was anyone per- 
mitted to pass the boundaries of the fence which inclosed the 
improvements. 

Mr. Gere, justice of the peace and agent of Mrs. Harrington, 
with the constable, Harvey S. Terry, attempted to obtain entrance 
to the house by demanding the household goods of Mrs. Harring- 
ton stored in the dwelling. Thej' were met at the "bars," by the 
whole Walker family. Mr. Walker, with his gun in his hands and 
revolver in his belt, Mrs. Walker, armed with a huge carving knife, 
the children carrying an ax, a scythe and a pitchfork. The officers 
of the law hesitated "-to storm the castle against such an armed force,"' 
and called a parley for negotiations. Mr. Walker did not object to 
deliver up the goods, but would not a<lmit them into the enclosure. 
He stood guard while Mrs. Walker and the children brought the 
furniture from the house and delivered it outside the fence. Walker 
refused to relinquish the claim to Mr. Gere, but sent word to Mr. 
Drew that he did not desire to be mean about the transaction, and 
would ])ay him $400 for the claim, the amount he had paid to Mrs. 
Harrington, provided they would give a quit claim and leave him 
in peaceable possession of the property. Finding the speculation an 
unprofitable one, and glad to get his money back, Mr. Drew accepted 
the proposition and the claim became the "Walker Farm.'" Mr. 
Walker occu])ied this locality about ten or twelve years, when he 
sold out and went south. 

Ilirk Carroll made a claim in the timber below Harrington's, 
which he sold to Silas Stevens. He also made other selections along 
the river at various places, but did not locate on any until he made 
a claim on the head waters of Pine creek, in what is now the south- 
ern part of this county, where he made a permanent settlement and 
home for his familv. 



WESTERN FARM AND VILLAGE ASSOCIATION. 185 

The sale made by Hirk Carroll to Silas Stevens was the first 
" real estate" transaction, the first sale of a claim ever made in the 
early settlement of this county. Mr. Stevens had such confidence 
in the development of the country and future growth of a com- 
mercial town on Wabasha prairie that 'he gave Carroll $50 if he 
would relinquish the claim and let him have possession of it. It 
was held by Mr. Stevens for a year or two afterward in the name of 
his son, Wm. H. Stevens. It was the design of Mr. Stevens to 
make this locality a site for a steam saw-mill, expecting to use the 
slough for the purpose of storing logs brought down the river. 

Mr. Stevens gave his claim on Wabasha prairie into the hands 
of his son, Wm. H. Stevens, to hold possession, and returned to 
La Crosse, where he continued to carry on his lumber business. 



CHAPTER XX. 

WESTERN FARM AND VILLAC^K ASSOCIATION. 

On February 26, 1852, William Haddock and Arthur Mur- 
phy arrived in this part of the Territory of Minnesota. They 
were agents of an organization called the Western Farm and Village 
Association, explorers and prospectors for a town site and farming 
lands. With packs on their backs, each carrying a buffalo-skin and 
some camp supplies, they came up the river on skates from La 
Crosse. 

In a letter or report to the Association, published in the official 
organ of that body, " The Farm and Village Advocate," Mr. Had- 
dock says: "After leaving La Crosse we pursued our journey 
slowly up the river on the ice, hugging as closely as possible the 
Minnesota side of the river, for the purpose of making observations. 
After traveling until about noon we stopped for dinner at a young 
trader's, who happened to have a smoking dinner just read}'^ for con- 
sumption. 

' ' Having no time to lose, we resumed our tramp. Without per- 
ceiving any cabin or other dwelling, we proceded on our journey 
until the shades of evening began to gather round. Having 
brought up at the lower extremity of a sandy island, we doffed our 



186 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

buftalo-skins, selected a spot for a camp, collected wood, lit uj) a 
fire, spread out our skins, and entered upon the full enjoyment of 
the dubious pleasures of 'camping out' To camp out, however, is 
not a very agreeable thing to a person not accustomed to it, especi- 
ally in a cold February night. 

" A few miles of travel in the morning, after camping, brought 
us to a new town site, just developed, called Waubashaw, situated 
on a small prairie running out from the foot of a range of bluffs 
toward the river. 

" According to the opinion of many persons at La Crosse, this 
place is destined to be the largest town below Lake Pepin. Although 
there are only four or five shanties on the prairie at the present time, 
yet the whole site is taken up, and already have the claimants begun 
to fight about their 'claims.' Waubashaw will yet furnish some 
ricli examples of discord, and is destined, I fear, to become a prey 
to speculation, whatever may be its natural advantages. In our 
opinion it has not much to boast of except a good landing. Tlie 
land is poor and generally low, and a poition of it subject to over- 
flow. 

"A few miles above Waubashaw we came to a quiet little open- 
ing in the almost endless range of bluffs, and hove to on our skates 
for the purpose of making observations. On reaching the shore we 
passed over an open, but rather a low and marshy prairie, for about 
half a mile, when we came to a most beautiful opening of compara- 
tively high table-land, covered with oak. 

"The extent of this opening is fully large enough for our entire 
village plat, exclusive of the low land on the river, which can ulti- 
timately be filled u]) and divided, as business plats among all our 
members, proving a source of great gain as business increases and 
the town becomes settled. There is considerable variety of surface 
in the town plat which settlement will remedy, but take it as a 
whole, I do not know that I have seen anything to surj^ass it. In- 
deed, I may say that it is beautiful, and throws Waubashaw and 
Prairie La Crosse entirely in the shade." 

Haddock and Murphy, on their way from La Crosse, passed 
Wabasha Prairie and skated u]) Straight Slough, supposing it to be 
a main channel of the river. On tlieir way up the slough their at- 
tention was attracted to the general appearance of the mouth of the 
Rolling Stone Valley. On examination of this locality these town- 
site hunters found, to their disappointment, that their ideal village 



WESTERN FARM AND VILLAGE ASSOCIATION. 187 

sight, 80 opportunely discovered, was occupied. Civilization had 
already sprouted on this part of the late "Sioux Purchase."' 

Israel M. Noracong claimed one hundred and sixty acres in the 
mouth of the Rolling Stone Valley, where he had built his shanty, 
his claim covering the present village of Minnesota City. They put 
up with Noracong and explained to him the object of their visit, the 
designs and advantages of the association represented by them, and 
the benefit the organization would be in the settlement of the part 
of the territory in which it was located. Mr. Noracong at once be- 
came interested in their plan of colonization. 

Finding that he was willing to compromise matters with them, 
they made arrangements by which he was induced to relinquish all 
of his claim, except about fifteen acres of land where his cabin stood, 
which included a mill-site on the stream. This mill-site is the local- 
ity where the flouring mill of A. E. Elsworth now stands. 

After satisfactory arrangements had been made with Noracong, 
and before any explorations of the surrounding country had been at- 
tempted. Haddock and Murphy, in the name of the association, 
made claim to all the lands in the valley of the Rolling Stone, and 
to all the country lying adjacent. This was the largest claim ever 
made in the county under any pretense whatever. 

They at once commenced to lay out a village plat in accordance 
with a general plan, previously adopted by the association, which 
they had brought with them. This was the first town site 
surveyed and platted in southern Minnesota. 

A rough plat of the locality was made, with which Mr. Murphy 
returned to New York city to report their discoveries. Mr. Had- 
dock remained to hold the claim and continue his survey of village 
lots. The survey was commenced with a pocket compass; the 
measurements were made with a tape line belonging to Mr. Nora- 
cong. 

This locality was the scene of many important events in the early 
settlement of this county, some of which will be noted in other 
chapters. 

In the spring of 1852 the ice went out and the Mississippi was 
open in this vicinity on March 15. The first steamboat from below 
was the Nominee, which arrived at Wabasha prairie on April 1. 
This boat only went up as far as Lake Pepin on account of the ice. 
On its second trip it passed through the lake April 16, and was the 
first steamboat to arrive at St. Paul. 



1,S8 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY, 

C'apt. Smith brought up on the Nominee quite a number of pas- 
sengers, who landed on Wabasha prairie, and also some lumber and 
supplies for the settlers. As soon as the material arrived, Johnson 
built a shanty on No. 4, his claim at the up})er Umding. This build- 
ing was on what is now Center street, between Second and Front 
streets. It was 12 > 16, with a shed roof of boards, the eaves of 
which were about five feet from the ground. This was for awhile 
the hotel, the general stopping-place for all who got off at whatwas 
then known as Johnson's Landing. Every claim shanty was, how- 
ever, the stranger's home, if application was made for shelter and 
food. 

Jabez McDermott built a log shanty on his claim, a little south- 
east from where the shops of tlie "Winona & St. Peter railroad now 
stand. The roof was a covering of bark. All of the material for 
this shantv was taken from the Indian tepees which stood near by. 
This locality was the site of Wabaslia's village — the village of the 
band of Sioux of which he was the chief, and their general gather- 
ing-place. There were seven or eight of their cabins standing when 
McDermott made a claim of their village. 

These Indian tepees were constructed with a framework of posts 
and poles fastened together by withes and covered with broad strips 
of elm bark. The roof was peaked, the bark covering supported by 
a framework of poles. For the sides the strips of bark were of suit- 
able length to reach from the ground to the eaves. They were 
oblong in shape, about 15 v 20 feet, the sides about four or five feet 
high. The bark covering was fastened by poles outside secured by 
withes. No nails or pins were used in their construction. Inside 
they were provided with benches, or berths, from two to three feet 
wide and about two feet from the ground, extending around three 
sides of the hut. These seats, or sleeping-places, were composed of 
poles and bark. Some sawed lumber was also used about these 
tepees. The lumber, boards and planks, found there by the early 
settlers was probably taken from the river, brought (Town by floods 
from wrecks of rafts. 

There were two or three of these te])ees in the mouth of Gilmore 
valley near the Indian cultivation. One much larger than the others 
was about 20 X 30. There were also two or three in the mouth of 
Burns valley. They were all of the same style of architecture and 
similarly constructed. 

These cabins were but summer residences for the Sioux and were 



WESTERN FARM AND VILLAGE ASSOCIATION. 189 

but temporarily occupied in cold weather, when thej usually fixed 
their hunting camps, of skin or cloth tents, in the timber on thie 
river bottoms. The Indians sometimes halted in their migration and 
stopped in them for two or three days at a time after the first settlers 
came here in 1851, but they abandoned them entirely in the spring 
of 1852. These tepees were torn down in the forepart of this season. 
While the Sioux remained in this vicinity they sometimes visited 
the settlements, and were at all times friendly without being familiar 
or troublesome. 

Soon alter tlie opening of navigation another town site was dis- 
covered on the Mississippi below the mouth of the White Water. 
Two or three brothers by the name of Hall selected this location. 
It was known as Hall's Landing. No special effort was made to 
develop its advantages until the following year, when the town ot 
Mt. Yernon was laid out, about two miles below the mouth of the 
White Water. 

During 1851 and 1852 there was quite a rush of immigration to 
the country on the upper Mississippi. Among the localities in the 
western part of the State of Wisconsin which attracted considerable 
attention from this moving population was La Crosse. After the treaty 
with the Sioux in 1851 many of these immigrants made La Crosse a 
temporary halting place until opportunity was given to make 
selections of locations on the west side of the river. A very large 
majority of the first settlers in southei-n Minnesota were of this class. 

With the exception of the colony that settled at Minnesota City, 
Winona county was first settled almost entirely by these temporary 
residents of La Crosse. During the winter some of these citizens of 
Wisconsin came up the river on the ice and selected locations on 
Wabasha prairie and in its vicinity. In the spring they, with others, 
visited this part of the territory to see the country, and made claims 
in a more formal manner. 

These claims were usually marked by writing the name of the 
claim-maker on the stakes which defined the location selected, or, if 
in the timber, the^ trees were blazed and the name of the claimant 
conspicuously displayed. As the season advanced it became neces- 
sary to represent some improvements. A few logs laid up, as if a 
future cabin was contemplated, a few furrows with a plow, or a little 
corn or vegetables planted, gave evidence that the claim was occu- 
pied. These claims were usually acknowledged by the settlers and 



190 HISTORY OF WtNONA COUNTY. 

rmitual protection given, although the laws governing claims were 
not fully complied with. 

Among those who came up during the winter and selected loca- 
tions, and who afterward became residents of Wabasha prairie, was 
William B. Gere, commonly called "Beecher Gere.'' lie made a 
claim south of and joining both of the claims of riohnson and 
Stevens. Although a settler could not hold, legally, but IQO acres, 
this claim was laid on a sliding scale, and for a while Beecher Gere's 
claim coA'ered twice that amount of land. 

Enos P. Williams, then in the employ of Silas Stevens at La 
Orosse, selected the location adjoining Gere's on the east. This is 
now known as Hubbard's addition. 

Elijah Silsbee selected the one next west of that claimed by Gere, 
and a man by the name of Tlobbs took that next to Silsbee's on the 
west. 

Frank Curtiss discovered that there was room for another claim 
between that selected for Scott Clark and the claims of McDermott 
and Keene, and located himself there. 

Walter Brown selected a location in what is now Gilmore valley, 
in the mouth of the ravine about where the brickyard of Mr. Ber- 
sange is now located. 

George G. Barber made choice of one adjoining Brown's in the 
valley above. 

Kev. George Chester, a Methodist minister — the lirst that settled 
in La Crosse — made a claim in Gilmore valley where the county farm 
is now located. The first sermon ever delivered to the early settlers 
of Winona county was preached by Mr. Chester on Wabasha prairie 
while on this visit to Minnesota. Mr. Chester never made any 
improvements on his claim, neither was he ever a resident of the 
county. 

A colored man, a barber in La Crosse, by the name of Williams, 
made the first claim across the slough on the upper prairie. It is 
now the residence of George I. Parsons. The claim shanty was 
near the railroad. 

Some of the early visitors from La Crosse who came up with Mr. 
Chester, Mr. Barber and others, returned without selecting locations, 
although they afterward became residents of Wabasha prairie. Dr. 
John L. Balcombe, John C. Laird and Abner S. (Toddard were 
among this number. Mention will be made of them at a later date. 

Henr\' C. Gere came up from La Crosse early in the spring, and 



WESTERN FARM AND VILLAGE ASSOCIATION. 191 

landed at what was then known as Johnson's landing, witli his 
family, household goods, and lumber for a shanty. During the 
winter previous he visited the prairie and professed to have selected 
a claim, but refused to point it out, — -none of the settlers were aware 
of his choice of location. 

It afterward appeared that about the time of the "difference" 
between Bunnell and Johnson, a friendship, or rather an acquaint- 
ance was formed between Gere and Bunnell, and a plan laid to jump 
the Stevens claim. As Mr. Stevens was a non-resident, Gere was to 
locate himself on the claim with his family, and Bunnell was to aid 
him to keep possession of it. It was represented by Bunnell that 
he had selected this claim for H. C. Gere, and had made some 
designative marks on the back side of it, next to the claim selected 
by Wm. B. Gere. Until spring no boundaries were marked on any 
of the claims, except the claim-stakes driven along the bank of the 
river by Stevens and Johnson in the fall of 1851. After the frost 
left the ground in the spi-ing these claims were marked by corner 
stakes in the rear. 

Gere also pretended that he was a partner with Stevens in the 
lumber business at La Crosse when the claim was made, — that it was 
a joint speculation which Mr. Stevens ignored. 

A day or two before Gere left La Crosse with his family, Silas 
Stevens learned that he professed to have an interest in claim No. 
3 on Wabasha prairie, and that he was going there to live. Being 
well acquainted with Gere, and fearing trouble from him, Mr. Stevens 
came up to the prairie and there awaited his arrival. 

With well-assumed confidence that he had an undisputed right 
to the Stevens claim, Gere secured the services of Johnson with his 
oxen and sled, loaded with lumber, and started with a friend or two 
to take possession of it. As he approached the west boundary of 
the claim with his load of lumber, he was met by Silas Stevens, Wm. 
H. Stevens, George W. Clark and Allen Gilmore. With the excep- 
tion of Silas Stevens this party was armed, although no revolvers 
were in sight. Each carried a strong cudgel, except Wm. H. Stevens, 
who handled a gun and assumed the position of leader. He ordered 
Gere to halt and not attempt to cross the claim line with his lumber. 
This claim boundary was a line due south from the claim stake, 
which stood on the bank of the river about midway between what is 
now Walnut and Market streets. Meeting so firm an obstruction, 
Gere and his party with the load of lumber moved back on the 



192 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

prairie along the designated line, escorted by the Stevens party, 
until the south boundary of the chum was passed. The escort then 
stood guard whik' Gere put up a shanty on the claim of his nephew, 
Wm. B, Gere. 

The shanty built by JI. C. Gere stood on the east side of Franklin 
street, between AVabasha and Sanborn streets, on the lot where '' 
Thomas Burk now lives. It was 12x12 when first built, and cov- 
ered with a board roof, but was afterward enlarged to 12x18, and 
covered with a shingled roof, sloping the length of the shanty. Mr. 
Gere lived there until the sjjring of 1854, when he moved onto a 
claim in the mouth of West Burns valley. The writer occupied 
this shanty as his residence and business office in July and August, 
1854. 

This was but the beginning of Gere's efforts to get possession of 
the Stevens claim. Other incidents relative to this claim will be 
given. 

Among the earliest arrivals this spring were John Evans and S. 
K.. Thompson. Mr. Thompson did not at once make a claim, but 
lived on Wabasha prairie, a passive looker-on for some time before 
he took an active part as a bona-fide settler. 

Mr. Evans was an old pioneer, familiar with pioneer life and the 
settlement of a claim country. He at once commenced prospecting, 
and soon discovered that Clark was holding two claims. Consider- 
ing this to be a favorable opportunity to secure a good location near 
the landing, he selected the one Mr. Clark had made and was hold- 
ing in the name of his brother, and announced his purpose to make 
that his claim. Clark earnestly protested against this, but Evans 
asserted that he had a right to it, that Scott Clark had never been 
in the territory, and George W. Clark was then holding a claim on 
the prairie. Evans, with the help of Thom})son, had already com- 
menced cutting logs for a cabin, but seeing that Clark was extremely 
anxious to retain the claim across the slough, offered to let him take 
his choice of the two he was holding. Finding that Evans was 
determined in the matter, Clark very reluctantly decided to relin- 
quish the first claim he had made, claim No. 6, provided Evans 
would aband(m the other. , 

John Evans then took possession of the claim relinquished by 
Clark and commenced making improvements. This was afterward 
known as the "Evans Claim." Chute's and Foster's additions were 
parts of that claim. It was on what is now known as Foster's 



WESTERN FARM AND VILLAGE ASSOCIATION. 193 

addition that Mr. Evans placed his buildings. It was here that he 
lived while a resident of the county, and where he died. While 
living here Mr. Evans opened up a farm and inclosed the whole claim 
with a rail fence. He at one time had a field under cultivation which 
comprised about half of his claim, on which he raised several crops of 
wheat, corn, etc. He then disposed of a part of it (Chute's addition), 
and divided a portion into suburban lots, retaining what is now 
Foster's addition as his homestead. 

Mr. Evans did not bring his family here until late in the summer 
of 1862.— not until he had built a house for them to move into. His 
house was covered with the first shingled roof ever put on any build- 
ing on Wabasha prairie ; the first shingled roof in the city of 
Winona. 

The family of Mr. Evans, when he located here in 1852, consisted 
of a wife, two daughters and a son. One of the daughters married 
O. S. Holbrook; the other became the wife of Erwin H. Johnson. 
.Another daughter, the wife of James Williams, came here about 
two years after. James Williams is yet a resident of the county. 
Mr. Evans and all of his family mentioned above are now dead, 
except his son. Royal B. Evans, who is a resident of the countv! 
living in the town of Wilson. 

When George W. Clark relinquished his claim, No. 6, to John 
Evans, he took possession of the land across the slough in his own 
name. When his brother came on he aided him in securing another 
location. ^ Mr. Clark never speculated in city lots or suburban prop- 
erty.^ His choice of claims was undoubtedly the decisive point in 
his life as to his future business occupations and home. 

Mr Clark left the State of New York in 1851, with the design to 
secure to himself a farm somewhere in the western country. He first 
went to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where he had relatives; but learn- 
ing there of the rush to the upper Mississippi country, he with others 
started on foot across the state to La Crosse. He there sought 
employment and secured a situation in the lumber yard of Silas 
Stevens, where he proposed to remain until he should learn of a 
satisfactory location for a permanent settlement. Influenced by a 
higher rate of interest than he had been familiar with in the east," he 
placed what funds he had with him in the hands of his employer. 
Familiar acquaintance increased a mutual confidence of the two in 
each other, and when Mr. Stevens decided to make a speculative 
investment on Wabasha prairie, in the Territory of Minnesota, he 



194 IIISTOIIY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

selected Mr. Clark as his agent. His arrival licre (Jii November 12, 
1851, has already been narrated. 

The force of circumstances compelled Mr. Clark to make selection 
of the farm for which he had left his father^s house and come west. 
Having decided to locate on his claim across the slough, he gave 
Lis whole time and attention to its improvement and increasing his 
possessions by securing adjoining )>ro]jerty by way ol speculation. 

The first rails used by Mr. Clark in his farming o})erations were 
the relics of a fence built by the Sioux to keej) their ponies from 
ranging over their cultivation in the mouth ot the valley above. This 
Indian fence extended from the blufis to the lake or slough on the 
bottom, about on the west boundary of his claim, and nearly on the 
west line of his farm. 

These were some of the circumstances of his first settlement 
here, which, with his. determined purpose to locate on a farm, made 
George W. Clark, the pioneer farmer, the first practical farmer to 
settle on a plaim held exclusively tor farming purposes. He began 
his first improvements on this claim in March, 1852, using the horses 
of Mr. Stevens for his first team-work, to haul the logs together 
which he had cut for the purpose of building a claim shanty, before 
it was jumped by John Evans. Mr. Clark's original claim shanty 
was located about where his hay-shed now stands, in the meadow 
near where the lane leading to his present residence leaves the Gil- 
more valley road. 

Mr. Clark has lived on the farm he now occupies about thirty- 
one years. The little log shanty and straw-covered sheds have been 
superseded by a large farmhouse and a commodious barn and sheds. 
He has been a prosperous farmer. Although others engaged in 
farming oj^erations early in the season of 1852 and made as much 
improvement on their claims as Mr. Clark, he was the first to settle 
on any land now held as a farm in this county. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE ASSOCIATION CIIYSTALLIZE:D, 

The association by which Minnesota City was first settled origi- 
nated in the city of New York in the summer of 1851. This organi- 
zation was never generally understood by the western public, nor its 
special objects clearly comprehended by the early settlers in this 
part of the territory. It is, indeed, more than prolbable that some 
of its members had but indifferent ideas of its operations and special 
design when practically demonstrated. The people generally consid- 
ered the association to be a body of fanatical communists — a social- 
istic organization with such visionary and impracticable theories ot 
colonization that failure was but an inherent destiny. These mis- 
taken ideas and false impressions prejudiced other settlers against 
them from the first. The apparently clannish exclusiveness and 
mysterious manner of the colonists confirmed these vague opinions 
and excited a jealous rivalry with settlements in other localities. A 
mutual antagonism resulted, which time alone dissipated, but not 
until long after the association had ceased to exist as an organization. 

This association was composed of persons of difl'erent nationali- 
ties, difterent religious and political opinions, and of different busi- 
ness occupation, united for a special object. It was an emigration 
society, designed to aid its members in leaving the city and forming 
a colony on government lands in the west. The organization was 
but a temporarj^ one, and never designed for any other purpose. 

That the plan of colonization was practicable under favorable 
circumstances, in the hands of practicable men and under the man- 
agement of practicable leaders, there is but little doubt. That it 
was, to a great extent, a failure, that the results were not fully in 
accordance with that anticipated from its programme of operations, 
was evidently attributable to the incapacity and inexperience of the 
"leaders rather than to radical defects in the plan. Justice to these 
pioneer settlers of the county exacts a brief sketch of the organiza- 
tion by which the colony was located. 

William Haddock, one of the discoverers of the town site at the 
mouth of the Eolling Stone valley, was the founder and president of 



198 HISTOUY OF WTNONA COTTNTY. 

the association. In July, 1851, Mr. Haddock, then a journeyman 
printer living in New York city, conceived the idea, and in a public 
lecture at a meeting ot mechanics called by him for the purpose, pre- 
sented the outlines of a plan whereby the mechanics of the city 
would be able to secure "homes in the west," to leave the city and 
locate on government lands, to go in a body and form a colony. 

His audience manifested considerable interest in the subject of 
his lecture, and appointed a committee to take the matter into con- 
sideration and draw up a code of laws for an organization on the plan 
proposed. The committee made a report the following week, and a 
form of organisation was effected, with William Haddock as presi- 
dent and Thomas K. Allen secretary. It was not, however, until 
about the middle of September that the association was considered 
fairly organized, although weekly meetings were held for the pur- 
pose of perfecting the laws and in many ways modifying the original 
])lan proposed by Mr. Haddock. 

That the plan adopted may be impartially presented, the follow- 
ing extracts have been copied from the "Constitution and By-Laws 
of the Western Farm and Village Association." 

PREAMBLE. 

Whereas, We whose names are hereunto subscribed are desinjus of locat- 
ing ourselves advantageously on government lands in some of our western 
states or territories, and, 

Wherkas, We wish at the same time to avail ourselves of all the advan- 
tages of civilization which can be immediately secured only by emigrating in 
large companies and settling in clpse proximity, we do hereby adopt, for the 
more efl'ectual attainment of our object, the following constitution and by-laws, 
to which each one of us subscribes and pledges himself to conform : 

CONSTITUTION, 

Article I. Section 1. This association shall be styled "The Western Farm 
and Village Association, No. 1, of the City of New York." 

(Sec. 2 enumerates the oflicers.) 

Article II. Object and plan of action. 

Sec. 1. The object of this a.ssociation shall be the organizatii)n and si-ttlc- 
ment of one or more townships and villages on the public lands, in some of the 
western states or territories of the United States, with the view of obtaining, if 
possible, a free grant of the same from congress. 

SEt". 2. The number of members which this association may embrace shall 
not exceed five hundred, and shall c<msist of a proportional number from each 
of the principal departments of industry. 

Sec. 3. The condition u})on which congress shall be solicited to make a free 
grant of land to members of this association shall be actual settlement and im- 



THE ASSOCIATIOIS^ CKYSTALLIZED. 199 

provement; and no member shall be allowed to subscribe forinore than KiO 
acres and a village plat of four acres. 

8ec. 4. As soon as the fimds of this association shall permit, an experienced 
and reliable member shall be commissioned to look for a site or sites for a 
township and village, who shall, while thus employed, act under the instruc- 
tions of this association, and make such reports to the same from time to time 
as he may deem necessary, or may be required of him. 

Sec. 5. When the member thus commissioned shall have performed the 
labor assigned him a competent committee shall be elected to re-examine such 
localities as may have been reported by him, or such other places as may be 
authorized by the association ; which committee shall give a full and true ac- 
count of each locality to this body. 

Sec. 6. The sight of the township and village shall be determined by a vote 
of this association before any choice of land shall have been made by any of 
its members ; such determination to be based upon the committee of examina- 
tion, or upon such other facts, circumstances or information as may be deemed 
important. 

Sec. 7. When the site of the township shall have been chosen by the asso- 
ciation, the different kinds of land outside the village plat, such as timber, 
prairie and suburban land, shall be so laid off as to render all the landed 
advantages growing out of this association as equally available as possible. 
Maps shall be drawn representing the village, suburban, farming and wood 
plats, accomimnied by a brief description of each and every lot. When 
this shall have been done and approved by the association, the order of choos- 
ing among the members shall be settled by numbers, after which each shall 
make his selection of lots according to the number of his choice. 

Sec. 8. The village site shall be so surveyed as to allow each member of 
this association, after deducting liberally for streets and parks, to have a village 
plat (if about four acres. 

Sec. 9. The time of emigration for this association shall not extend beyond 
the 15th of April, 1852. 

Article III. (Defines the duties of officers). 

Article IV. Membership. 

Sec. 1. The qualifications for membership in this association shall be good 
moral character, industrious habits, and a willingness to conform to the consti- 
tution and by-laws. 

Sec. 2. Apphcations for admission into this association may be made 
through any member of the same, at any regular meeting ; whereupon the 
application shall be immediately laid before the board of directors ; if, upon 
investigation, he or she shall be found acceptable by a majority of the board, 
they shall rejiort accordingly at the next meeting, when, if the candidate re- 
ceive a majority of votes of the members present, he or she shall be entitled 
to a certificate of membership on payment of the initiation fee. 

Sec. 3. Every person on being elected a member of this association, shall 
pay an initiation fee of one dollar. (This was afterward raised to five 
dollars). 

Sec. 4. No member of this association shall be allowed to subscribe for, or 
hold more than 160 acres of land and a village plat of four acres. 



200 IirSTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

SEf. 5. Any member of this association may be suspended or expelled for 
misconduct or neglect of otiicial duties ; but no member shall be expelled 
without a fair trial by a committee of five members. 

Sec. 6. Should any member desire to withdraw from this association, he or 
she may transfer his or her interest to any person not already a member, sub- 
ject to tlu" approval of the association ; the said person shall pay a transfer 
fee of fifty cents, wliich shall be an acknowled;j;ment of his or her member- 
shij*. But in the event of this association obtaining a free grant of the land, 
this section shall be rendered null and void. 

Sec. 7. In the event of the death of a member of this association, all moneys 
paid by the deceased into the .society shall, at the option of the association, 
be promptly restored to his or her legal representatives. 

Sec. 8. Persons residing at a distance may, on being elected members of 
this association, remit their initiation fee and weekly dues to the financial 
secretary, in sums of one dollar for every eight weeks. 
Artr'le V. On the election of ofi[icevs. 

Sec. 1. All oflicers shall be elected by ballot, and shall serve until the ob- 
jects of this association shall b(; attained, unless disqualified by misconduct or 
incapacity. 

Article VI. Dues. 

Sec. 1. The weekly dues of all members of this association shall be twelve 
and a half cents, commencing the first day of August, 1851. 

Sec. 2. No dues or initiation fees shall be refunded to members of this 
association in consequence of their withdrawal from the same. 

Sec. 3. If any member of this association shall neglect the payment of his 
or her dues for a longer time than four weeks, he or she shall be subject to a 
fine of twelve and a half cents for each succeeding week while in arrears. 
Article VII. (Relates to drawing money on deposit). 
Article VIII. On disbursement of moneys. 

Sec. 1. All moneys paid into this association shall be devoted to the pay- 
ment of such expenses as are necessary to the attainment of its object, and to 
no other purpose, and no- moneys shall be i)aid out without a vote of the 
association. 

Sec. 2. When this association shall dissolve, by its own mutual consent, the 
books of all offi(!ers shall be balanced, and if any funds remain on hand after 
settlement of all liabilities of the association, they shall be equally divided 
among the members that then exist. 

Article IX. (Enjoins harmony among the members). 
Article X. (Relates to altering or amending constitution). 

BY-LAWS. 

Artu'LE I. (Time and place of meeting). 
Article II. (Quorum for transaction of business). 
Article III. (Fines of officers for non-attendance). 
.\rticle IV. (How discussions shall be conducted). 

Article V. Rule of Order. — As this association is organized for a specific 
ol)ject, its rule of action shall be distinct, and no question shall be in order or 



THE ASSOCIATION CRYSTALLIZED. 201 

entertained, that does not apply clearly to the object specified in the constitu- 
tion, and the means of carrying such object into effect ; neither shall anything 
of a sectarian or political character be introduced into the discussions of this 
association. 

The officers were : President, William Haddock ; vice-president, 
Wm. Skinner ; recording secretary, Thomas K. Allen ; financial 
secretary, Charles E. Wheeler ; corresponding secretary, E. B. 
Thomas; treasurer, John Brooks. 

The board of directors were Augustus A. Gilbert, J. T. Cald- 
well, James Wright, James Potter, E. B. Tanner, Charles Bannan, 
John Hughes and D. Eobertsou. 

As soon as the organization was effected the scheme was favor- 
ably advertised in the editorial columns of the New York "Tribune" 
and other papers. A few numbers of an official paper, called the 
"'Western Farm and Village Advocate," was issued by the associ- 
ation, under the editorial management of Mr. Haddock. The asso- 
ciation increased in numbers, but very many of the later members 
were from outside the city, in New York and other states. 

About the first of November Ransom Smith was commissioned 
to select a suitable location for the colony. After exploring some 
parts of the States of Wisconsin and Iowa along the Mississippi 
without accomplishing his object, he resigned his position about the 
first of January, 1852. When Mr. Smith was appointed exploring 
agent, he was specifically instructed as to the kind of location that 
he was expected to make choice of. The city members of the associ- 
ation apparently desired him to make discovery of another garden 
of Eden, with all modern commercial advantages attached. Mr. 
Smith failed to discover any locality that very much resembled the 
one pictured in the written instructions furnished for his guidance. 
The local members who controlled the organization were nearly all 
mechanics, the most of them inexperienced in matters outside of 
their business occupations 

The leaders of the organization were aware that, to insure suc- 
cess and move on the opening of navigation in the spring, prompt 
action would be necessary in the selection of a location for the colony. 
Accordingly a locating committee was appointed, consisting of Mr. 
Haddock of New York, Arthur Murphy of Hempstead, L. I., and 
A. E. Bovay, a resident of Wisconsin. 

The discoveries and selection of Rolling Stone as a location 
for the colony have been related. This selection was made with- 



202 JILSTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

tuit })roper investigation of its fitness for tliu purpose designed. 
Their examination was but superficial, and their decision prematurely 
made. They assumed that the village site was on the Mi8sissi])pi, 
but it ])roved to be six miles from a navigable channel. This selec- 
tion was a serious mistake. It was not a proper location for the 
proposed colony. This very serious mistake was, unfortunately, the 
cause of its failure. It is true Rolling Stone was first settled by the 
members of the association, but the organization collapsed before 
its specific object was accomplished. 

When the association was first organized it was supposed })0S8ible 
to secure fi*om congress a free grant of public lands for the members 
to settle upon, but in case this failed the lands were to be purchased 
fi'om the government by the members of the association, and each 
paj' for the land he occupied. 

Petitions numerously signed by members of the association and 
others were sent to congress, asking this appro}>riation for the benefit 
of the members of the colony. These petitions were presented by 
Hon. H. H. Sibley, the delegate from the territory of Minnesota. 
'No action was taken, except that the petitions were received and dis- 
posed of by being referred to the house committee on public lands. 

On the return of Mr. Murphy to New York city from Rolling 
Stone, the report of the locating committee was duly made to the 
association. It was received and approved without delay, such was 
the confidence of the members in the judgment of the. committee. 
Rolling Stone was then formally selected as the locati(^n for the pro- 
posed colony. 

A more elaborate plat of the village site was drawn from that 
furnished by the committee and lithographed for the members. It 
was numbered preparatory for the drawing, which took place March 
31, 1852. 

The following circular was then issued, and sent to each of the 
members of the organization: 

Western Farm and Village Association Office, [ 
New York, April 3, 1852. < 
Dear Sir, — The association at length have the pleasure of informing you 
of their location. Mr. Arthur Murphy, one of our locating committee, has just 
returned to this city, havinj.' in cDnjunction with our president selected a spot 
which has heen unanimously adopted as our homes. It is situated in the Ter- 
ritory of Minnesota, on the Mississippi river, about forty miles above Root 
river, and six miles above a place called Wabesha i)rairie, on a stream oi' water 
known as Kollin}.' 8tone creek; for a full description of which, with the report 



THE ASSOCIATIOlSr CRYSTALLIZED. 203 

of the committee, the corresponding secretary refers you to the forthcoming 
Advocate. In the meantime, lie has been instructed to send you the following 
circular, embodying so much of the report of its last meeting as is herein con- 
tained. 

After the adoption of the report of Mr. Murphy, the association, on motion, 
went into the choosing of lots ; all members whose dues were not paid up 
to the first of January being dec-lared by vote ineligible to partic;ii>ate. A com- 
mittee, consisting of Messrs. Cauldwell, Potter and Bannan,were appointed to 
choose for country members. The names of all those eligible were then 
placed in one hat, and numbers to the corresponding amount of members in 
another. Messrs. Thorp and Stradling presided over the names, and Messrs. 
Gilbert and Fitzgibbons superintended the numbers. A number was then 
taken from a hat, and a name from the other, and the number so drawn was 
the choice of the member whose name was drawn with it. The entire list of 
drawing so made is herein contained, with a map showing the position of the 
lot up to 132. The reason of there being none higher than this is that the 
committee, deeming that sufficient, surveyed no more ; and members who have 
drawn a choice over that number will be allowed to choose on the ground, 
from lots to be surveyed, or from lands forfeited by the non-settlement of mem- 
bers in July, in the order they run above the lots numbered. Mr. Haddock, 
who is now on the ground, has been telegraphed to survey 100 more ; and per- 
sons joining now will choose in the order as admitted meuibers. 

In addition to the above, the corresponding secretary has to state that the 
pioneer squad will start from here on Wednesday, the 7th, and passing over the 
Erie Railroad, will probably arrive at Chicago on or about the 14th ; thence by 
rail and team to Galena, and boat up the river. This will also be the route of 
the main body, and all members who live near the city, or who can make New 
York in their route, will meet here on April 14, to start on the loth, so as to 
arrive at Galena by May 1. 

Should the lakes not be open on April l'^ the association will not start on 
that day, but wait until they are. 

Those of our members who may not arrive at Galena by May 1, can learn 
full particulars of us by inquiring of Col. James Robinson there. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

For E. B. Thomas, Cor. Sec'y, 

102 Nassau street. 

Accompanying this circular was a plat of the village site and a 
list of the names of 174 members, with the order of their choice 
and the number of the lot chosen by or for 132 of them. 



CHAPTEK XXII. 



KMIGRANTS COMING. 



It was designed that settlement on the lands selected for the 
colony should be made simultaneously by the fmembers of the asso- 
ciation, or as near so as practicable, to prevent intrusion from per- 
sons not belonging to the organization. As soon as the]locality was 
formally decided upon a volunteer party already organized started 
west for the Rolling Stone, to hold possession of the "claim " made 
by Haddock and Murpliy, until the arrival of the main body of the 
association. Thi^ advance guard, to which the name of "pioneer 
squad " had been given, was a party of eleven men who left T^ew 
York city on April 7. On their way they were joined by three 
others, making the total number of this guard fourteen. All of 
these were young unmarried men except one. Mr. B. Mauby, of 
New York, was accompanied by his wife and seven children. 

The pioneer sc^uad of the Western Farm and Village Associa- 
tion came up the Mississippi from Galena on the steamboat Caleb 
Cope, and landed at Johnson's Landing on Wabasha prairie on 
April 14, 1852. The Caleb Cope was under the command of Capt. 
Harris, who had chartered her to ran as an opposition boat against 
the Nominee, in place of the West Newton, which was not then 
ready for the early spring business. The fare, on this trip, was but 
fifty cents each, for passengers from Galena to Wabaslia prairie. 
Freight was in about the same proportion of discount from regular 
rates. 

This party of immigrants were warmly welcomed at the landing 
by Mr. Haddock, who had been anxiously expecting them, and had 
come from Rolling Stone on purpose to meet and guide them to 
"the promised land." 

The following names of this party were furnished by a member 
of the squad who yet lives in Rolling Stone, at Minnesota City. The 
names of some of his old comrades have faded from his memory. 
He is tlie only one of the ''old guard" that is now a resident of 
Winona county. His name heads this list of names : Hezekiah 
Jones, Wm. Stevens, J. W. Viney, David Robertson, D. Hollyer, 



p:mt(}rants coming. 



205 



K. H. BoG^the, S. Ti. Schroeder, John Hughes, Tahiiadge. 

Randall, and D. Maubv and family. 

The_y had with them quite a large amount of supplies and camp 
fixtures, including a large tent, household furniture, a cook-stove, 
tools, etc., and also brought with them two yoke of oxen and a 
wagon. The cattle, wagon and household furniture were the prop- 
erty of Mr. Mauby. The oxen and wagon were purchased for liim 
in Illinois, by Mr. H. .Jones, who came west in the fall before, and 
joined this party at Cherry Yalley, then the terminus of the rail- 




ST Settle>[ekt ok Rollix*; Stonk.'" 



road. The team and wagon were used in transporting tlieir 
baggage from Cherry Valley to Galena, where their supplies were 
purchased. 

This party landed at about the foot of Main street ; their freight 
was piled on a mound on the bank of the river and covered with 
the tent. It was there left in cliarge of one of their number, whose 
name is now forgotten, but who was designated as the ''cigar- 
maker.'' Leaving Mr. Mauby and liis family here the others lias- 
tened on to their destination. 

* The above cut is from a sketch taken and kindly furnished by Austin W. 
Lord. f 



200 inSTOKY OF VVrXONA COUNTY. 

Mr. ^taubv engaged Jolnison's shanty, at the upper landing, as 
a liome for liis family, until he could build a cabin for them at the 
Rolling Stone. He remained with them until they were settled in 
their temporary abode. 

No provision had been made for the subsistence of the cattle. N< > 
supplies had been brought along for them, as it was supposed that 
hay could be readily procured, but none was to be had. There 
was an unusual rise of water in the river for the time of year, and 
a strong current was running through the slough, making it difficult 
for strangers to ford to the upper prairie, and no wagon trail had 
yet been opened along the bluffs. It was decided to leave the 
wagon with the freight, but to take the cattle along, as they might 
have use for them. The oxen were taken up to the Rolling Stone, 
where they were turned loose to procure a living for themselves, 
from the old grass on the bottoms, and such Ijrowse as they were 
able to get from the brush along the stream. 

Temporary supplies were packed up by the party. They were 
ferried over the slough by the Indians in canoes. With Mr. Had- 
dock as guide, they followed the trail along tlie bluffs to Noracong's 
shanty, where Mr. Haddock was living. Noracong and his party 
were then away rafting the bhick walnut logs they had cut during 
the winter. 

Norac(mg's little shanty, about 8X12, stood about where the rail- 
road crossing now is — north from Elsworth's flouring-mill. It was 
the headquarters of the pioneer squad. Finding their accommoda- 
tions insutficient. some of the party constructed a kind of hut, to which 
the name of "Gopher house" was given. One of these " gophers ■" 
was built on the table, about fifty rods above where Troosts' 
flouring mill lately stood. Another one was on the table, about 
forty rods west from where the school building now stands. These 
huts were of logs, placed in the form of a house roof, and covered 
with dry grass from the bottoms, over which was a layer of earth 
covered with strips of turf ai-ranged to shed the rain. The earth 
inside of the hut was excavated to the depth of a foot or more to in- 
crease the area inclosed. These huts were filled with dry grass and 
used as sleeping quarters. 

This advance guard had volunteered to come on for the express 
purpose of keeping off tres})assers. Although designated the 
pioneer squad, no other duties were assigned to them or expected 
from them. They spent their time in explorations of the immediate 



EMIGRANTS COMING. 207 

- tl- 



viciiiity of their camp, and in hunting and fishing, furnishing plenti 
ful supplies of ducks and trout. They all lived in common, each 
contributing from his own stores for general use. A cook was ap- 
pointed to take charge of this department, whq called for assistants 
when aid was required. Mr. Jones and one or two others assisted 
Mr. Haddock in his survey of the village plat, to which he was 
giving his whole attention. 

In this survey, the base of operations was a straight line along 
tlie edge of the table on which Troosts' flouring-mill recently stood. 
It was there the first street was laid off, extending from the lower 
end of the table to the bluff at the upper end. The village lots and 
streets were laid off parallel with and at right angles to this street 
as a base line. 

Mr. Haddock attempted to make the survey with his pocket 
compass, to which he affixed some sights of his own invention or 
construction, but was compelled to abandon this uncertain process, 
and rely on his guide poles and measurements. A long rope and 
poles superseded the tape-line and pocket compass. About two 
hundred acres were thus surveyed before Mr. Haddock procured a 
surveyor's compass and chain, with which the survey of village lots 
and farms were completed. 

Mr. Mauby built a log shanty for his family. This stood near 
where the railroad station at Minnesota City now stands. It was 
about 12X16 feet in dimensions. The shed roof was covered with 
strips of elm bark, fastened to poles. This cabin was built on the 
village lot drawn by Mr. Mauby at the meeting of the association 
in New York city, March 31. 

On May 1, 1852, O. M. Lord, Rev. William Sweet and Jonathan 
Williams landed on Wabasha prairie from the Dr. Franklin. They 
were left by the boat at the lower landing, at about ten oY-lock in 
the evening. Applying for lodgings at Pentlers, they found the 
little cabin already full, densely crowded to overflowing. On look- 
ing about to discover what other chances were possible for sleeping 
quarters, they saw what in the darkness they supposed to be a hay- 
stack, apparently not far back on the prairie. As nothing more 
favorable presented itself, they started out from the landing with the 
expectation that they would be able to make a comfortable bed from 
the hay at the stack.' After traveling a short distance they suddenly 
became aware that what they had imagined to be a stack was but 
the form of the bluffs— the outlines of which could be seen in the 



208 IlISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

distance — tliey were in front of the "■ Sugar Loaf," the top of which, 
a mile and a lialf away, could be dimly seen above the horizon. 
Disappointed in their pursuit of lodgings in that direction, they re- 
turned to the river and passed the night on the sand, sleeping 
soundly wrajiped in their blankets. 

At daylight they ])refaced their explorations of the country by 
taking observations of their surroundings. Except the broad river, 
then a raging flood overflowing the lowlands, and the general pictu- 
rcs(iue views extending in every direction from the landing, there was 
nothing in Capt. Smith's town site to excite their admiration or 
arouse any practical interest. The barren, sandy prairie, recently 
burned over, was almost entirely destitute of any appearance ot 
vegetable liie, except that the few trees and bushes along the river 
bank were just beginning to exhibit a faint appearance of green. 
Wabasha ])rairie was of no apparent value to these practical men, 
prospecting for good farming land. 

Without longer delay than to indulge a good apjjetite for break- 
fast, they started for the Rolling Stone, their point of destination. 
Following the trail along u}^ the river to the upper landing, they 
took a straight course over the prairie toward the mouth of the Gil- 
more valley. They were compelled to ford the slough, which was 
then flooded from the high water in the river. The crossing place, 
on the trail which they struck, was about a quarter of a mile above 
where the bridge, on the Gilmore Valley road, now stands. To 
keep their clothing dry they stripped, and carried it over on their 
shoulders, with their packs. Following the trail along the bluffs 
they readily reached Noracong's shanty, and found themselves on 
the grounds claimed by the Western Farm and Village Association, 
and were hospitably received by Mr. Haddock and such of the 
pioneer guard as were not absent on foraging expeditions to the 
trout streams in the valleys. 

Mr. Sweet was the only one of his party who was a member oi 
the association. Mr. Williams, although not a member, was a 
proxy representative, prospecting for his son-in-law, H. H. Hull, 
who belonged to the organization. Mr. Lord was not then in any 
way connected with the association. He was favorably impressed 
witli its plan of colonization, but was desirous of exploring the sur- 
roundings of the locality before deciding to make it his home. He 
was, however, afterwai-d prominently identifled with the affairs of 
the colony. 



EMIGliAXTS COMING. 209 

Although the almanac plainly showed that the day of their 
arrival at Rolling Stone was Sunday, the Rev. William Sweet and 
Deacon Jonathan Williams accompanied the more liberal-minded O. 
M. Lord on a Sabbath day's journey into the wilderness back of the 
bluffs, to view the land. Proceeding up the valley of the Rolling 
Stone, they followed the trail leading out through what is now 
known as Straight Valley, onto the dividing ridge between the Roll- 
ing Stone and Whitewater. Following up this divide they came 
upon a beautiful prairie, on the edge of which they camped for the 
night. The next day they explored this locality, and each made 
choice of a claim. They gave it the name of Rolling Stone prairie, 
by which it was for a while designated. After selecting their claims 
they returned to the headquarters of the embryo colony, Nora- 
cong's shanty, and made report of their discoveries. 

This party of three was the first of any of the settlers to visit 
the country back of the bluifs of the Mississippi. The claim made 
by Mr. Sweet was the farm occupied by him for many years after- 
ward. The name of ^Rolling Stone prairie was, because of his resi- 
dence here, changed and given the name of Sweet's prairie. Mr. 
Sweet is now living near Minnesota City. The claim made by Mr. 
Williams, adjoining that of Mr. Sweet, was for H. H. Hull, who 
was then living at Scales Mound, near Galena. Mr. Hull came on 
with his wife later in the season, and occupied the claim shanty of 
Mr. Sweet through the winter. In the spring he sold the claim 
made for him by Mr. Williams, and located himself a few miles 
farther south, in what is now the town of Utica. He lived there a 
few years, when he sold out and went back to Illinois. 

After making this claim Mr. Sweet went back to his home and 
brought on a part of his family. About the middle of June, he 
with the aid of the settlers at Rolling Stone built a small log-house, 
and made some improvements on his claim. In the fall he returned 
home, leaving his son, a boy about twelve years, to remain and live 
with Mr. Hull, who, with his wife, was to occupy Mr. Sweet's shanty 
during the winter. It was made the duty of this boy to drive the 
cattle down into the Whitewater Valley to water. The boy was 
treated with a great deal of severity. During one of the coldest 
days of that winter, the boy without sufficient protection was sent to 
drive the cattle down into the vallej^ — but he never returned. Mr. 
Hull found him a few rods from the house frozen to death. The 
body was put into a sink-hole, and not buried until the next spring. 



210 HISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

The claim made by Mr. Lord on Sweet's [)rairie was never im- 
proved by liim ; some other settler had the benefit of his choice. 

On tlie second of May a large detachment of the main body ot 
colonists, about fifty in number, men, women and children, bound 
for the Rolling Stone, came u\) the river on the Excelsior from 
St. Louis. This party did not land at Wabasha prairie. Supposing 
it to be practicable for steamboats to go through Straight slough, if 
the oflficers of the boats were inclined to make the attempt, and on 
account of the extreme high water which made it diflicult to get to 
the maiidand from Wabasha prairie. Mi-. Haddock had advised 
this party to make it a condition of their passage that they should 
be landed at Rolling Stone. Captain Ward, of the Excelsior, 
promised to land them anywhere they wished, provided it could be 
done with safety to the boat. 

On arriving at Wabasha prairie, the pilot refused to attempt the 
passage through Straight slough, deciding that it was not a navi- 
gable channel. The party continued on, expecting to find a land- 
ing-place somewhere above. At Holmes' landing (now Fountain 
City), the boat stopped to replenish its supply of wood. They here 
found Thomas K. Allen, the secretary of the association, who, with 
Augustus A. Gilbert, one of the directors, had landed from the 
Dr. Franklin during the previous night. Mr. Gilbert had taken a 
canoe and crossed over to the Minnesota side of the river, leaving 
Mr. Allen in charge of their baggage. A cow and a breaking plow 
was a ])art of their freight. 

Learning that there was no prospect of landing from the steam- 
boat near their destination, they bargained with the master and 
owner of the wood-boat to transfer them to the other side of the 
river. The German agreed to undertake the trip for fifteen dollars, 
although he was unacquainted with the river in that vicinity, pro- 
vided they would help him get his boat back to his woodyard again. 

Taking Mr. Allen and his freight on board with the loaded 
wood craft in tow, the steamboat proceeded on up the river, unloading 
while on the way. The colonists with their freight and live stock 
were transferred to the empty scow, which was cast off when about 
a mile below the mouth of the White Water and near the Minne- 
sota shore. From there they drifted down to Rolling Stone. It 
was late in the afternoon when they left the Excelsior. By carefully 
hugging the shore they fortunately succeeded in safely landing, 
about fifty rods above where Troosts' flouring-mill recently stood. 



EMIGRANTS COMING. 211 

It was long after dark before the weary immigrants gathered around 
the camp-fire of the pioneer squad, which had been a beacon to 
guide them as they poled the sluggish craft across the ovei-flowed 
bottoms from Haddock slough, down which they had drifted 
until nearly opposite their landing-place. 

Noracong's little shanty was literally packed full of children, 
with a woman or two to care for them. The "gophers" were 
crowded to their fullest capacity. The colonists not provided with 
shelter bivouaced around the camp-fires. The night was a cool 
but pleasant one. None seemed to suffer from the exposure they 
were subject to on the first night of their arrival in their new home. 
Among the party landed from the wood-boat were S. E. Cot- 
ton, wife and child ; H. W. Driver and wife, Lawrence Dilworth, 
wife and four children; James Wilson and wife; James Hatton, 
wife and four children ; Mrs. Charles Bannon ; Dr. George F. 
Childs, wife and niece ; David Densmore, John Shaw, M. Fitzgib- 
bons, D. Jackson, William Harris, Horace Ranney, AVilliam Sperry, 
A. A. Gilbert, Thomas K. Allen and others — some families whose 
names are now forgotten. 

It was under such circumstances and condition of affairs that 
this colony was settled, and some of the members of the association 
initiated into the mysteries of pioneer life. Many were greatly 
disappointed ; the realities presented to view served to somewhat 
cloud the illusive ftmcies pictured in their imaginations, of com- 
fortable homes in the west. Some were discouraged and home- 
sick. Others, strongly dissatisfied with the location, decided to 
abandon the colony and return down the river. Some of the more 
courageous announced that they had come to stay, and notwith- 
standing the prospective hardships to be endured, they cheerfully 
set about making their arrangements accordingly. 

At daylight the next morning the freight was unloaded from 
the wood-boat, and a party of nine, principally members of the 
pioneer squad, among whom were H. Jones and William Stevens, 
assisted the proprietor to la«id it on the Wisconsin side of the river. 
On their return the same day they brought with them a small flat- 
boat, which was at first hired and afterward purchased by the asso- 
ciation. This craft was called the Macedonian. It was a 
roughly-constructed affair of sufficient capacity to carry about three 
cords of wood, and proved really serviceable to the settlers. 

The following morning some of the pioneer squad started with 



'2\'2 IIISTOItV OK WLNO.NA corxVTY. 

tlie Macw Ionian for Wabtislui prairie to bring up their freight and 
baggage left on their arrival in charge of the ''cigar-maker." Dr. 
( 'hilds, William Sperrjs and two other disaffected ones, who had 
decided to abandon the colony, embraced the opportunity and en- ' 
gaged passage with their families and all of their possessions and 
moved down to J ohnson's landing. The fiatboat was landed on Keen's 
claim, a little north from where the fair grounds were once located. 
From there the party walked to Johnson's and waited for a steam 
boat to take them back down the river. Dr. Childs remained in 
charge of the goods until they were hauled down by Johnson's 
ox-team, w^iich, with. Mauby's wagon, moved the freight of the 
pioneer stjuad up to the landing-place of the Macedonian. The 
tlatboat returned with the goods of the pioneer party and also car 
ried up the family of Mr. Mauby, who had been living in Johnson's 
shanty at the upper landing. 

The Macedonian was used as a freight boat during the time of 
the high water and was most ot the time under the control of Cap- 
tain Jackson. On this first trip it was under the management of 
Mr. Jones. In speaking of the matter Mr. Jones said: "The 
wind was blowing quite strong from the east that day and we were 
heavy loaded both ways. The trip down was a hard one. Think- 
ing to make the return trip easier, I tore off two or three strong 
poles from the Indian tepees, which we passed on our way up from 
Johnson's, and rigged a sail by hoisting a portion of the canvas of 
our tent. We went up at a good rate of speed, but kept in shoal 
water to j)lease some who were afraid to venture out." This flat- 
boat was usually propelled by oars and poles or was dragged over 
the flooded bottoms on the upper prairie by means ot long ropes, 
the men who performed this service sometimes wading in the shal- 
low water. 

The large tent, which had been brought along by the advance 
party and used to shelter their goods at Johnson's landing, was put 
up at Kolling Stone as soon as it arrived at that place. Its location 
was about twenty rods east of where Stewart's hotel now stands. It 
afforded some accommodations for the houseless settlers, until they 
could build more comfortable places for themselves. With their 
cooking-stoves arranged under the trees, where they cooked and 
took their meals, the tent afforded shelter and sleeping quarters for 
several families, besides protection for some of their most valuable 
goods. They were abundantly supplied with provisions. Unaccus- 



OTHER SETTLEMENTS. 215 

toraed to pioneer life they hardly knew what to do or where to 
begin to make homes for themselves on the village lots apportioned 
to each member before he left 'New York. They were mechanics 
of different trades, and were willing to use any means in their 
knowledge to make their families comfortable, but they could not 
build houses without lumber, and none was to be obtained at any 
price. But few of the men were handy with the axe or understood 
how to build a log house. 

Seeing the urgent necessity and imperative demand made for 
lumber, O. M. Lord, accompanied by Mr. Densmore, went up the 
Chippewa river and brought down a small raft of lumber, which he 
landed safely about where the wood-boat with its passengers reached 
the shore. 

Mr. Lord here opened the first lumber yard ever in operation in 
this county. He readily retailed his lumber in small lots and soon 
exhausted his stock without supplying the demand. He was then 
engaged by the members of the association to go up to the mills on 
the Chippewa and purchase a large bill of lumber which they 
ordered. He was to attend to the sawing, rafting and delivery of 
the same. This raft was brought down from the Chippewa, attached 
to a large raft destined for some point on the Mississippi below, 
and cast off at the head of the slough. He made a successful trip 
and landed his raft at ' ' Lord's Lumber Yard. " 



CHAPTER XXin. 



OTHER SETTLEMENTS. 



Late in the evening of May 4, 1852, a party of immigrants, 
destined for the colony at Rolling Stone, landed from the Nominee 
at Johnson's landing. With this party were Rev. E. Ely, E. B. 
Drew, C. R. Coryell, W. H. Coryell, Jacob S. Denman, E. B. 
Thomas, Robert Pike, Jr., Ira Wilcox, Isaac A. Wheeler, H. Clary, 
D. Jackson, William Christie, and others whose names are now for- 
gotten. 

Rev. Edward Ely came up from La Crosse as a passenger on 
this boat. He did not belong to the association, neither was he 
13 



216 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

ever a member of that organization. It was, liowover, through its 
infiuence that lie was induced to come to Minnesota. 

Mr. Ely was at that time a Baptist preacher — a shepherd without 
a flock, a pastor awaiting a providential call to a ministerial charge. 
While in St. Louis with his family, in transitu from the State of Ohio 
to wherever the Lord in his wisdom might send him, he was 
accosted by florace Kanney, an acquaintance of his boyhood, who 
was a member of the Western Farm and Village Association, and one 
of the party then embarking on the Excelsior for the colony at Roll- 
ing Stone in the Territory ot ]\Iinnesota. 

In a few words Mr. Ranney explained the object of the associa- 
tion, and readily induced Mr. Ely to put his family and effects, which 
were then on the levee, on board the steamboat and accompany 
them to the promised land. This party was the one that landed 
from the wood-boat on May 2, as already related. He accompanied 
them as far as La Crosse, where he stopped off with his wife and 
two children to afford them comfortable quarters while he visited 
the colony and acquired some knowledge of tlie country into which 
he had almost involuntarily drifted without any special information 
relative to its demands or resources. 

Leaving his family with some kind Baptist friends, he came up 
on the Nominee to Wabasha prairie, intending to pin Mr. Ranney 
and his friends at Rolling Stone. The disaffection exhibited by 
some of the members who landed with him, and the action of Dr. 
Child, influenced him to abandon his design to locate himself in the 
colony and perhaps decided his future course in life. He settled at 
Johnson's landing on Wabasha prairie and became a permanent 
resident of the county and of the city of Winona, where he yet 
lives. 

The estimable qualities of his excellent wife endeared her to the 
early pioneers. Words will hardly express the high esteem enter- 
tained by the citizens of Winona for Mrs. Ely. Her remarkable 
talent as a portrait ])ainter, duly appreciated by her many friends, 
h^s been for many years utilized as a source of income. 

E. B. Drew and the Coryell brothers, C. R. and W. H. Coryell, 
were relatives — cousins. They were also partners in their business 
transactions. These hardy young men were practical farmers and 
had previously had some familiarity with pioneer life. They brought 
with them three yoke of oxen and a cow. A large breaking plow 
and an assortment of farming tools formed a part of their outfit and 



OTHER SETTLEMENTS. 217 

freight. The big covered wagon with which they came through 
from Chicago to Galena, where they took the boat, was one that had 
been constructed for them tlie year before for a proposed trip across 
the country to Oregon. The wagon-box was made water-tight, that 
it might be serviceable as a float in fording streams. This was 
liberally stored with supplies. 

J. S. Denman was accompanied by his mother, wife and four 
children, and bi"ought with him a team of four horses and a large 
covered wagon, which he used in transporting his family from 
Brooklin, Michigan, to Galena. He also had a breaking plow, farm- 
ing tools and abundant provisions. 

E. B. Thomas was from the city of New York. From the first 
organization of the association he had been an active oflScial member, 
the corresponding secretary and a financial agent. 

Kobert Pike, Jr., and Eider Wilcox were on a prospecting trip, 
having left their families in Illinois. As soon as it was light, they, 
with others, went directly to the colony. 

Mr. Pike had been engaged for several years in teaching and 
lecturing on a system of mnemonics, which he had cultivated and on 
which subject he had published a book of about one hundred and 
fifty pages. He joined the association in the fall previous, while 
living in the State of New York, and came to Illinois, where he had 
been lecturing on his favorite topic and teaching a school during the 
winter. After he came here he became prominently identified in 
the matters of the colony and in county afiairs, and held ofiicial 
positions. 

Isaac A. Wheeler, with his son John and H. Clary, came on 
with Mr. Drew's party. They each brought with them a yoke of 
oxen. These men remained at Rolling Stone until fall, when they 
left and went down the river to Indiana. 

The reports brought down by Dr. Childs were somewhat dis- 
couraging to these members of the association. Mr. Denman 
and Mr. Thomas forded the back slough on horseback and went up 
to Rolling Stone. Having been previously prejudiced, they very 
promptly expressed their dissatisfaction of the selection made for 
the village site and at once abandoned all ideafe of settling in that 
locality. Without delay they returned to the landing. 

Greatly surprised at this abrupt and decisive action on the part 
of these members, Mr. Haddock accompanied them down. He did 
not like to lose the aid and influence of his ardent co-worker in the 



218 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

organization and management of the association without some effort 
to rechiim him, but he failed by any arguments presented to induce 
him to reconsider his decision. 

Learning that Mr. Thomas designed to withdraw from them 
entirely, Mr, Haddock made a formal demand for the funds in his 
hands. Mr. Thomas had in his possession a small amount of 
money, initiation fees and weekly dues, but he declined to surren- 
der it until his accounts were properly audited and accepted. He 
was then denounced as a defaulter to destroy his influence with 
otlier members. This tinancial matter was subsequently settled at 
the flrst meeting of the association in Rolling Stone. 

Mr. Drew and the Coryells were not satisfied with the reports 
made by Denman and Thomas, nor influenced by the opinions of 
Dr. Childs and his friends, who were then stopping in Johnson's 
shanty. They "proposed to go up there and look around for them-' 
selves." In the afternoon Mr. Drew and C. R. Coryell accom- 
panied Mr. Haddock on his return. 

At the crossing place on the back slough an old canoe was kept 
for the accommodation of the settlers. It would carry two persons 
comfortably but was unsafe with more. Mr. Coryell took the pad- 
dle to set Mr. Haddock across, intending to return for his partner. 
To save time Mr. Drew stripped and, throwing his clothing into the 
canoe, followed them over. The water was about four and a half 
feet deep on the trail, but deeper above and below. The current 
was strong, and a person was liable to drift into deep water. 

By permission, the following entries have been copied from the 
diary and memoranda of E. B. Drew : 

"Landed on Wabasha prairie, Minnesota Territory, Tuesday 
night after 11 o'clock. May 4, 1852. 

"Wednesday, May 5 : Went up to Rolling Stone this afternoon 
and visited the new settlement. Some are homesick and talk of 
leaving. Found O. M. Lord, from Michigan, there. He was help- 
ing to cover Mauby's slianty with a roof of elm-bark. He has 
been back twenty-five or thirty miles and reports a good country 
and rich soil, and says he shall settle in this part of the country. 
We have no women or children to get homesick, and we shall stop 
here too. Took the flatboat down to the lower prairie, Mr. Lord 
came down to our camp and staid all night with us. 

"Thursday, May 6: Left Wabasha prairie. It is a barren, 
sandy, desolate-looking^ place, recently burnt over. Would not 



OTHER SETTLEMENTS. 219 

give ten cents an acre for the whole of it. Forded the slough with 
our teams and cow ; crossed without accident, although the water 
was deep with a strong current. Had to raise the wagon-box on 
the bolsters to keep the water out. All our traps are now at 
Kolling Stone." 

Mr. Clary crossed the slough with his oxen at the same time 
and went up with Mr. Drew. Mr. AVheeler remained on the prairie 
for a day or two before he joined them at the colony. 

When Mr. Lord was consulted relative to these incidents he 
assumed a reflective attitude for a moment and then with an alm*ost 
audible smile, replied : "That is correct. Wheeler did not come up 
with Drew. I have reason to remember it. I went down to the 
prairie the next day and stopped at his camp, not far from where 
the road now crosses to the upper prairie. After the usual saluta- 
tions, Wheeler remarked : ' I suppose you are hungry about this 
time of day. ' I was hungry as a wolf, and I told him I would 
take a bite if it was handy. We were not very regular in our 
meals at that time, and I saw the coffee-pot and a few brands smok- 
ing where they had had a fire. He then took out two' or three 
handfuls of hard biscuit, which he laid on the box where he had 
been sitting, and said to his son, ' Bring on that meat.' Just then 
he discovered that his cattle were straying off and started after them. 

"The boy brought the meat in a frying-pan and put it on the box. 
I took hold and made out quite a hearty meal before Wheeler got 
back. When he returned he glanced at the empty frying-pan and 
called out to his son, 'Ho, Donald! didn't I tell you to cook 
some of that ham for supper?' 'Yaas,' replied the youngster, in 
a surly tone ; ' I got a right smart chance on it, but that chap 
gobbled it all.' Wheeler saw the state of affairs almost as soon as 
I did, and said, 'Wal, wal, cut some more, can't you? there's 
plenty of it. ' I was somewhat surprised and not a little chagrined 
to discover that I had eaten up the su]:)])er of two hearty and hungry 
persons, which they had just prepared for themselves. I supposed 
that they had just completed their meal as I came into their camp." 

E. B, Drew's loaded wagon was the first to ford the slough and 
the first along the bluffs. No wagon trail had ever been opened. 
O. M. Lord was the pilot and guide on the trail. In crossing the 
slough Mr. Drew gave his special attention to the care of his cow. 
In his anxiety for her safety he was forgetful of self and got a 
" duck " or two. His clothing was in the wagcm and did not suffer 
fi-om his mishaps. 



220 JUSTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

This loaded wagon was tlie first to make its entrance into the 
colony of the Western Farm and Village Association. They crossed 
the creek near Noracong's shanty, Mr. Noracong himself selecting 
the fording place and directing their movements. This covered 
wagon was used by Drew and the Coryells as their headquarters — 
their home for some time after their arrival. 

The cow was an important item of their possessions. Bread 
and milk, mush and milk, and milk as a beverage, were staple luxu- 
ries. Fresh butter of home production was sometimes indulged in. 
Their cooking was done by their camp-tires. Bi-ead was baked in a 
tin oven before the fire. Sometimes they used an iron bake-kettle, 
which they covered with hot ashes and coals. For boiling, a kettle 
was usually suspended over the fire from a pole supported, on 
crotches. Mr. Drew says a heavy tin bucket made the best camp- 
kettle. It would heat quickly and economized time in cooking. 
These, with the frying-pan and coft'ee-pot, "were the most important 
cooking utensils of their camp outfit. Their supplies furnished 
them a variety in the way of diet. Fresh brook trout were plentiful 
and common in their camp. 

About daylight on the morning of Sunday, May 9, 1852, another 
large party, on their way to Rolling Stone, was landed on \Va))asha 
prairie from the Dr. Franklin. Among these passengers were 
Robert Thorp and son, Robert Taylor, wife and three children, D. 
McRose, wife and three children, John Burns, wife and three 
children, James Gardner, wife and daughter, a young woman, and 
quite a nuinber of others. 

On account of the flood and insufficient means for transportation 
they were detained at Johnson's landing several days. They built 
a shelter on the bank of the river by piling up their boxes, forming 
a small inclosure which they covered with boards found near by. 

One of the party, Robert Thorp, furnished the following inci- 
dent. He is yet a resident of the county, a hale and hearty old 
farmer, living in the town of Rolling Stone. lie has preserved his 
certificate of membership and a copy of it has been procured to show 
the form of this relic of the association : 

No. 37. Thi.s is to (Certify that Robert Thorp has paid his initiation fee and 
has been elec^ted a member of the Western Farm and Villas^e Association No. 1 
of the city f)f New York. William Haddock, President. 

Charlks E. Wiikelkk, Financial Secretary. 

October 15, 18.51. 



OTHER SETTLEMENTS. 221 

These cei'tificates are embellished with emblems of industry and 
civilization. But two of them liave been preserved. The other is 
held by James Wright, of Minnesota City, to whom it was given. 
It is No. 15, and dated August 15, 1851. 

When the association was first organized its members were 
mechanics of different occupations living in the city. Mr. Thorp 
was a blacksmith, and had worked at his trade in New York foi- 
about twenty years. He was born in England. 

He left New York on April 15, 1852, with the members of the 
association who started at that date, taking with him his eldest 9on, 
John. The remainder of his family, consisting of his wife and tliree 
boys, Thomas, Robert and William, remained in the city about a 
month before they joined him in Minnesota. All except the last are 
yet living. 

Mr. Thorp brought with him his blacksmith tools and all things 
necessary to start a shop in the new colony, and also some house- 
hold goods. On account of delay in the transfer of his heavy freight 
at Dunkirk he was left behind his party. On reaching Chicago he 
shipped his own goods and the goods and baggage of William 
Christie, D. Jackson and others down the canal and Illinois river to 
8t. Louis, taking passage over the same route. 

At St. Louis Mr. Thorp bought his supplies in connection with 
Taylor, Burns, McRose and Gardiner, members of the association, 
who were there on their way to the colony. They took passage to 
Galena, where they were transferred to the Dr. Franklin. 

To his great surprise and sorrow Mr, Thorp learned that William 
Christie, who left him at Chicago and whose baggage was with his 
own freight, had died but a few hours before and was then lying in 
Johnson's shanty. Mr. Christie had arrived a few days previous on 
the Nominee and had been up to Rolling Stone. On Saturday he 
came down expecting to meet Mr. Thorp at the landing. On his 
way he forded the back slough, and without changing his wet cloth- 
ing lay down to rest, complaining of not feeling well. He was 
taken with what was supposed to be cholera, and died before 
morning. 

Mr. Christie was a Scotchman — a large, strong and healthy 
young man when he landed here. He was highly respected by his 
acquaintances for his good qualities. He joined the association in 
New York cit}^, where he was working at his trade as a machinist. 
For economy he, with others, walked from Cherry Valley to Galena 



1?2'2 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

and came up tlio river as deck passengers. While at Rolling Stone 
he had been almost without shelter ; the demand was much greater 
than the accommodation. Provisions of every kind were abundant 
and none suffered from want of sufficient food. The colonists were 
lil:>ei-al in relieving each other when aid was required. 

William Christie was buried on the Evans claim. His coffin 
was made by E. H. Johnson from the common unseasoned pine 
boards lying on the bank of the river. A short funeral sei-vice was 
held in the open air in front of the shanty by the Rev. Edward Ely. 
Mr. Thorp, with other members of the association, accompanied by 
the settlers and strangers on the i)rairie, followed the dead body to 
the grave and aided in depositing it in its last resting-place. 

The occurrence was one long to be remembered. William 
Christie was comparatively a stranger. He had died suddenly, far 
away from the land o± his birth and from his personal friends and 
relatives. His death was the first on Wabasha prairie, the first 
among the members of the association and the first among the 
settlers in the county. His funeral was the first, but before the 
summer was passed funerals were frequent both on Wabasha prairie 
and in the settlement at Rolling Stone. A young man by the name 
of Moi-gan, a stranger, died after a short sickness not long after 
("Christie's death. 

A fatal sickness attacked the families camj^ed on the bank of the 
river. Robert Taylor lost two of his children here. He removed 
his sick wife to La Crosse, where she soon after died. Mr. McRose 
lost two children ; one of them died on the flatboat while on the way 
to Rolling Stone. 

Mr. Thorp stopped at Johnson's landing for a few days until he 
could get transportation for his freight and supplies. He then went 
to Rolling Stone to prepare for the arrival of his family. For tem- 
])orary accommodation, which could be the most readily provided, 
he built a ''gopher" on the lot drawn by him before he left New 
York. This location was in the field a little above where the barn 
of James Kennedy now stands. This hut was an improvement on 
the ordinary structures of the kind. It was about 12x12. The 
basement, or part below the surface, was lined with a framework of 
logs. It was here that the family of Mr. Thorj) began housekeeping 
in Minnesota. 

In the morning of May 12th another large party of innnigrants for 
the colony landed from the Caleb Co])e at Johnson's landing. 



OTHER SETTLEMENTS. 223 

Owing to unfavorable reports in circulation down the river relative 
to the condition of affairs, some left their families at Galena and 
came up to explore the country. Among these were James Wright, 
John Nicklin, David Duryee, James Brooks and many others. 
Some who landed with their families were compelled to put up 
temporary shelters on the bank of the river to protect themselves 
from the drizzling rain while waiting for transportation. 

Although the day proved to be stormy, a large number of the 
men went directly to Rolling Stone. As there was insufficient shelter, a 
company of nine built a "gopher" for their immediate use. This 
was constructed by digging a hold about 8X 12 and about eighteen 
inches deep, over which a cover was made. Tli^ body of this struc- 
ture was of small basswood logs, about eight feet long and about 
eight or ten inches in diameter. These logs were split and placed 
on end close together along the sides and one end of the hole in the 
ground, with the tops resting on a ridge-pole supported on posts 
with a crotch at the top. This framework was covered with coarse, 
dry grass and a layer of earth, over which was laid a covering of 
sod. The turf, by careful arrangement, made a roof that readily 
shed the rain of ordinary showers. 

In this "gopher hole," on a floor of dry grass, the nine men of 
this company slept the first night of their arrival, and occupied it as 
their lodging-place for a week or two afterward. This "gopher" 
was built on the land now owned by James Wright, and where he 
now lives in Minnesota city. It was afterward used as a stopping- 
place for the family of Mr. Wright. The most of this party of 
explorers decided to continue in the colony. Some sent for their 
families, others went down the river to escort them up. Mr. Wright 
and Mr. Mcklin were among tlie latter. 

Mr. Charles Bannon came up the river on the Caleb Cope. He 
was one of the directors of the association and one of its earliest 
members. He, with his wife, started from New York with the party 
that landed from the wood-boat at Rolling Stone. While on the 
way up the river he left the boat at Davenport and, in company with 
M. A. Allen, stopped to buy cattle. Mr. Bannon purchased three 
yoke of oxen and Mr. Allen two yoke, which they drove through 
the country to Dubuque, where they took passage with their stock. 
These oxen were designed for use as breaking-teams and for general 
farm work. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

FIRST SETTLEMENTS AT WINONA CITY. 

To catch the drift from the colony above, Johnson offered the 
choice of an acre of his claim on Wabasha prairie to each of the 
disaffected ones who would stop there, build a house, and make it 
their residence for one year. At that time the claim had not been 
surveyed or divided into lots and streets. This offer was accepted 
hy several and a number of locations selected. 

Rev. E. Ely made choice of an acre south of Johnson's shanty, 
about where the Ely block now stands, on the corner of Center 
and Second streets. Jacob S. Denman selected an acre adjoining 
that of Mr. Ely's on the east ; Dr. Childs an acre on the south of 
Mr. Ely's ; E. B. Thomas on the south of Mr. Denman's and east 
from that of Dr. Childs' ; John Evans selected an acre west of John- 
son's shanty ; Jolm Burns, a member of tlie association and one of 
the party who camped on the bank of the river from the Dr. Frank- 
lin on the 9th of May, accepted the offer of an acre from Ed. Ham- 
ilton on his claim on the same conditions as the others. The acre 
chosen by him was in what is now the front yard of the residence of 
Hon. H. W. Lamberton, on the corner of Huff and Harriett streets. 

Mr. Burns planted a small garden and set out a few small apple- 
trees, which he had brought up the river. Some of these trees 
afterward grew to be of considerable size. These were the first 
fruit-trees, or trees of any kind, planted on Wabasha prairie by the 
early settlers. These fruit-trees were planted in a trench near 
together, as in a nursery. When Mr. Huff took possession of the 
Hamilton claim he built a fence around the few trees that had 
escaped the ravages of the cattle, and after two or three years trans- 
planted them in his garden. 

W. H. Stevens gave the use of his shanty on the Stevens 
claim to Mr. Denman until he could procure lumber and build a 
residence for his family. Mr. Denman found occupation for his 
team and plow by breaking the land selected for himself and others. 
They all made small gardens by way of occupancy and improve- 
ments. Mr. Denman enclosed his acre and that selected by Mr. 



FIRST SETTLEMENTS AT WINONA CITY. 225 

Thomas with a temporary fence and planted the field with corn. 
This was his first attempt at farming in Minnesota, It was not a 
profitable enterprise. The fence that enclosed this corn-field was 
the first fence built on the prairie by the settlers. It was put up by 
George W. Clark and his brother Wayne Clark. Mr. Den man paid 
them for it by breaking four acres of land on Clark's claim across 
the slough. 

Neither Mr. Thomas, Dr. Childs or Mr. Burns ever made any 
other improvements on the lots selected. They abandoned them 
and made locations elsewhere. Mr. Thomas and Mr. Burns held 
claims in the colony, but left the territory in the fall. Dr. Childs 
remained on the prairie for several years after. 

Mr. Denman built a house on his acre of prairie as soon as he 
could procure lumber. Mr. Ely built one in the fall. During the 
summer his family lived in Johnson's shanty after they came up 
from La Crosse, where they staid for a short time. He paid John- 
son four dollars per month rent for the use of the "Hotel." 

The house built by Mr. Denman stood on Lafayette street, be- 
tween Second and Third streets. This was the first house built by 
the settlers on Wabasha prairie, not expressly designed as a "claim 
shanty." It was a balloon frame building of considerable preten- 
sions for that date of improvements, about 16x32, one story high, 
the sides boarded ' ' up and down " with rough boards and the 
cracks battened. The roof was of boards, and because of its pecu- 
liar construction the building was given the name of " car-house," 
from its fancied resemblance to a railroad car. The doors and win- 
dows were furnished with frames and casings — the first improve- 
ments of the kind. The floor was of dressed lumber, a luxury 
heretofore unknown. This building was divided into rooms by 
board partitions, and parts of it ceiled with dressed lumber. 

Mr. Denman occupied this house as his residence until fall, 
when he moved on his claim. About the first of July he opened a 
store in the front room of this building. He brought up from 
Galena a small stock of goods suitable for the market, and here 
started the first store on Wabasha prairie for the sale of goods to 
the settlers. Jacob S. Denman was the first merchant to establish 
himself in business in what is now the city of Winona. 

It was in the "car house" that the first white child was born 
within the limits of this city. While living here the family of Mrs. 
Denman was increased by the addition of a daughter on the 18th of 



226 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

July, 1852. Mrs. (loddard, after consultation with Mrs. Ely, <2^ave 
to this first native settler the name of "Prairie Louise Dennian/' 
the name by which she was afterward known. She has been dead 
many years. The oldest native settler, born in the city of Winona, 
who is now living, is Mason Ely, the second son of Rev. Edward 
Ely, born in 1853. 

The primary object of all of the early settlers was to secure land 
for farming purposes on which to locate a future home. About the 
firs^ thing done was to "make a claim." Mr. Denman began 
prospecting as soon as he landed, and on the 9th of May discovered 
and fornuilly made a claim on the upper prairie. He and his 
mother there held 320 acres. The high water flooded the bottom 
lands, and their claims covered all of the land not overflowed, lying 
east from the Rolling Stone creek, to about where the highway now 
crosses the railroads, and extended south far enough to include the 
table next to the bluffs. It was on this table that he blazed the 
trees and inscribed his name as proprietor of the claim. It was 
on this table that he built a very comfortable log house, made other 
improvements, and moved his family there in September. The 
land selected by Mr. Denman had been previously claimed by Had- 
dock and Murphy for the Western Farm and Village Association. 
Mr. Denman was duly notified that he was trespassing on grounds 
claimed for the colony, but he persisted in holding it and making 
improvements, without regard to the protestations of the members 
of the association. 

This .was the first collision of a settler with that organization. 
The first person to encroach on the territory claimed was an ex- 
member. To get Denman off, the colonists tried "moral, legal and 
physical suasion, but he tenaciously adhered."" He lived in this log 
cabin under the bluffs for abr)ut three years, until he built a more 
modern house and large barns near the center of his farm. This 
claim, or, more properly, the claims of Denman and his mother, are 
now known as the Denman farm. It is at present owned and occu- 
pied by Mr. George Fifield. 

Mr. Denman sacrificed this large farm, which he had secured by 
honest industry and years of hard labor, in his mistaken zealous, 
efforts to aid the " Grange movement" for cheaj^er freights, cheaper 
supplies and cheaper agricultural implements. He removed to 
Texas, but his good luck at farming failed him there. It is said that 
Mr. Denman is now a poor man, and in his old age again a pioneer, 



FIRST SETTLEMENTS AT WINONA CITY. ^ 227 

looking for "a home in the west" in one of the territories. None 
of his family are now living in this county. 

Dr. George F. Childs, with his wife and niece, lived for a short 
time in Johnson's shanty. While there his niece was taken with the 
measles and died after a few days' sickness. The remains were 
taken to La Crosse for burial. 

About the middle ot May Dr. Childs bought the east half of the 
claim made by Jabez McDermott. He paid McDermott eighty dol- 
lars for a quit-claim deed and possession of the eighty acres. This 
was the lirst claim sale on Wabasha prairie. Whether this deed was 
ever made a matter of record is now very uncertain, as at that time 
there was no county organization in Wabasha county, of which 
Winona county was a part. All matters of record were filed in 
Washington county, with which Wabasha was connected for all 
judicial purposes. Possession ot land was then more important than 
title-deeds. The land still belonged to government and no surveys 
had been made. 

The machine-shops and surrounding buildings of the Chicago & 
Northwestern Eailroad Company, the Winona wagon-works and 
the Winona plow-works are on what was once the McDermott claim. 
This locality was a favorite camping-place of Wabasha's band. 
When Dr. Childs took possession there were about half-a-dozen of 
their large bark cabins, or tepees, yet standing, but in a somewhat 
dilapidated condition, the settlers having taken material from them 
for use in other localities. In the vicinity of the machine-shops was 
an old Indian burying-place. The graves were scattered over that 
locality ; very many were exposed and destroyed in the excavations 
made. Kelics of the past — stone hatchets, flint ■ arrowheads and 
pipes of red pipestone — were found. Sometimes fragments of bones 
or a tolerably well preserved skeleton would be unearthed and used 
to help form a railroad embankment in some other locality. 

Indian graves have been found in several places on Wabasha 
prairie and in the mouths of the valleys. Quite a number were 
exposed by the caving of the river bank on the lower part of the 
prairie. Two modern Indian graves were on Johnson's claim when 
the whites first took possession of the prairie. They were left undis- 
turbed for several years. ' The covering of sticks which were placed 
over them by the natives marked their location until the ground was 
plowed by Johnson in the spring of 1855. These graves were on 
lot 2, block 17.. When it was improved and buildings were erected, 



22H IirSTOKY ()F WINONA COUNTY. 

the bones bariiHl there wore thrown out in excavating a cellar and 
taken possession of by Dr. Franklin Staples. These bones were the 
remains of young persons and were very much decayed. It has 
been stated that some of Wabasha's children were buried in these 
graves, but there is no evidence confirming this statement. Wa- 
basha's special home was in the mouth of Burns valley. 

The Indian village located on the McDermott claim, a part of 
which was |)urchased by Dr. Childs, was said to be the grand 
gathering-place of the Mdaywakantonwan division of Sioux. It 
was in this vicinity that Wabasha's bands met for their amusements, 
sports and games, as well as more serious and important aflairs. 
From this village the Indian trails diverged as h'om a common cen- 
ter, some leading to the valleys, others up and down the bank of 
the river. The wild grass, common on every other part of the 
prairie, had almost entirely disappeared around this village or sum- 
mer resort, and had been replaced by a fine turf of blue-grass found 
in no other place except along the bank of the river on the lower 
part of the prairie, where Mrs. Keyes now lives. 

Mr. George W. Clark says "That on McDermott's claim there 
was a large flat stone, the center of a large circle of smooth, level 
ground, with well defined boundaries, plainly to be seen in 1851. 
This stone was taken away by some of the early settlers." 

Dr. Childs lived during the summer of 1852 in the little cabin 
with a bark roof whicli McDermott occupied as his claim shanty. 
He built a comfortable cottage near by it, in which he lived for sev- 
eral years. The logs and poles of the Sioux tepees were used in the 
construction of sheds and as posts for his fences. The bark covering 
of the huts was carefully gathered and used as firewood for his kit- 
chen stove. 

It was the custom of Dr. Childs to date all of his correspondence 
and business papers from his residence on this claim, to which he 
gave the name of " Ozelle cottage." This name was derived from 
the one given by the old French voyageurs to Wabasha prairie. 
Ozelle was but the French pronunciation of Aix Aile anglicized by 
Dr. Childs in writing. 

When Dr. Childs left New York he supposed that he would find 
the Indians occupying this part of the territory, and brought along 
an assortment of goods for the purpose of bartering with them, but 
found that the Sioux had forsaken their homes in this localitv. He 



FIRST SETTLEMENTS AT WmONA CITY. 229 

after a time traded his Indian goods with the Winnebagoes for 
dressed deerskins and got rid of his goods without loss. 

Dr. Childs was a botanic physician, but never practiced liis pro- 
fession in tliis vicinity, 'or only to a very limited extent. He engaged 
in mercantile business for a year or two after he sold his land. He 
moved to Minneiska, Wabasha county, where he lived for awhile. 
Dr. G. F. Childs is now a resident of the State of Maryland, where 
he has charge of a benevolent institution, a home for aged people. 

Among the passengers who landed at Johnson's landing from 
the steamer Caleb Cope on May 12, 1852, were Abner S. Goddard, 
wife and three children, from La Crosse. They arrived at about 
four o'clock on a dark and rainy morning, and went directly from 
the landing to the shanty on the Stevens claim, in accordance with 
a previous arrangement made with Silas Stevens. On reaching the 
shanty they were surprised to find the table, benches and other fur- 
niture of the cabin, which they supposed to be occupied, irregularly 
piled outside. When the inmates were aroused they discovered 
that the furniture had been removed to aflord sleeping quarters for 
the occupants. William H. Stevens and a young man living with 
him held one corner, while the family of Mr. Denman, seven in 
number, were in possession of the remainder of the little 10xi2 
shanty, not occupied by the cook-stove. To accommodate the new- 
comers, the future occupants of the cabin, Mr. Denman provided for 
his family by making a shelter for them with the lumber he had laid 
up loosely to dry for use in the house he was then building. While 
living in this manner the loose boards were blown from over their 
heads during a severe thunderstorm one night when they were 
all in bed. They were compelled to seek shelter in Johnson's 
shanty, but again occupied their lumber piles in the morning and 
continued to do so until their house was finished. 

During the previous winter Mr. Goddard had "been living in La 
Crosse. He there taught the village school — the first school ever 
taught in La Crosse, the first school ever taught on the Mississippi 
river between Prairie du Chien and St. Paul, if tlie Indian mission 
schools at Red Wing and Kaposia are excepted. His schoolroom 
was in the court-house, which was built during the fall and fore part 
of the same winter. To add to their income and to accommodate 
some personal friends, Mrs. Goddard opened a boarding-house. 
"Aunt Catharine's" table was then, as it is now, always full, with- 
out soliciting patronage. Silas Stevens became a boarder and made 



230 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

it liis home with them wliile in LaOosse. After the attempt of Mr. 
Gere to jump the Stevens chiim Mr. Stevens offered to furnish Mr. 
( locklard a shanty of suthcient capacity to keep a boarding-house on 
Wabaslia prairie if he woukl go up and live on liis chiim, and also 
promised him an acre of the claim on which to build a house if he 
would continue to reside there. Others, then living in La Crosse, 
who had made claims, urged him to accept Mr. Stevens' proposition. 
As Mr. Goddard had been up to the prairie with a party of claim- 
hunters early in the spring, and had been solicited by the settlers 
in that locality to come up, he was the more readily induced to 
change his residence. 

Immigrants were landed from every boat, and the little shanty 
was crowded with hungry guests as soon as their arrival was known. 
Meals were provided for all that came, but they were required to 
look out for their own lodging-places. The beds of their guests were 
sometimes the soft sands of the prairie, the bed clothing their ordi- 
nary wearing apparel with the addition of a blanket. 

Three or four days after the arrival of Mr. Goddard, another 
shanty was put up by Mr. Stevens to meet the increasing business 
and the demand for better accommodations. This shanty was a one- 
story building about 16x32. To increase its capacity an awning of 
canvas was stretched from one side, which served as a shelter for 
the cooking department. The two rooms were subdivided by can- 
vas partitions. It was customary, however, for guests who lodged 
there to blow out the candle and gO/to bed in the dark. This was a 
rule of the house. 

This shanty stood about where the "Davenport house" now 
stands, not far from the corner of Third and Kansas streets. The 
original shanty on the Stevens claim was torn down, and the 
material used in the construction of this second one. 

" Goddard's " was the favorite stopping-place — the most popu- 
lar and commodious "hotel" on Wabasha prairie. This shanty was 
the "home" of many of the early settlers of this county who came 
tliat season. It was here they gathered for social enjoyment, to get 
the latest news, to discuss the matters of claims and current 
events. It was the place of gathering tor all public meetings, and 
the headquarters of the Wabasha Protection Club, of which Mr. 
Goddard was elected secretary. A select school was opened here 
by Miss Angelia Gere, a young daughter of H. C. Gere. This 
was the first school attempted on the prairie. It was kept in opera- 



FIRST SETTLEMENTS AT WINONA CITY. '23S 

tion but a short time. Here the first stated religious meetings were 
held, with regular preaching on the Sabbath day. This history 
would be incomplete without some special notice of Mr. Goddard 
and his familj^, so intimately were the early settlers connected with 
this "settlers' home.'"' • 

The summer of 1852 was known in the west as the sickly season. 
The extreme high water of the early spring was followed by another 
extreme of low water, with remarkably dry and hot weather. This 
occasioned a general epidemic of severe forms of malarial diseases, 
which were unusually fatal. These diseases prevailed extensively 
along the river. Wabasha prairie and tlie colony at Minnesota 
City were seriously affected by it. The settlement of this county 
was retarded through the loss of many of the settlers by death, and 
the removal of very many others to escape the threatened dangers 
of sickness in a locality where there was so limited accommoda- 
tions, even for the healthy. 

The settlers considered themselves fortunate, indeed, if in their 
attack of sickness they could get in at Goddard's. The accommo- 
dation was prized, for there they felt sure of kind attention and 
watchful nursing. There were no regular medical practitioners in 
the county who followed their profession — none nearer than La 
Crosse, and domestic management was an important consideration 
with the sufferers. 

The following extract from a letter to "Aunt Catharine " (Mrs. 
Goddard), written a score of years afterward, will illustrate some- 
what the general sentiments of the early settlers in connection with 
the occurrences of that year : " I cannot forget the many deeds of 
kindness and motherly care my brothers and myself received at your 
hands when your house was a hospital and you the ministering 
angel. With nine sick persons, including your husband ; with but 
two rooms in which to lodge and make comfortable your sick house- 
hold, how admirably and patiently all was managed." 

In the latter part of this season Mr. Goddard and his two young- 
est children were prostrated with the prevailing diseases and died. 
Mr. Goddard's death occurred September 11. The loss of a citizen 
of such promising usefulness in the new settlement was a calamity 
seriously felt. He was a man of the strictest integrity and of cor- 
rect moral principles. 

In his native state, Pennsylvania, Mr. Goddard was honored 
with the ofiice of justice of the peace, and held that position for 
14 



234 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

many years, lie there accjuired the title of " Squire Goddard," by 
which name lie was generally known. He was appointed post- 
master, and received his commission during his last sickness, but 
never qualified or attem])ted.to serve in that capacity. 

Mrs. Goddard, now known as Mrs. Catharine Smith, is yet a 
resident of AVabasha prairie. She is the oldest female resident of 
the city of Winona. Indirectly through her some of the best 
citizens ol Winona became residents of this county. She is a sister 
of the Lairds'. Although the mother of many children, she has 
but one living, a son, Orrin F. Smith. 

Aunt Catharine is a woman whose social nature, kind heart and 
real worth have secured to her hosts of sincere friends. Her Easter 
parties, birthday gatherings and social reunions of old settlers are 
annual enjoyments to herself as well as to her numerous relatives 
and friends. Mrs. Goddard was connected with many incidents of 
pioneer life which might be mentioned, some of which will be 
noticed. 

Prominent among the settlers who located on Wabasha prairie 
this season was Dr. John L. Balcombe. About April 1 he came up 
the river on the Nominee and stopped at La Crosse. Being a gen- 
tleman of much more than usual general intelligence, with line 
social qualifications, and also an invalid, he readily formed acquaint- 
ances and found friends among the best citizens of that place. Wa- 
basha prairie was then attracting considerable attention from the 
residents of La Crosse, and not long after his arrival he was induced 
to join a party who proposed to explore the late Sioux purchase for 
farming lands. Their prospecting excursions only extended to the 
valleys along the river, wliere some claims were selected. It being 
too early in the season to attempt any very extended trip without a 
more suitable outfit than could be procured, they returned to La 
Crosse. 

In the forepart of May Dr. Balcombe again visited Wabasha 
prairie. He brought with him a horse, or pony, and camp supplies. 
He here secured the services of Ed. Hamilton, whose robust strength 
and experience as a cook made him a valuable acquisition in the 
exploring excursion he proposed to make. After transporting their 
outfit across the slough they started for the back country, Hamilton 
leading the way on the trail with a heavy pack of supplies, the 
doctor following on horseback with the balance of their outfit, which 
included a sack of corn and a bundle of hay. 



FIRST SETTLEMENTS AT WINONA CITY. 235 

Following the trail to Minnesota Citj thej went up the south 
valley and out on Sweet's prairie on a trail marked by the settlers of 
the colony. They spent three or four days in explorino; the country 
along the branches of the White Water and Root river as tar as the 
western part of this county. In the vicinity of what is now the town 
of Saratoga they saw a large herd of elk, the last that have been seen 
in this vicinity. 

They returned through the Rolling Stone and arrived at John- 
son's landing on the evening of May 12, and went directly to the 
shanty of Mr. Goddard, where the doctor was provided for as a 
guest with such accommodations as the place afforded, although Mrs. 
Goddard had hardly taken possession of the premises. The next 
day he returned to La Crosse. 

About the last of May another exploring party was organized in 
La Crosse by Dr. Balcombe, Rev. J. C. Sherwin, Rev. William H. 
Card, and other prominent citizens. Provided with horses and 
necessary supplies for camping out, they took passage to Wabasha 
prairie. The services of Ed. Hamilton were again secured. As the 
grass had by this time become sufficient for the support of their 
horses, the trip was only limited by their inclinations or the extent 
of their camp supplies. 

This party went out through Gilmore valley. Keeping on the 
divide between the Root river and the White Water and Zombro 
rivers, they explored the country as far west as the head-waters of 
the Cedar river. On their return they camped on the head-waters 
of the White Water, spending the Sabbath in the vicinity of the 
present village of St. Charles. Religious exercises were observed 
and Elder Sherwin delivered a sermon to his companions. This 
was the fii-st religious meeting held in the country back from the 
river. 

While on this excursion Dr. Balcombe made discovery of many 
choice locations. His habits of close observation, with a retentive 
memory, gave him a decided advantage over other explorers, which 
were afterward of pecuniary value. He could long afterward point 
out the choicest locations to the early settlers seeking farming lands. 
While on this trip he first discovered and located the present site of 
High Forest. It was not until a year or two afterward that he found 
sale for his rights of discovery. 

This exploring excursion satisfied Dr. Balcombe that the resources 
of this part of the Sioux purchase, when developed, would amply 



236 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

support a large commercial town on the river and that the outlet 
must be in this vicinity. He decided to locate on Wabasha prairie, 
and accepted Johnson's offer of an acre of ground on the same terms 
off"ered others. The acre selected was west of and adjoining that 
chosen by John Evans. He built a shanty on Main street, between 
Front and Second streets, near the alley. It was 12x16, one story, 
of little better style than common claim shanties. It had a gable 
roof instead of the ordinary shed roof. This was at first of boards, 
but was afterward covered with shingles. 

Dr. Balcombe also bought an undivided one-third of the Hamil- 
ton claim, No. 5. Mark Howard, a gentleman residing in Hartford, 
Conn., purchased another third, Edwin Hamilton retaining one- 
third. Walter Brown, of La Crosse, was appointed agent for Mr. 
Howard. This property is now known as Huft^'s addition to the 
original town plot of Winona. The claim was valued at $200. The 
shares were $66.66 each. Mr. Hamilton then supposed he had 
made a good sale. 

About June 1, Dr. Balcombe brought his wife from Illinois, 
where she was on a visit with her son. Stopping at La Crosse for 
awhile, she came to Wabasha prairie on June 18. They boarded at 
Goddard's until they commenced housekeeping in their own shanty 
in July. About July 1 he built a shanty on the Hamilton claim, 
which he leased to O. S. Holbrook, of which mention was made in 
earlier pages. 

Early in July Dr. Balcombe went down the river and brought up 
some household furniture and supplies. He also brought back with 
him a span of horses and a colt, double and single harnesses, a 
lumber wagon and a buggy. This was the first buggy ever brought 
into the county and the only one for nearly a year afterward. 

After spending the summer and fall in Minnesota, Dr. Balcombe 
sold his interest in the Hamilton claim, with his horses and wagons, 
to Edwin Hamilton for $661, and with his wife went down the river 
on the last boat in the fall. He spent the winter with his only 
child, a son, St. A. D. Balcombe, then a druggist doing business 
in Elgin, Illinois. He returned the following spring. Further 
attention will be given him in the occurrences of that year. 



CHAPTER XXY. 

INCIDENTS OF THE EARLY TIMES. 

Among the settlers who came into this county in the spring of 
1852 were Wayne Clark and Scott Clark, brothers of George W. 
Clark, Wayne arrived about the first of May, Scott a little later 
in the season, Scott Clark was an invalid, and came on from the 
State of New York with the hope that the climate of Minnesota 
would prove beneficial to his health. He made a claim in the 
mouth of Gilmore valley. It included the Indian cultivation and 
extended onto the table where the residence of C. C. Beck now 
stands. His claim shanty, a small log house, stood on the same 
plateau but near the point next to the creek. He held this claim 
until his death, which occurred in June, 1854. He was buried on 
the grounds of what is now Woodlawn cemetery. His grave was 
the first in that locality. He was, however, buried there several 
years before the spot was selected as a public cemetery. 

Wayne Clark did not come to Minnesota for the express purpose 
of making it a home as an actual settler. His principal object was 
speculation. He brought with him quite a number of land war- 
rants, which he expected he would be able to use in securing lands 
on the "Sioux purchase" in the territory, but the lands had not 
been surveyed and he found that land warrants were not available 
property here. To preserve them, he carefully laid them away in 
his trunk, in which he also secreted other valuables. He brought 
with him from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the trunk and "good 
clothes " of his brother, left there the year before, when George 
abandoned all superfluities of that kind. 

These trunks were stored in Nash's shanty on claim No. 2, 
which they then occupied as their headquarters. Nash and Gil- 
more were away, rafting logs for Farrell that had been cut on the 
islands opposite during the winter. Although living in this shanty 
on the prairie, they were engaged in making improvements on the 
claim of George Clark across the slough, putting in a crop of 
potatoes, corn, making garden and building a cabin. 

One day, while engaged in putting the cabin in a habitable 



2i^8 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

condition, they were alarmed by a messenger, William H. Stevens, 
crossing over in liaste to inform them that the Sioux threatened' to 
burn tlie shanty on the Nash claim, and that tliey had better come 
over and take care of their traps or their property would be burned 
up in it. 

Startled by this report, they hastened to secure their valuables 
from threatened destruction. On arriving at the landing they 
found all of the settlers gathered at Goddard's shanty, with about 
half a dozen Indians as the center of attraction. They here learned 
that the cause of the alarm was from the neglect of Nash to pay 
the Indian tax which had been levied on the shanty by the Sioux, 
or to provide for its payment as he had promised the Indians. On 
this visit the Indians collected a barrel of flour from Gere, and 
another from Dr. Childs. There were but six inhabited claim shan- 
ties on Wabasha prairie at this time. All had paid their tax except 
Nash. Wabasha's "infernal" revenue collectors were somewhat 
irritated at not being able to secure the delinquent tax on the shanty 
of claim No. 2. The leader and spokesman of the party expressed 
his dissatisfaction forcibly and emphatic in the Dakota language. 
The settlers standing around readily comprehended what he meant, 
although they could not understand but a single word of all that he 
said. By signs used in his demonstrations he intimated that they 
had promised to gi\^ them the flour when the Nominee came up in 
the spring, but had failed to do as agreed. Gesticulating with his 
hands, he pointed down the river, then moving them slowly up until 
he pointed up stream. This he performed several times, each time 
repeating, distinctly, ''Nominee," pointing t(^ward the shanty, shak- 
ing his fist and giving strong expressions of dissatisfaction. The 
interpretation as understood was that the Nominee had been u|) and 
down a number of times and Nash had not furnished the flour. 
Apparently becoming terribly excited in his manner, the Indian 
rushed to the cook-stove of Mrs. Goddard, which stood at the side 
of the building, and drawing out a blazing fire-brand, started to- 
ward the delinquent shanty as if he was going to set it on fire. This 
the settlers comprehended as only a threat that they would bum it 
if the flour or its equivalent was not forthcoming. He was easily 
pacified and induced to drop the incendiary torch when assured he 
should have the fiour. Johnson furnished it from his own supplies 
and settled the matter at once. 

This was the only "Indian scare" ever attempted by the Sioux 



FNCTDENTS OF THE EARLY TIMES. 239 

with the early settlers in this county. The alarm was soon over 
and an amicable shake all around indicated a satisfactory adjust- 
ment of difficulties and a truce to all hostile demonstrations. 

In transporting the flour collected by the Indians, the barrels 
were opened with their hatchets and the flour transferred to sacks. 
The barrels were then destroyed. 

The only claim shanties on "Wabasha prairie for which this tax 
was paid to the Sioux were on claims JSTos. 1, 2, 3 and 4, and on the 
claim of Dr. Childs and for Henry C. Gere's shanty. John Burns 
paid them for his privileges in the mouth of Burns valley. Four 
barrels of flour settled all Indian claims on the colony at Minnesota 
City. These were all that paid the Indian tax that season. Finding 
the settlers were becoming too numerous to be easily alarmed, the 
Indians abandoned their compulsory plan of begging and let them 
remain undisturbed. 

Notwithstanding the amicable adjustment with the Sioux in 
relation to the shanty they were occupying on the prairie, the Clarks 
removed their de})Osits and transferred all of their efiects across the 
slough, where they were under their personal care. They commenced 
housekeeping in their own shanty, George W., Wayne and Scott 
Clark living together. 

Wayne Clark spent that season in Minnesota, exploring the 
country looking for chances to speculate, but went down the river 
on the last boat in the fall without making a claim or investing his 
surplus funds in a country where securities (claims) were such un- 
certain property. 

With the crowd of passengers brought u]) the river by the Nomi- 
nee on the 19th of May, who landed on Wabasha prairie, were quite 
a number of immigrants for the colony. For convenience in dis- 
charging freight and live stock, Captain Smith landed them at the 
lower landing, his favorite claim and special preference for a town 
site. 

Among the members of the association who stopped here were 
Hiram Campbell, wife and three children, Mrs. Thorp (wife of 
Robert Thorp) and three sons, H. B. Waterman, wife and son, 
Asa Waterman, Rufus Waterman, Andrew Petee, D. Q. Burley, 
H. Shipley and son, Mr. Hunt and others. 

This party had qaite a large herd of cattle — oxen, cows and 
young stock. The greater part of them belonged to Hiram Campbell. 
Mr. Waterman had two yoke of oxen and two cows, and Mr. Hunt 



240 HISTORY OF wrvoNA rOUNTY. 

two yoke of oxen. As soon as the cattle were landed they scattered 
over the prairie in S])ite of the efforts of their owners to restrain 
them. The new-comers were not then aware that they were on an 
island, from which their cattle would not attempt to escape even if 
allowed to range over it. It was not until late in the day that all of 
the frisky herd were collected at the lower end of the prairie. The 
tents were pitched and the party remained at the landing until the 
next morning, when the wagons were loaded, the cattle collected, 
and all moved uj) to the upper end of the prairie, where they again 
cam})ed near the landing-place of the Macedonian. 

The following morning the cattle were again collected and after 
much trouble driven across the back slough at the crossing on the 
trail below where they camped. Mr. Campbell divested himself of all 
clothing and followed them over alone to aid his young stock if occar 
sion recjuired. The wagons, with the men, women and children, were 
transferred across the slough to the upper prairie by the Macedonian, 
landing about where the present road is laid. Several trips were 
made to carry them all over. From here they made their way along 
down the slough and then moved on up to the table-land along the 
bluflfs above the mouth of Gilmore valley, where they camped for 
the night. The next day. May 23, they made their entry into the 
settlement and mingled with the crowds there collected. Some of 
this party are yet residents of that vicinity. 

On account of the difficulties in getting to Rolling Stone from 
"Wabasha prairie, and because of the strong feeling of jealousy and 
rivalry that began to be exhibited between the two localities, Mr. 
Haddock urgently requested the members of the association, by 
messages and letters sent to those on their way up, not to land on 
Wabasha prairie. If the boats could not be induced to land them at 
Rolling Stone by going up Straight Slough, they were advised to 
continue on up the river and land on the Minnesota side, below the 
mouth of the White Water. From there he supposed it would be 
practicable to reach the colony by land, or they could be brought 
down by water on the Macedonian. 

But one small party attempted to reach the colony over this 
route. They came up the river on the Dr. Franklin. At Johnson's 
landing, where the boat stop])ed, they were advised by O. M. Lord, 
who chanced to see them, that they had better land there with the 
other passengers, and assured them that it would be more difficult 
tf) get to Rolling Stone from above than from the prairie. 



INCIDENTS OF THE EARTY TIMES. " 241 

Mr. Wright, who had previously visited the colony, and who now 
assumed the leadership, had such unlimited confidence in the judg- 
ment and advice of Mr. Haddock in the matter, that he decMed to 
follow the instructions of the president of the association. They 
continued on and landed on* the morning of May 23 about three 
miles below the mouth of the White Water and about a mile below 
Hall's landing, afterward known as Mt. Yernon. 

The members of this party were James Wright, wife and six 
children, John Nicklin. wife and two children, and S. M. Burns, 
wife and three children. 

Mr. Wright was one of the directors of the association and one 
of its earliest members. He had been a resident of the city of New 
York, where he followed the occupation of a wood-turner. Mr. 
Nicklin was from the same place, where he was a lithographer. Mr. 
Burns was from eastern Pennsylvania, where he had been a hotel- 
keeper, or keeper of a restaurant. It was said that Mr. Burns 
brought more money with him than any other member of the 
colony. 

With their freight they had a large supply of provisions and 
quite an amount of household goods. Mr. Burns brought with him 
a very fine pair of horses, a wagon and a general assortment of 
•farming tools. The experiences of this party during their stay here 
are given as related by Mr. Wright to illustrate some of the inci- 
dents of pioneer life in the early settlement of this county. 

When the horses of Mr. Burns were landed from the steamboat, 
they were not securely fastened by the deck-hands who had them in 
charge. Their halters were loosely tied to the brush that grew along 
the bank, and by their restlessness they soon released themselves. 
Attracted by the fresh grass, they quietly enjoyed their liberty by 
grazing in the vicinity. Thinking it safe, Mr. Burns indulged them 
while lie was putting his wagon together, which had been taken 
apart for convenience in transportation. 

After completing his task Mr. Burns attempted to secure his 
team, but the horses playfully eluded his grasp of their halters and 
kept just beyond his reach. Startled by some sudden movement, 
they sprang off as if for a race, but again halted to feed until he came 
near, when they again left him. At length, turning up a valley, 
they disappeared. He would occasionally get a glimpse of them on 
the sides of the ravine and then lost sight of them entirely. He fol- 
lowed their trail to the ridge on the top of the bluffs, where he lost 



242 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

all trace and returned to the river at evening, tired and hungry, 
without his horses. 

During the day, Mr. Wright and Mr. Nicklin arranged their 
goods in the form of a liollow square, and with poles and blankets 
formed a temporary covering over it. This provided a common 
shelter for the whole party. A cook-stoye was adjusted for business 
near by, and as they had a variety of provisions and good cooks, 
their camp was comfortably established and well provided for. ex- 
cept ])rotection from heavy rains. Plenty of dry grass and an 
abundance of blankets and quilts furnished them beds of which they 
had but little reason to complain. They had the material for tents 
in their boxes, but they did not consider it worth while to nnj)ack 
them for the short time they proposed to stay there. 

The following morning Mr. Burns resumed his search for the 
truant animals. As the fiatboat was expected from Rolling Stone, 
Mr. Wright and Mr. Nicklin remained in camp. AVhen at Wabasha 
prairie they had sent word to Mr. Haddock, notifying him of their 
arrival and asking to have the boat sent up for them. 

In the afternoon Mr. Robertson and Mr. Woodcock came up 
from the colony with the report that an attempt had been made to 
bring up the Macedonian, but it was found to be almost impossible to 
manage it and the effort had been abandoned ; that Capt. Jackson 
proposed to take them down in his small boat and would come up 
in the morning to begin the undertaking. They also reported that 
there was no roadway along the bluffs that was passable for wagons, 
although there was a well-worn Indian trail. 

Mr. Burns returned without his horses. He was unable to tra(te 
them, and for awhile was himself lost and gave up his search. He 
was tired out and discouraged with his fruitless efforts to find his 
stray. pro])erty. He had paid a high price for his horses in Chicago, 
and, being fearful that he would lose them without a chance for 
their recovery, he offered a reward of fifty dollars for them delivered 
in camp or at Minnesota City. 

Stimulated by this liberal offer Robertson and Woodcock volun- 
teered to hunt for the estrays. After a late but hearty dinner they took 
the trail at about four o^clock in the afternoon and found them before 
dark in the head of the north Rolling Stone valley and rode them to 
Minnesota City the same evening. The horses were returned to 
Mr. Burns uninjured by their frolic. He promptly paid over the 
reward. 



mOIDBNTS OF THE EARLY TIMEH. 



243 



Captain Jackson made the attempt to transfer this party with his 
small boat, and commenced with the family and freight of Mr. Nick- 
lin. To accomplish this required several trips. He was successful 
except with the last, which was a valuable load in bulky boxes. The 
boat was capsized and the cargo a total loss— "no insurance." Some 
relics of the contents of the boxes were found the following winter in 
the brush on an island, but nothing of value recovered. This acci- 
dent suspended that line of transportation. 

Robertson and Woodcock, with an eye to speculation, offered to 
deliver the goods of Mr. Wright and Mr. Burns at Rolling Stone for 
fifteen dollars. A bargain was at once closed with them and they 
proceeded to construct a raft from some dead oak-trees standing on 
the bank of the river. After the logs were secured together and 
loaded with a barrel of pork, a barrel of beef, a barrel of vinegar and 
a cask of hams, but little of the raft was above water. Lashing the 
freight to the logs they added a cook-stove, shoved off into the cur- 
rent and safely landed it at " Lord's lumber yard" without accident 
and without delay. 

After the raft had left the shore, Burns decided that he would 
not move down to the settlement. He had made an arrangement 
with the Halls for an interest in their town site and concluded to 
remain on the river. He immediately commenced to build himself 
a log house, and moved his family and goods up to the landing. 

On Saturday Mr. Hunt and Mr. Shipley came up along the bluffs 
with two yoke of oxen and a wagon for the pui-pose of moving them 
down. This was the first wagon that ever passed between tlie two 
places. They met with no serious obstruction for the passage of an 
empty wagon, although the way was rough and uneven. 

When they left Rolling Stone Mr. Shipley was ayjparently in his 
usual health. He had that morning parted with his son, a young 
man about sixteen years old, and sent him down to Galena to bring 
up his family, which he had left there two weeks before. While on 
his way up along the blufts he began to complain of not feeling well, 
and soon became too sick to even follow on the trail. Mr. Hunt made 
him as comfortable as he could on a bed of grass in the wagon, and 
brought him through to Wright's camp. Here everything was done 
for his relief that they were able to do, but without avail. He died 
a few hours after his arrival, at about twelve o'clock at night. His 
disease was supposed to be cholera. 

The remains of Mr. Shipley were buried the next day at about 



244 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

12 o'clock, Sunday, May 30, 1852. The grave was on the bank of 
the river, near where he died. His coffin was a few pieces of slabs 
taken from the drift-wood of the river and arranged around the body, 
while lying in the grave. After the grave was tilled, a piece of a slab 
was placed at the head and his name, "H. ShijMey," marked on it. 
The last resting-place of this early pioneer is now unknown. The 
personal effects of Mr. Shipley were taken in charge by Mr. Wright 
and sent to his wife. The oxen and wagon belonged to Mr. Hunt. 
Mr. Shipley had no interest in them. 

Mr. Wright now became anxious to leave that locality, and as 
soon as the rude burial was completed he loaded the wagon with 
some of his household goods and decided to attempt to go through 
by land, but the attempt proved a failure at the start. The wagon 
was upset within a few rods of where it was loaded, the boxes were 
smashed and their contents scattered as they tumbled and rolled 
promiscuously down the bank, almost into the river. A large look- 
ing-glass rolled on the edges of its frame for several rods and lodged 
in an upright position against a tree, without injury. The same 
mirror is yet in use by Mrs. Wright in Minnesota City. 

At about the time the loaded wagon u]>set a steamboat appeared 
in sight, coming down. Mr. Wright abandoned his damaged {)rop- 
erty and devoted all his energies to attract the attention of the pilot. 
He hoisted signals of distress and hailed the boat most vociferously, 
and was actively seconded in his efforts by his family, one using a 
tin horn and another beating an accompaniment on a tin pan. 
Alarmed by these proceedings, the captain of the boat cautiously 
ran over toward the Minnesota shore, expecting to learn that the 
Sioux had risen against the settlers. He was, however, soon re-' 
lieved of any anxiety on that score, and discovered as he drew near 
that they were some of the passengers he had landed there on his 
way up — that their noisy demonstrations were made because they 
were anxious to leave that locality and go down to Johnson's landing. 
He good-naturedly consented to take them on board. As the boat 
swung round to the shore the captain hailed Wright and inquired, 
'' Where's your freight ? " Pointing to the wreck of the wagon-load, 
Wright replied, "There is some of it, as soon as we can get it 
together." Observing the condition of affairs, the captain called to 
the men forward as the gang-plank was launched out, " Get ashore 
there, some of you, and bring them duds aboard in bulk." 

To Mrs. Wright's extreme surprise, and before she could rally 



LNOIDENTS OF THE EARLY TIMES. 245 

from her helpless astonishment, her clean household stuff, bedding 
and clothing of every description, was carried off in the arms of 
the dirty roustabouts, and before she could offer even a feeble 
remonstrance they were piled promiscuously on the greasy, dirty deck. 

All of Mr. Wright's goods were taken aboard except four barrels 
of flour which he had brought up for the association, designed to be 
used in payment of the Indian tax on the shanties in the colony. 
The flour was taken down by Mr. Hunt in his wagon, the first 
freight carried through by a wagon over that trail. 

When Mr. Wright reached Johnson's landing he there found 
Willie Shipley, waiting for the down boat. He informed the 
astonished boy that his father, from whom he had parted not two 
days before, looking healthy and strong, was dead and in his lonely 
grave on the bank of the river. Mr. Wright gave him the property 
found with his father — his watch, a pocket-book with papers and 
a small amount of money — to be carried to his mother. 

His family were not left without means of support. Mr. Shipley 
had left a considerable sum of money on deposit in Galena, under 
the control of his wife. The family returned to their former home. 
Their experience in the west was a sorrowful one. 

At Johnson's landing Mr. Wright, with his family, was per- 
mitted by Mr. Denman to pass the night in the unfinished house 
he was then building. They reached Minnesota City the next day, 
June 1, and went directly to the "gopher" Mr. Wright had helped 
to build nearly three weeks before. It was near here that his pro- 
visions and cook-stove had been stored when landed from the raft. 
This gopher-house was their first home in the colony. Mr. Wriglit 
has retained possession of and lived continuously with his family on 
the same land and in the same locality ever since that period, about 
thirty-one years. They occupied the "gopher" and a tent until he 
could procure lumber and build a more comfortable place to move 
into. Soon after their arrival the whole family were prostrated with 
sickness in some form. Two of the children died with measles, then 
prevailing. 

Like most of the members of the association from New York 
city, Mr. Wi-ight's previous experience had but poorly fitted him to 
meet the demands of pioneer life. Many things were learned from 
practical experience. Incidents that may now be pleasantly related, 
and are amusing to listen to, which occurred in their acquisition of 
a western education, were once really serious matters with them. 



24(> HISTORY OK WINONA COUNTY. 

The provisions brought down on the raft were jointly owned by 
Mr. Wright and Mr. Burns. The morning after his arrival Mr. 
Wright went out to inspect the condition of his supplies, and discov- 
ered that his cask of hams had been broken open and the contents 
carried off. The fact becoming known, the indignant colonists pro- 
ceeded to investigate the affair. A careful examination of the matter 
was commenced, but the mystery of the transaction was soon 
revealed without a shadow ot suspicion resting on any member of 
the association. The cattle of the settlers had been corraled in the 
bend of the stream near by to prevent their wandering off to parts 
unknown or trespassing in the settlement. In their eagerness to get 
salt, the cask had been broken open and the hams eaten by the 
ravenous bovine monsters. All of the cattle in the settlement were 
under suspicion as being implicated in the transaction, but the herd 
of Hiram Campbell were charged with being the principal and lead- 
ing offenders. The fragments of partly eaten hams were found 
scattered over the ground in the vicinity of the empty cask. 

To prevent any further loss to Mr. Burns, it was proposed by 
Mr. Wright that an equitable division of the pork and beef be made. 
In the absence of Mr. Burns, friends of both parties were selected to 
make the division. The meat in each barrel was taken out and 
accurately weighed. One half of each was then put into one of the 
barrels for Mr. Burns and the other half into the other barrel and 
turned over to Mr. Wright as his individual property. This was 
apj)arently a just dissolution of partnership, but Mr. Wright soon 
discovered that the mixing of the two kinds of meat did not improve 
the quality. It was soon understood that Mr, Wright and Mr. 
Burns had a surplus of meat, and some less fastidious persons pur- 
chased it at less than cost. 

Although transportation had proved to be barely possible from 
Hall's landing to Rolling Stone without considerable expense in open- 
ing a wagon trail, there was to Mr. Burns more than a glimmer of a 
prospective landing-place for the colony, and he located himself 
where he could have the benefit of the river trade in the business in 
which he proposed to engage. Having money to invest, he built a 
hirge hotel. His bar was the main source of profit. He paid no 
license, for the law prohibited the sale of intoxicating drinks. His 
hotel became a favorite resort for the rivermen and traveling public, 
and was not entirely shunned by the settlers. The Indians resorted 
to Burns' for ti-ade. During the years of 1852-3-4 there was 



THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLUSTG STONE. 247 

more liquor sold by Mr. Burns than in all other parts of southern 
Minnesota. He bl-ought on quite a stock of general merchandise 
and opened a store. A postoffice was established and S. M. Burns 
was postmaster. He furnished employment for a large number of 
men cutting steamboat wood on government lands, on which large 
profits were made. 

After a heavy expense trying to build up a business point at this 
place, Mr. Burns was forced to abandon the attempt, and the village 
of Mt. Vernon ceased to exist. The scheme to make it the land- 
ing-place for the colony did not prove practicable, although a wagon 
road was opened between the two places. 

The town of Mt. Vernon, in the northwest part of Winona 
county, took its name from the village of that name at what was 
once known as Hall's landing, on the Mississippi. Not a trace of 
any of the improvements made by Mr. Burns are now to be seen. 
The village site is almost unknown. 



CHAPTEE XXVI. 

THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLING STONE. 

The Western Farm and Village Association, as organized in the 
city of New York in 1851, was transferred to Rolling Stone in 1852 
under the same ofdcers and with the same laws governing its mem- 
bers. The mode of doing business adopted and practiced in the east 
was continued in the west. 

The first regular meeting of the association held in the colony at 
Rolling Stone was on May 6. The ofiicers present were Wm. 
Haddock, president ; Thos. K. Allen, recording secretary ; and a 
majority of the board of directors, Augustus A. Gilbert, James 
Wright, Charles Bannon, John Hughs and D. Robertson. 

At this meeting fifty-two responded to their names when the roll 
of members was called. Some of these were young unmarried men, 
but a majority of the members present were men with families. 

At a general meeting of the colonists on Sunday, May 9, the 
name of Minnesota City was given to the village of the colony. The 
name was unanimously adopted by a viva-voce vote. Prior to this 



248 IIISTOKT OF WmONA COUNTy. 

the locality was only known as Rollin<^ Stone, and afterward it was 
the most familiar name to the early settlers. 

At this same meeting, May 9, a Congregational minister from 
La Crosse, by the name of Reynolds, preached the first sermon ever 
delivered in Minnesota City. Elder Reynolds was a missionary sent 
out by the Home Mission Board of the denomination to which he 
belonged. 

Business meetings of the association were called to consider mat- 
ters relating to the common interests. At one of these meetings, about 
the first, Robert Pike, Jr., was elected surveyor for the colony, to 
establish the lines of claims designated as farms, which were to be 
assigned tothe choice of the members of the association according 
to numbers drawn for that purpose. E. B. Drew and C. R. Coryell 
were Pike's assistants in these surveys, wliich were made under the 
general supervision of the president, Mr. Haddock. 

At a meeting held on May 1 9 the question of making application 
for the establishment of a postoffice was considered and a choice for 
postmaster made by ballot. Robert Pike, Jr., received a majority 
of votes. A petition in proper form was drawn up and signed, 
soliciting the establishment of a postoffice at Minnesota City and 
recommending Robert Pike, Jr., as a proper appointment for post- 
master. This petition was forwarded to the Postoffice department at 
Washington. In due time Mr. Pike received his commission and 
the office was established, but with the proviso and on condition that 
the mails should be transported to and from the nearest postoffice 
on the river free of charge to the Postofiice department. The near- 
est postoflSce was then at La Crosse. The mail was dependent 
on chance opportunities or private enterprise. Even such postal 
facilities were considei'ed of advantage to the settlement. 

The family of Mr. Pike, consisting of his wife and two children 
and two of his sisters (afterward Mrs. H. Jones and Mrs. D. Ken- 
nedy), came on about the last of June. While on their passage up 
the river the postoffice keys were handed to Mrs. Pike at La Crosse 
by Brooks and Hancock, two members of the association there on a 
visit, to be delivered to her husband on her arrival at Minnesota 
City. This was the first knowledge Mrs. Pike had of the matter. 

On May 20 a census of the colony was taken, when it was ascer- 
tained that there were ninety male members of the association on 
the grounds and about 400 women and children. 

The first death in the colony was on May 25, that of David 



THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLING STONE. 251 

Densmore, a man about sixty years of age. He was from the State 
of Maine. He had no family with him. Mr. Densmore was buried 
in the grounds selected lor a cemetery, a little above the forks of the 
Rolling Stone creek, near Minnesota City. 

^ The first bridge built in the county was across the Rolling Stone, 
near where James Wright now lives in Minnesota City. Long logs, 
used as stringers, were laid over the stream from one bank to the 
other. Across these stringers logs were laid instead of plank. The 
colonists all united in this public improvement. 

The next morning after this bridge was completed the settlers 
found that their engineering was not practicable in this structure. 
The long stringers of green timber, without central support, had 
given way and broken down from weight of the green logs by which 
they were covered. The middle of the bridge was resting in the 
center of the stream, the logs retained in their position across the 
stringers. Although not available as a wagon bridge, it was used 
during the season as a crossing-place by persons on foot. 

The first bridge that was of any practicable use was one built by 
the colonists across the Rolling Stone just below the forks of tliat 
stream, above Minnesota City. The location is now covered by the 
mill-pond. This was called the "herd bridge" by the settlers. 
The cattle belonging in the colony were placed under the charge of 
a herdsman, who had the general management of them during the 
grazing season. Robert Pike, Jr., was the first appointetl and acted 
in that capacity for that season. A fence was built running from 
the bluff on the soutli side to the stream, and the cattle were allowed 
to range above it in the south valley. The "herd bridge" was 
designed and built, under the direction of Mr. Pike, to serve as a 
crossing-place for the stock under his charge. It was, however, used 
as a wagon bridge for two or three years after a road was opened up 
through the south valley. 

During that season the wagon trail leading to Wabasha prairie 
was on the south side of the stream, next to the bluffs, and the only 
practical fording-place of the stream was where Elsworth's mill now 
stands. Late in the fall, or early in winter, the settlers opened a 
road along down the table, on the north side of the stream, about 
where it now is, and built a bridge near the angle where the creek 
leaves the bluff and flows north, about a mile below the present vil- 
lage of Minnesota City. This was the first public bridge in common 
use in the county. It was maintained for three or four years until 
15 



252 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

the present road between Minnesota and Winona was opened and 
another bridge was built about fifty. rods beh^w, in tlie same locality 
where the present bridge stands. 

The first store for the sale <;f merchandise to the settlers in the 
colony was opened about June 1 of tliis season by a Mr. Robertson. 
He closed out his establishment and left the colony early in the fall. 

The fii'st school opened in the county was a select school, started 
in Minnesota City in the early part of this season. The first distri(;t 
school in the county was established here later in the season. The 
district was organized under the general law of the territory and 
comprised the whole colony. Miss Ilouk was the teacher. Schools 
have been uniformly maintain^ in tliat locality from that time to 
the present. 

The first blacksmith-shop started in this county by the early 
settlers was in the colony at Minnesota City. James and John 
Prosser, father and son, opened a shop and commenced business 
early in the season. Josiah Keene also started a shop. The Prossers 
left the colony in the fall. O. M. Lord bought their shop, tools and 
stock, and also that of Keene, and carried on the business for a year 
or two afterward. This was the only blacksmith-shop in the county 
until the spring of 1854:, when a shop was opened at Winona, pre- 
vious to which the settlers on Wabasha prairie were dependent on 
Minnesota City, or they were compelled to go to La Crosse for their 
blacksmith work. Sometimes jobs of blacksmitliing were ordered 
by the boats from Galena. 

The first horseshoeing done in the county was by O. M. Lord. 
In the fall of 1852 he shod a pair of horses for Hon. Wm. H. Stevens, 
of the city of Winona. The shoes were brought up from La Crosse. 
In the spring of 1853 he shod fourteen horses for Wm. Ashley 
Jones, a government surveyor. 

From 1849 to 1853 the county of Winona was a part of Wabasha 
county. By act of the First Territorial Legislature, October 27, 
1849, " all that portion of said territory lying east of a line running 
due south from a point on the Mississippi river known as Medicine 
Bottles Village, at Pine Bend, to the Iowa line, was erected into a 
county to, be known by the name of Wabashaw.'' 

The extent of territory included in the boundaries of Wabasha 
county by that act was what is now a part of the county of Dakota 
and the present counties of Goodhue, Wabasha, Olmsted, Dodge, 
Mower; Fillmore, Houston and Winona. 



THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLING STONE. 253 

Wabasha county was first created for the special pur])ose (jf 
affording certain political privileges to the settlers within its bound- 
aries, nearly all of whom were halt-breed Sioux, living on the "Half- 
breed Tract," who were recognized as bona fide citizens. The other 
parts of the county were then in jjossession of the Sioux. 

It was made part of a council district, but was declared to be a 
representative district, entitled to elect one representative to the 
territorial legislature. 

The first representative from Wabasha county was James Wells. 
He was also a member of the second and fourth territorial legisla- 
tures in 1851 and in 1853. In the third legislature, the session of 
1852, Wabasha county was represented by Fordyce S. Richards, 
another trader, living at Reed's landing. 

The fourth territorial legislature in 1853 (March 4) divided Wa- 
basha county and created Fillmore county from the southern por- 
tion along the Mississippi, which included the present county of 
Winona. The same council and representative districts were, how- 
ever, continued until 1855, when a new apportionment was made by 
the legislature. 

At the election held in the fall of 1853, Hon. O. M. Lord, of 
Minnesota City, was elected, from Fillmore, representative of this 
district to the fifth territorial legislature, which held its session in 
1854. At this session Winona county was created, February 23, 
1854. 

When Wabasha county was created in 1849 it was "declared 
to be organized onl}' for the appointment of justices of the peace, 
constables and such other judicial and ministerial officers as might 
be specially provided for." It was attached to Washington county 
for judicial purposes and was entitled to any number of justices not 
exceeding six, and to the same number of constables, who were to 
receive their appointment from the governor and to hold their office 
for two years, unless sooner removed. 

The first justice of the peace appointed by Gov. Ramsey in 
accordance with this act creating Wabasha county, was Thomas K. 
Allen, the recording secretary of the association at Minnesota City. 
Mr. Allen was compelled to go to the capital of the territory — to St. 
Paul, in order to qualify — to take the oath of ofiice required. There 
was no one nearer who was empowered to administer it to him. 

At a general meeting of the members of the association living in 
the colony at Minnesota City, held July 12, 1852, an election pre- 



254 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

/ 

cinct was organized and the following officers elected by ballot : 
Thomas K. Allen, justice of the peace ; Josiah Keen, constable ; 
James AVriglit, assessor ; and Augustus A. Gilbert, notary public. 

These proceedings were without proper authority, and only de- 
signed to represent an expression of the wishes of the people in the 
colony. The governor was duly notitied of this action of the settlers 
and the appointment of the officers selected formally recommended 
and solicited. 

Gov. Ramsey confirmed the election by making the a])pointment 
accordingly. Mr. Allen took the oath of office on July 28, 18.52. 
By vote of the association, O. M. Lord, John lams and Hiram 
Campbell were elected road commissioners for the colony or 
precinct. 

The first sermon delivered to the settlers in Rolling Stone was 
by the Rev. Mr. Reynolds, a missionary of the Congregational 
church. He kept up regular appointments and preached during the 
summer at Minnesota City and at Wabasha prairie. His audiences 
were representatives of all denominations, Presbyterians, Baptists, 
Methodists, etc. A general Sabbath-school was started in the early 
part of this season. The members of the association held to the 
religious faith or belief tliey had professed before joining the colony. 
If there was any change it was exhibited in a general feeling of 
toleration. The Protestants and Catholics shared with each other 
in their comforts and privations, and in their joys and sorrows, with- 
out question of religious opinions. All grades of liberalism, spirit- 
ualism and other "isms" had advocates. 

The first church organized in this county was by the Baptist 
members of the association. This was the first Protestant church 
organization in soutliern Minnesota. The appropriate ceremonies 
were held on July 11, 1852. The pastor of this church was the Rev. 
T. R. Cressey, a missionary appointed by the American Baptist 
Home Missionary Society at a salary of $600 per annum. He made 
Minnesota City his headquarters, but preached in other localities. 

After remaining in this vicinity for two or three months, Mr. 
Cressey had a call to locate himself in charge of the Baptist church 
in St. Paul. As the failing condition of the colony in the latter part 
of the season offered less inducements to remain, he left this county 
and located himself in the capital of the territory. 

Another Baptist preacher. Rev. Henderson Cressey, a brother of 
T. R. Cressey, preached to the settlers at Minnesota City and on 



THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLING STONE. 255 

Wabasha prairie for about two years afterward, but did not reside 
in this vicinity. He held a claim for awhile on the upper prairie. 

There was such a general immigration of preachers among the 
early settlers that about every settlement was represented by one or 
more of some denomination. It is now difficult to ascertain the 
names of many of those who for a time held claims in this county. 
The most of them apparently preferred the blouse of the settler to 
the garb of their profession. 

The Eev. William Sweet occasionally preached, but made no 
regular appointments. The Rev. Mr. Henderson, a member of the 
association, living at Minnesota City, was, or had been, a Methodist 
paeacher. It was said that he gave the settlers a most enthusiastic, 
patriotic sermon on Sunday, July 4, 1852. From many peculiarities 
of belief or opinions expressed in public, his influence among the 
Methodists, of which denomination there was quite a number, was 
not sufficient to induce them to acknowledge him as a leader or 
combine in a church organization. Mr. Henderson, with others 
holding different ''isms," made an unsuccessful effort to create a 
society called "The Universal Church." 

It is difficult to ascertain the exact date of the arrival of very 
many of the early settlers who, as members of the associatioii, 
located in this county. The greatest number and largest bodies of 
them arrived in May, but they continued to come during June and 
until about the middle of July, after which but few if any of the 
immigrants in this part of the territory were members of that organ- 
ization. 

Among those who located in the colony in Rolling Stone whose 
arrival has not been specially mentioned were the following. The 
most of these came in May. The list might be largely extended by 
adding the names of those who remained so short a time that with 
propriety they should be classed as a part of the transient population 
of the colony. Prominent among the more permanent settlers were 
Wm. T. Luark, John lams, S. D. Putnam, S. A. Houk, O. H. 
Houk, George Foster, Egbert Chapman, Harvey Stradling, P. D. 
Follett, Samuel Hancock, John Cook and V. G. Wedon. The last 
is but the nom de plume of Robert Pike, Jr. 

The' time set by the association for drawing numbers for the 
choice of farming lands was May 15. The drawing took place at 
that date, although the survey was not completed ; neither was there 
a full representation of members present. The selections of claims 



2f>() illSTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

were afterward made as fast as the reports of the surveyor were 
received, which were almost daily. All of the available farming 
land in eacii of the valleys of the Rolling Stone were surveyed and 
assigned to the colonists. Some made choice of lands and made 
claims which they retained and still occupy as farms, but the most 
of the selections made by the numbers drawn were abandoned. The 
selections first made were not in all cases satisfactory^ and ex- 
changes were effected without disturbing ' the harmony of the 
settlement. 

By special action of the association before they left New York, 
exemptions were given certain members who were unable to move 
in the spring, by which their rights and privileges were protected by 
proxy. These exemptions were, however, but temporary arrange- 
ments. The limit of this extension of time was fixed to expire on 
July 15, at which date a general meeting of the association was to be 
held for the purpose of determining which village lots and farming 
lands had been forfeited. 

The following extract from the diary of Mr. E. B. Drew notes 
this general gathering : "Thursday, July 15, 1852. The Western 
Farm and Village Association all met at Mr. Lord's new house to 
transact important business pertaining to individual interests in city 
lots and farms. Some interesting times. The population is now 
over three hundred." "July 16. To-day O. M. Lord arrived with 
his family, bringing with him a horse-team and a cow." 

Mr. Lord's new house, mentioned by Mr. Drew, was located on 
the same table, but about a hundred rods above where O. M. Lord 
now lives in Minnesota City. The "interesting times" was the 
scramble for hjrfeited village lots and farms. The horse-team 
brought by Mr. Loi-d was the first span of horses brought into the 
colony. 

The village lots of the colony, which embraced over 1,000 acres, 
covered the land from below the farm now owned by Robert Duncan 
to the bluffs near the farm of D. Q. Burley and up the valley above the 
fork of the stream, including the Waterman farm. The bottom 
lands and a part of the Denman farm were plotted as suburban lots. 

The most of the improvements on village lots were from where 
James Kennedy now lives to about half a mile above where Troost's 
mill stood. It was here that a larg« number of the settlers who 
wintered in the colony made their homes. Although all had claims, 
but few occupied them until the following spring. 



THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLIXG STOKE. •2i)i 

Some members of the association made claims outside tlie juris- 
diction assumed for the colony. In June Mr.' D. Hollyer made a 
claim in what is now the town of Utica, which he abandoned in the 
fall when he left the territory. Dr. J. W. Bentley took possession 
and moved on it in the spring following. It was afterward known 
as "Bentley's.'' Dr. Bentley was not a member of the association, 
although he came to Minnesota City in the fall of 1852 and lived 
there during the winter with H. B. Waterman, a relative. While 
living at Minnesota City Mrs. Bentley increased the population of 
the colony by the addition of a daughter to her family. This was 
the first white child born in Rolling Stone. The first male child 
born in Minnesota City was the eldest son of Mrs. H. B. Waterman, 
January 5, 1854. This child was the first born in the colony whose 
parents were members of the association. George B. Waterman 
died in 1881. 

S. E. Cotton made a claini near Hollyer's, a little east from 
where the Utica railroad station now stands. He had ten acres of 
breaking done on it by Charles Bannon. Mr, Burley was. in the 
employ of Mr. Bannon and drove the team for this job. This was 
the first breaking done back of the bluffs — the first breaking done 
within the boundaries of the county back from the Mississippi, 
except in the valley of the Rolling Stone. 

Robert Taylor made a claim of what is now the village of Stock- 
ton, on the east side of the valley. D. Q. Burley made a claim 
adjoining Robert Taylor's on the west. Mr. Taylor abandoned his 
location the following year, when Mr. Burley absorbed it by moving 
his claim to the centei- of the valley. Mr. Burley traded this claim 
for a house and lot in Minnesota City to S. A. Houk, who in 1854 
sold it to J. B. Stockton, the original proprietor of the village of 
Stockton. Mr. Burley then made a claim of the farm on which he 
now lives. His family did not come here until the spring of 1854. 

Above Stockton, on the south fork of the Rolling Stone,* Mr. 
Hunt made a claim. He was a proxy or substitute in the employ of 
a wealthy member living in New York city, who furnished him with 
two yoke of oxen and all necessary supplies. Mr. Hunt did some 
breaking and put up about fifty tons of hay. This hay was cut with 
scythes by Mr. Burley and Mr. Thorp, who helped put it in the 
stacks. They camped on what is now the L. D. Smith farm while 
at this job, but made their homes in Minnesota City. 

Mr. Hunt went back to 'New York in the fall and left the cattle 



258 IirSTOKY OF WINONA rOTTNTY. 

and claim in charge of Mr. Burley. A few days after he left the 
tifty tons of hay were burned by a lire which swei)t through the 
valley. Mr. Burley wintered the stock in Minnesota City. The 
following sjiring the oxen were taken up the river by a Mr. Bertram 
to another association colony in the vicinity of Lake Minnetonka. 
The claim made by Mr. Hunt was abandoned. 

Egbert Chapman made a claim on Sweet's prairie and built a 
cabin, in which he lived with his family through the winter. He is 
yet a resident of the county, living in Minnesota City. His son, 
Edgar ('hapman, is now living in Dakota Territory. 

Harvey Stradling also selected a location on Sweet's prairie near 
( 'hapman's. He was then a young man. In June, 1853, he mar- 
ried Anna Chapman, a daughter of Egbert Chapman. The Eev. 
William Sweet officiated -at this marriage ceremony. This was the 
first wedding among the colonists. 

Mr. Stradling afterward located in the valley above Minnesota 
City. He died there many years ago. His widow (now Mrs. John 
Nicklin)is living in Dakota Territory. 

In July, 1852, John Cook made a claim in the White Water 
valley about a mile above White Water Falls. He built a comfort- 
able log house and lived here during the winter and for several 
years after. His brotlier, David Cook, also made a claim in this 
vicinity, which he occupied the following year. 

S. D. Putnam selected his claim about a mile below Stockton 
and built a comfortable log house the following spring near where 
he now resides. This was on the farm owned and occupied by J. J. 
Mattison for about twenty years. Mr. Putnam occupied the log 
house about four years. It was a favorite stopping-place for excur- 
sionists, travelers, explorers and claim-hunters, and had the reputa- 
tion of being the best "hotel" in the county. Mr. Putnam is a 
l>rosperous farmer, and quietly enjoys his comfortable home. 

O. H. Houk made a claim next below Putnam's, which he held 
for a year or two. He built a log house on it. The location was 
long known as the EvaTis place. 

Charles Bannon chose a location about a mile below Putnam's, 
and is yet living on the claim selected by him as a memlfbr of the 
association in 1852. He did not occupy or make any improvements 
on it until the following spring. During this time he looked with 
longing eyes on another claim in the valley about a mile below. 
The claim which disturbed his contentment had been chosen by a 



THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLING STONE. 259 

member of the association for Miss Amidon on a number drawn by 
or for her. She was not a resident in the colony, and no improve- 
ments had been made to indicate tliat it was occupied. 

Mr. Bannon, supposing that the claim had been abandoned, 
went on to it and took possession by cutting house-logs enough to 
build a comfortable log house, which he drew together preparatory 
to calling his friends to his house-raising. 

A night or two before the contemplated "raising" was to have 
taken place, the friends of Miss Amidon, or Miss Amidon's claim, 
got together and cut each of the house-logs in two, and notified Mr. 
Bannon not to jump the claim of an unprotected female. 

This was the first clash among "the faithful members," and to 
prevent a serious collision, which apparently threatened, the friends 
of the parties induced Mr. Bannon to abandon the idea of making a 
change of location and settle on liis own claim. All parties united 
and moved the crippled house-logs up to his original choice of loca- 
tion by number, and there constructed an octagon log house for him 
as a compromise of the difficulty. 

Having no desire to encourage contention, Mr. Bannon acquiesced 
in the movement, although satisfied in his own' mind that he had a 
just right to the claim and could have held it without wronging any 
person. Suffice it to say of this matter that Miss Amidon never 
made her appearance in the valley. The disputed claim was after- 
ward disposed of by the friend or agent of that lady to Henry W. 
Driver. Mr. Driver pre-empted it as a homestead, and after living 
on it for five or six years sold his farm and moved to Winona, where 
he resided for a year or two and then went south. 

Mr. Bannon moved on his claim in the spring of 1853, and has 
occupied it as a farm for over thirty years. He has been a success- 
ful farmer. His comfortable buildings, fine stock and well cultivated 
fields represent that as a member of the Western Farm and Village 
Association he found that "home in the west" for which he aban- 
doned his business as a carman in N'ew York city and helped to 
form a colony in the Territory of Minnesota. 

Lawrence Dil worth made choice of his claim in accordance with 
his 'number drawn as a member of the association, and selected the 
one next below and adjoining that of Mr. Bannon's. He moved on 
his claim in the spring of 1853, and has lived there from that time to 
the present. His good buildings and the well-tilled fields of his fine 
farm indicate tlie prosperous farmer and demonstrate that he too 



260 IIISTOHY OF VVnsrONA COUNTY. 

secured the farm for wliicli he came to Rolling Stone. Mr. Dilworth 
and family were of the party that landed at the colony from the 
wood-boat on the evening of May 2. They are Catholics. Religious 
faith was not a test of friendship in the Rolling Stone colony. The 
high respect entertained by the early settlers for Mr. and Mrs. Dil- 
worth has never been dimmed by the years that have passed since 
their pioneer days as colonists. The writer hoi)es for pardon if tres- 
passing on their private affairs, but a remarkable peculiarity in 
manner of doing business is worthy of mention as an uncommon 
incident in ])ioiieer life. It is said by one familiar with his affairs 
that Mr. Dilworth has not during the past thirty years allowed an 
account to be opened against him. He has paid cash down for 
whatever he has bought or gone without articles required. 

On a farm about a mile below Mr, Dilworth there is now living 
another member of the association, who, like his neighbors above, 
remained in the colony, and has secured the home in his old age for 
which he left New England and came west more than thirty years 
ago. This farm is now owned and occupied by S. E. Cotton. 
When the members of the association made choice of farms by their 
numbers, this locality was chosen by John lams, and purchased 
from him by E. B. Drew. This was the first claim sale in the 
colony. Mr. Drew as assistant surveyor had taken a liking to the 
place, and when he learned that it had been selected by Mr. lams 
he offered him $10 for his number, or right to it. The offer was 
accepted and the claim given up to Mr. Drew, who held it and 
entered it at the United States land office when the land was sur- 
veyed. It was held by Mr. Drew until 1857, when he sold it to 
Mr. Cotton. 

When Mr. Cotton first landed at Rolling Stone lie built a log 
house on his village lot previously selected, and made it his home. 
Aft'er the collapse of the association he retained his location, and 
when the land Was surveyed by government he made a claim of 
eighty acres and pre-empted the village lots as a homestead. He 
sold it in 1857 and moved to his present home. His claim in Min- 
nesota City is now the farm of James Kennedy. 

Between the "Drew claim" (where Mr. Cotton now lives) and 
Minnesota City a claim was made by Ilezakiah Jones, who occui)ied 
the locality for several years, and tlien sold the homestead he there 
pre-empted. Mr. Jones is yet a resident of Minnesota (^ity. He is 
the oldest settler in that part of the county north of the city of 



THE ASSOCIATIOK AT ROLLING STONE. 261 

Winona. He came here on April 14, 1852, as one of the '' pioneer 
squad" (the only one now living), and was one of the first members 
of the association to locate in Kolling Stone. Mr. Jones has not 
been as fortunate as some who came later in the season. 

North from the "Drew claim" and west from the present village 
of Minnesota City were the claims of T. K. Allen and A. A. Gilbert. 
These claims were parts of the grounds of the original village site. 
They held claims in the valley above, but when the survey of public 
lands was made they located themselves here, and each pre-empted 
a quarter-section of the land surveyed for the village of the colony. 
Neither of these men are now residents of the county. Both were 
successful in acquiring the homes in the west for which they helped 
to organize the association in New York city in 1851. The first 
grist mill in the county was started by Allen and Gilbert, one of 
Burr's horse-power mills, in 1853. 

Mr. Allen was the recording secretary from the first meeting of 
the association in New York city, until its last meeting in Minne- 
sota city. He is now a clergyman of the Episcopal church, living 
in Alexandria, Douglass county, Minnesota. 

Mr. Gilbert lived for several years in the city of Winona. His 
present residence is unknown. 

The farm now owned and occupied by Mr. E. B. Drew was held 
by Mr. Drew as a claim, but it was the choice of W. H. Coryell on 
his number drawn as a member of the association. It was on this 
claim that E. B. Drew, C. R. Coryell and W. H. Coryell made their 
camp when they first came to Kolling Stone. This was their home- 
stead, where they lived and made their first beginning in farming 
operations in the Territory of Minnesota. By mutual agreement 
they worked together and lield property in common. 

When these men first came here it was not their design to settle 
in the valley. From the description given by Mr. Lord of the 
country lying west they expected to locate themselves on prairie 
farms back from the Mississippi. They selected this location to keep 
up their connection with the association and as their headquarters 
until they found claims that were more satisfactory. 

They explored the country west and made selections of locations 
in what is now known as the town of Saratoga, in the western part 
of the county, in the vicinity of what has since been called the Blair 
settlement. With their teams and big wagon they spent about a 
week in prospecting and marking their claims with the customary 



2(')2 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

marks and a small pile of logs for each location, but never made 
any further improvements, their interests in the valley engaging 
their attention until their prairie claims were taken by others. 

Mr. Drew broke about twenty-five acres, on the farm where he 
now lives, in the spring of 1852, and planted some corn and culti- 
vated a garden. In the fall he sowed a small patch of wheat by 
way of experiment. The following year, 1853, he harvested the 
first crop of wlieat ever raised by the settlers in southern Minnesota. 
From one sack of seed wheat, about two bushels, sown on about 
two acres of breaking, lie secured seventy bushels of superior winter 
wheat, which he threshed and cleaned by hand-labor. 

The following extract is copied from "The Democrat," published 
at St. Paul, August 3, 1853 : 

O. M. Lord, Esq., of Filmore county, a delegate to the late democrat con- 
vention, has deposited in this office a sample of winter wheat of the red chaff 
bearded variety, raised on the farm of Messrs. Drew and Coryell, in the Roiling 
Stone valley, which we regard as the finest specimen of this grain that we have 
ever seen. Messrs. D. & C. have harvested several acres of this wheat, and 
good judges estimate that it will yield at the rate of forty bushels to the acre. 

This is the first winter wheat ever sown in that vicinity, but Mr. Lord 
informs us that a large quantity will be put in the ground this fall. There is 
little doubt that wheat is to become one of the great staple productions of 
Minnesota, and that flour of the best quality will soon form the most importa,nt 
item in the lists of our exports. Up with your mills, gentlemen. 

In 1853 Mr. Drew increased his cultivation by another field of 
breaking, and raised a large crop of corn. In the fall he sowed 
about eight acres of winter wheat. In the spring of 1853 he sowed 
a sack of spring wheat, and harvested about fifty bushels. About 
thirty bushels of this he sold to Sanborn & Drew, in the spring of 
1854. This was the first load of wheat ever sold in the city of 
Winona, or in southern Minnesota. 

In the season of 1851- Mr. Drew harvested, from the eight acres 
sowed to winter wheat the fall before, about two hundred and fifty 
bushels. Some of this he sold to the settlers for seed, reserving 
enough for his own seed, and about eighty bushels which was ground 
into flour. Tlie first wlieat raised in southern Minnesota that was 
made into flour was a part of this crop. 

During the winter W. R. Stewart and Albion Drew took two 
loads of this wheat, of forty bushels each, to a mill in La Crosse 
valley, about sixty miles distant, where they waited until their grist 
was ground, when they returned home with their flour. They were 



THE ASSOCIATION AT ROLLING STONE. 263 

about a week making the trip, the teams going on the ice to La 
Crosse and thence up the La Crosse valley. The loads were much 
lighter on their return, for one fourth of the wheat was taken as toll. 
The wheat was of No. 1 grade and the flour proved to be of supe- 
rior qualit3% fully equal to the best now made by improved mills 
and more modern processes. 

Mr. Drew increased the size of his farm, extended his breaking 
and cultivation, and increased his acreage of wheat, but at the same 
time growing large crops of other kinds of farm produce without 
making a specialty of any particular branch of his business. He 
lias given his attention to the cultivation of fruit, and engaged con- 
siderably in stock raising, horses, cattle, sheep and hogs. Although 
he has extensive ranges, of fine pasturage on his large farm, he 
abandoned sheep farming, on account of the extreme care necessary 
to protect his flocks from the wolves that infested the vicinity. 

Mr. Drew has been a prosperous farmer. He has given his per- 
sonal attention to all of his farming operations and has made it a 
practical business occupation. He has held official positions in the 
town of KoUing Stone, in which he resides ; has served as county 
commissioner, and was a member of the state legislature in 1875, 
and also in 1876. 

C. E,. Coryell remained with Mr. Drew for about a year and 
then went back east to live. W. H. Coryell staid with him about 
two years, when he married and settled on a claim on the upper part 
of Wabasha prairie, whera W. L. Burr now resides. After a resi- 
dence here of about a year he left the territory. 

Robert Thorp is living on the farm chosen for him on his num- 
ber drawn. It adjoins that of Mr. Drew. Mr. Thorp's family lived 
in Minnesota City about two years before they moved to their pres- 
ent location. To hold the claim, and prevent others from jumping 
it while Mr. Thorp was absent working at his trade as a blacksmith, 
he built a small shanty, which Mrs. Thorp sometimes occupied 
temporarily. 

Mr. Thoi"p is now occupying his comfortable stone cottage and 
broad acres of cultivated fields, for which he abandoned his black- 
smith shop in New York city. He has held the office of treasurer 
of the town of Rolling Stone, in which he lives, for the past fifteen 
years. 

Although Mr. Thorp brought to the colony a large supply of 
material, stock and tools, he never opened a shop in Minnesota 



264 JIISTOMY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

City. IIu left his tUmily there in a comfortable hewed log house 
about 14X16, and went down to Galena, where he worked a part of 
the years 1852 and 1853. When he moved on his farm he built a 
small shop in which he sometimes does blacksmithing for himself or 
to accommodate a neighbor. 



CIIAPTEK XXVII. 



CRYSTALLIZATION. 



From personal observations made during the extreme high water 
in the spring of 1852, and from the course of events and progress 
of aifairs generally at Wabasha prairie, Captain Smith decided or 
consented to locate his contemplated town site on claim No. 4, at the 
upper landing, instead of on claim No. 1, as he had at first intended. 
Circumstances apparently compelled him to change his original 
plans. He did not, however, at once abandon his first im})ressions, 
that claim No. 1 was the most valuable on the prairie. 

From letters now in the hands of the writer, correspondence 
between old settlers, who were then holding claims on the prairie, 
it is evident that for awhile Captain Smith was suspicious of his 
agent and partner in this speculation, and feared that he might 
attempt to appropriate the up])er landing as an individual posses- 
sion. With the rush of immigration into the territory, Johnson's 
ideas were considerably inflated, and he apparently assumed the 
entire control of aifairs at Johnson's landing, but no evidence of 
treachery was ever developed. 

About the first of June Captain Smith brought up a surveyor 
from Iowa, whose services he secured to lay out a town at the upper 
landing. To John Ball, United States deputy surveyor, he in- 
trusted the business of laying off and plotting claim No. 4 into lots, 
streets, etc. The original survey of the town plat of what is now 
Winona was accordingly made by John Ball for the proprietors. 
Smith and Johnson. 

No government survey of lands had been made on the west side 
of the river by which to locate the plat of the new town. Mr. Ball 
took its bearings from a point established by government surveyors 



CKYSTALLIZATION. 265 

on the opposite side of the river. Its location was described by 
him as follows: "From the northwest corner of Block 9, the 
meander post in Wisconsin on the Mississippi river, between Sees. 
1 and 6, T. 18 K, E. 10 and 11 W., 4th M., bears 35° east, 39 chains 
distant. " 

After due consideration of the matter it was decided to lay off 
the streets parallel with and at right angles to the river, which at 
this place runs a little south from an east course (21° south of east). 
It therefore became necessary that the boundaries should be estab- 
lished satisfactorily with the holders of the adjoining claims. Each 
of the chiims along the river were half a mile square. The division 
lines between them were a direct nortli and south course. 

The corner 'stake between No. 4, the Johnson claim, and No. 3, 
the Stevens claim, stood on the bank of tlje river, about midway 
between Walnut and Market streets. The corner stake between 
No. 4 and No. 5, the Hamilton claim, stood on the bank of the 
river about midway between Winona and Huff streets. 

Several days were spent in general measurements and negotia- 
tions before the boundaries of the plat were established, extending on 
the river from the corner stake of the Stevens claim to the center 
of Washington street, and running back to the center of Wabasha 
street. The proprietors of the claims on the river wei-e to retain 
their rights to their claims as originally made without regard to the 
survey and plat made by Mr. Ball. 

The boundary line on Wabasha street was established by special 
agreement with the holders of the claims on the south. An agree- 
ment, made a matter of record, is as follows : 

Thi.s article of agreement, made this fifteenth day of June, a.d. Eigliteen 
hundred and fift\-tvvo, Between A\'m. B. Crere and Erwin Johnson, both of 
the Countj' of Wabashaw and Territory of Minnesota, Witnesseth : That the 
said (parties) do hereby agree and bind ourselves to abide by the following 
specified stipulations in regard to boundary or division line between their 
respective claims on the Prairie of Wabashaw. The street designated on the 
Town Plot as Broadway shall be the division line between said claims as far as 
said Gere's extends, and furthermore the lots in the next Block or Blocks 
south of and bordering on Broadway shall be equally divided between said 
Gere and Johnson, and after said Gere has the same measurement of land 
south of said division Block as said Johnson has north of said division Block, 
the remaining strip of land bordering on the lake shall be equally divided 
between the said parties. 

In witness whereof we have herewith set our hands and seals. 

In presence of 1 Wm. B. Gere. [seal] 

John Ball. J E. Johnson. [seal] 



266 HISTORY OF WINONA COTNTY. 

The boundaries between the claims on the river and those in 
tlie rear were irreguhir and "a great deal mixed." To illustrate 
their relation to each other: The original claims on the river began 
at a certain stake or starting point on the bank of the river, thence 
running south half a mile to a corner stake ; thence west half a mile 
to a corner stake; thence north to the bank of the river to a corner 
stake ; thence east along the bank of the river to the place of 
beginning. 

As the line of the river bank is about 21° south of east, it is 
readily seen that the west line was much the longest, and that the 
boundaries described included more that 160 acres of land. The 
claim adjoining on the west, if defined in the same manner, will not 
extend as far south on its east line as the western boundary of the 
first described. 

The irregularity of these boundaries on the soutli produced 
corresponding irregularities in the claims in the rear, which were 
sources of claim difficulties and contentions. In a matter arising 
from this peculiarity of claim boundaries Henry D. Huff narrowly 
escaped the loss of his life in the spring of 1854. 

Mr. Huff was then the proprietor of claim No. 5, the Hamil- 
ton claim. The land in the rear of the east eighty acres was held 
by George H. Sanborn. The land south of the west eighty was 
occupied by Elijah Silsbee. ' With the consent of Mr. Sanborn, but 
in opposition to Mr. Silsbee's claim rights, Mr. Huff attempted to 
change the original line of his claim on the south, and make it 
parallel with the river, or with the line of the streets. To accomplish 
this, he proposed to mark his boundary by a furrow extending from 
the southwest corner of the Johnson claim, No, 4, to the southwest 
corner of his own claim. No. 5. He sent his team with a plow to 
mark the line, and take possession by breaking and cultivation. 

Mr. Silsbee had previously marked his boundaries by a single 
furrow with a plow. When the team of Mr. Huff approached this 
furrow, Silsbee stopped them, and, threatening the driver with his 
gun, drove him off. He then stood guard to prevent any further 
attempts to trespass on his rights. The tract of land in dispute was 
but three or four acres. It was not so much the amount or value 
involved as it was what he supposed to be disregard of tlie rights of 
others that aroused the angry passions of Silsbee. It was not alone 
the protection of property, but an impulsive resistance of what he 
considered arbitrary oppression. 



CRYSTALLIZATION. 269 

Learning the state of affairs from the teamster, Mr. Huff went 
back on the prairie toward where Silsbee had stationed himself. As 
he approached the furrow which marked the original claim line 
Silsbee ordered him to halt, and bringing his gun to his shoulder 
called to him not to cross the furrow, that he would shoot him if 
he attempted. 

Fearless, and paying no attention to the order to halt, Mr. Huff 
continued to advance, and crossed the furrow. Approaching in a 
confident manner he said, " You do not intend to shoot me, do 
you?" Silsbee replied, "I do," and taking deliberate aim fired 
upon him. 

The gun was a double-barrel fowling-piece, owned by M. 
Wheeler Sargeant, which Silsbee had borrowed. Both ban-els were 
heavily loaded with fine shot and small gravel stones. The con- 
tents of one barrel were lodged in Mr., Huff's left side and arm. 
Fortunately, he had a large pocket-book filled with closel^'-folded 
papers in the breast-pocket of his inner coat, and both coats but- 
toned close. Nearly the whole charge lodged in the pocket-book. 
A part of the missiles were burrowed in the muscles of his chest and 
left arm. 

Mr. Huff was knocked down and disabled by the shock and 
injuries received. He was taken home, and was under the care of 
a surgeon for several weeks. No serious results followed the in- 
juries. He readily recovered. 

Silsbee was immediately arrested, and after an examination 
before a justice of the peace he was bound over for trial at the 
next term of the United States court, and released on bail. On 
account of some informality no court was held that year. The fol- 
lowing year the case was continued over on account of serious sick- 
ness of Silsbee. In the meantime Mr. Huff purchased the Silsbee 
claim, and the matter was permitted to pass without legal action in 
court. 

With the proceeds of the sale of his claim Mr. Silsbee, with 
Charles S. Hamilton as partner, opened a store on the corner of 
Center and Front streets, where a warehouse now stands, and for 
awhile he was considered to be a respectable citizen, but for many 
years previous to his death, which occurred about ten or twelve 
years ago, he was an outcast in community. 

It is said by an old settler that when the town plot was first 
made by John Ball the present levee was laid off into blocks, num- 
16 



270 HISTORY OF VVLNONA COUNTY. 

beivd from 1 to 6, and divided into lots, but tliat the plan was 
changed by the special directions of Capt. Smith and a r»ublic levee 
substituted. The high water of that season overflowed the bank as 
far as the south side of Front street, making the water-lots of less 
immediate value in the estimation of the proprietors. The landing 
was one of the important items of the claim with Caj)t. Smith, and 
he was desirous of making it available to its greatest extent. 

It is to Capt. Smith that the city of Winona is indebted for the 
commodious levee it now holds. It was the pride of its citizens 
before it was deformed and crippled by railroad tracks and other 
modern improvements, and suffered to wear and waste away from 
neglect of attention by those whose duty it is to protect and care 
for it. 

Blocks 1 and 6 on the river were reserved from the public levee 
and divided into lots as plotted. It is said that this was done by 
Mr. Huff before the plot was recorded. Block 1 contained but 
three lots belonging to Smith and Johnson ; the other two, lots 1 and 
2, belonged to the Stevens claim. 

When the town site of Smith and Johnson was surveyed and 
plotted by John Ball, United States deputy surveyor, it was given 
the name of Montezuma, by E. H. Johnson. He was afterward 
extremely tenacious of the name, and strongly opposed the sub- 
stitution of Winona. No record was made of the plot until the 
following year. Wabasha county had no county records. In 
1853, when Fillmore county (which also included this county) was 
created and regularly organized, the plot was recorded. 

Henry D. Huff bought an interest in this town site in 1853, and 
also had claim No. 5 surveyed and plotted as a part of the town. 
In a newspaper article, published several years ago, Mr. Huff said 
relative to this matter, "The town proper had been surveyed, 
plotted and named Montezuma by Smith and Johnson. With the 
consent of Capt. Smith I erased the name of Montezuma and 
inserted the name of Winona on the plot, and paid Mr. Stoll, of 
Minneowah, for recording the same as Winona. I found out after- 
ward that the name Montezuma was retained on the record, and 
asked Mr. Stoll why he ])ut in the name of Montezuma when it did 
not ap})ear on the plot. He Siiid Johnson wanted it Montezuma, 
so he recorded it Montezuma, adding a note that the proprietors 
had changed it to Winona." 

During the early part of this season another town site was 



CRYSTALLIZATION. 271 

located in this county. The location selected was along the river 
just above what is now the village of Homer — the claim purchased 
of Peter Gorr by Timothy Burns. This town site did not include 
BunnelPs landing, but extended from Bunnell's claim up the river 
along the bluffs. It was on the "main land," two or three miles 
below "that bar in the river," Wabasha prairie. 

A stock company was organized. There were eight shares 
valued at $200 each. The stockholders and proprietors were 
Timothy Burns, lieutenant-governor of "Wisconsin, residing at 
La Crosse, Willard B. Bunnell, of Bunnell's landing, Isaac Van 
Etten, Charles W. Borup, Charles H. Oakes, Alexander Wilkin, 
Justus C. Ramsey and William L. Ames, of St. Paul. 

This company was a strong and influential one, and with the 
exception of Bunnell they were all men of considerable capital. 
With them their investments here were wholly matter of specula- 
tion. It was supposed to be a "good thing," and strong efforts 
were made by them to build up a town that would successfully 
compete with Capt. Smith's claims for the business of the interior 
when the back country should become settled. 

Soon after' Smith and Johnson had their town site plotted the 
speculation began to be developed, and in July this rival town was 
surveyed and plotted by Isaac Thompson for the proprietors, and 
the name of Minneowah given to it. This name is of the Dakota 
language. It was selected by the proprietors of the new town, and 
not given to the locality by the Sioux. It is not now known 
whether the Indians had a name designative of this place or not. 
None was ever known by any of the settlers. The literal transla- 
• tion of the name Minneowah is ' ^ Falling Water. " 

In a description of the Falls of St. Anthony by the Rev. John A. 
Merrick, an Episcopal clergyman at St. Paul, published about the 
1st of January, 1852, he says, "By the Dahcota or Sioux Indians 
they are called 'Minne-ha-hah,' or ' Minne-ra-ra, ' (Laughing Water,) 
and also 'Minne-owah' (Falling Water) — general expressions 
applied to all waterfalls." 

The historical address of M. Wheeler Sargeant, from which 
extracts have been made, says, "The town contained 318 lots; 
consequently at that early day looked quite imposing on paper — still 
more so on the spot; for at letist one half of it was 400 feet above 
the river and of w-g^r^y perpendicular access; * * * and for the 



272 IlISTOJiY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

next year it was by far the most ])retentious place below St. Paul. 
* * * Except the unimj)ortant items of locality, buildings and 
inhabitants, it had all the characteristics of a great cityy 

The plot was put into i»iarket at St. Paul and lots were bought 
ajid sold, without knowledge of their locality — whether on the table 
along the river or on the bluff above. Not much was done there by 
way of improvements until the following year. 

In the spring of 1853 a large hotel was built by the proprietors — 
much the largest and best building on the west side of the river 
below St. Paul. For awhile Minneowah was truly a rival town, and 
strongly contested with Montezuma for public attention. Its advan- 
tages of h)cation "on the main land," over that "sand-bar," liable 
to overflow any year, were loudly proclaimed, and its prospects were 
for awhile apparently promising. 

The hotel was opened, and steamboats landed passengers who 
were prospecting for locations. Stores were built and goods brought 
on, — dwellings commenced, but dividends for the sale of lots were 
unknown ; the expense column was much the heaviest. The origi- 
nal stockholders divided up their shares and generously allowed 
others to hold stock in Minneowah. 

Among the new proprietors who became residents were Myron 
Toms, who, while living in St. Paul, purchased a half-share. H. B. 
Stoll purchased a halt-share from Mr. Yan Etten. James F. Toms, 
Charles G. Waite and others became proprietors. Peter Burns held 
an interest as successor of his brother Timothy Burns, whose death 
occurred about this time. He was the only shareholder who claimed 
to have made anything from the transaction. He says that when 
the prospects of success were the most flattering he sold his interest 
to the other proprietors for $4,000, and went back to La Crosse. 

An addition to Minneowah was surveyed and plotted for Bun- 
nell, Stoll and John Lavine. This addition was principally suburban 
lots of from five to ten acres eacli for residence property. It was 
located above the original town, extending along the bluffs to the 
mouth of Pleasant valley. Mr. Lavine occupied this land and held 
it as a claim. 

Among the early residents of Minneowah was the Hon. C. F. 
Buck, of the town of Winona, then a young lawyer just starting in 
business. Mr. Buck came here about the first of September, 1853, 
and remained until 1856, when he moved to Winona. Charles M. 
Lovel, of Fillmore county, was for awhile a merchant here and 



CRYSTALLIZATION. 273 

carried on considerable of a trade. There were many others who 
were temporary residents of that locality. A man by the name of 
Dougherty remained there for several years. 

The town plot of Minneowah was never recorded. It.was placed 
on tile in the office of the register of deeds of Fillmore county, while 
Mr. Stoll was register and had his office at Minneowah. In 1855 
Myron Toms, holding power of attorney from the proprietors, with- 
drew the plot from the files for the purpose of entering the land as 
a claim. The town site of Minneowah was then unknown on any 
record. It was said that this was done to onst some of the propri- 
etors and holders of lots, but the location was jumped by some of 
the citizens residing there wIto filed their claims in the United States 
land office as actual settlers on the land. The matter was contested, 
but the resident settlers held their claims as homesteads. 

Mr. Dougherty drew the hotel and a store with his share 

of the spoils. The stockholders and owners of lots lost all right 
and title to the locality. The commercial town "on the main land " 
vanished. Minneowah is now known only by tradition to the 
residents of the county. ' 

Willard B. Bunnell, one of the original stockholders of Minneo- 
wah, the resident proprietor, was, in the beginning, the most zqalous 
and active of the company in his efforts to build up this town, and 
gave most of his time and attention to the scheme, but later he 
learned he was but a tool in the hands of his more experienced and 
wealthy associates. The professional town-site speculators were 
"too much" for the little Indian trader. He became a silent part- 
ner in the concern for awhile, and then relinquished his share to the 
others. 

No one intimately acquainted with Will Bunnell had reason to 
doubt the sincerity of his belief that Wabasha prairie had been 
entirely flooded, and was liable to be again submerged in extreme 
high water. This idea he imbibed from his belief at that time in 
many of the traditions and some of the superstitions of the Indians, 
although he was a man of intelligence and of some acquirements. 
Notwithstanding his active, restless temperament and impulsive 
manners, he was popular with his acquaintances. He was a genial, 
social companion, and a gentleman when frontier sociability was 
not carried to excess. 

About the first of June, 1852, John Burns brought his family into 
the territory of Minnesota and settled in this county. He located 



274 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

himself in the mouth of the valley to which his name was afterward 
given, and which is now known as "Burns Valley." Plis family 
then consisted of his wife, three daughters — Mary, "Maggie," 
Elicia — and his son William. Elicia died not long after she came 
here. 

Mr. Burns had, prior to this, been a resident of the State of 
Wisconsin, living near Mineral Point, where he had been engaged 
in farming and stock-raising. On his anival here, he landed at 
Bunnell's landing, with all of his household goods, farming imple- 
ments, and a large herd of cattle, horses, hogs, fowls, etc., to 
transport all of which Mr. Burns used to say he had to charter the 
Nominee for the trip. He moved direct from the landing to his 
claim, where, instead of the ordinary claim shanty, the family found 
a home ready to receive them. They never had any experience of 
shanty life in Minnesota. 

The claim on which Mr. Burns settled was selected for him by 
his son, Timothy Burns, lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin. The 
claim was chosen early in the fall of 1851, soon after the treaty with 
the Sioux for the sale of their lands, on the west side of the Missis- 
sippi. During the winter, about the first of February, Mr. Burns 
came up the river on the ice, with the mail carrier, to see the loca- 
tion in the Indian country, which he had been notified had been 
selected for him as a stock fai'm and family homestead. 

After stopping a few days at La Crosse to visit his sons, Timothy 
and Peter Burns, he came up to look at the claim and found it to be 
a choice satisfactory to himself. He decided to secui-e it and bring 
his family on in the spring. Making his headquarters at Bunnell's, 
he took possession of the claim and proceeded to get out timber 
with which to build a frame house on it in the spring. 

AbAut the first of April he returned home, going down the river 
on the Nominee, then on her first trip. He left his claim in the 
care of his sons in La Crosse. The special charge of the claim was 
under the watchful eye of W. B. Bunnell, whose sister was the wife 
of Peter Burns. Tt was tlirough the aid of Bunnell that the claim 
was first selected and held. 

Early in the spring Timothy Burns had a house built on this 
claim for his father. It was at that time the best building in southern 
Minnesota. It was a commodious but rather old-fashioned farm- 
house. The frame was of oak timber with posts and braces, covered 
with a shingled roof, the sides clapboarded and painted. It was 



I CRYSTALLIZATION. 275 

into this house, just completed, that Mr. Burns moved his family 
about the first of June. Its pleasant location among the large old 
oaks on the bank of the stream gave it a cozy and homelike 
appearance. 

This house was occupied by Mr. Burns and his family for several 
years, until it took fire from some defect in the chimney and burned 
to the ground with the most of its contents. He then built another 
house on the site of the first, which it somewhat resembles in gen- 
eral external appearance, although its internal arrangements are of 
more modern style. This building is yet standing, and is used as 
the farm residence of the occupant of the land. 

Mr. Burns opened up a farm on his claim, but gave his attention 
principally to stock-raising and the dairy. The early settlers were 
for man}^ years greatly dependent on Mr. Burns for good,, fresh 
butter, eggs and chickens, while Mr. Burns furnished them fresh beef 
from his herd. The claim and vicinity furnished an extensive range 
for his cattle, and afforded unlimited meadows of grass-land for 
their winter's supply of hay. His surplus of the farm always found 
ready sale on Wabasha prairie or with the immigrants that came 
into the county to settje. 

When Mr. Burns first took possession of his claim he obtained 
permission of the Sioux to occupy the land, cut the timber and build 
a house on it. For this permit he gave the Indians two barrels of 
flour and a barrel of pork. This he paid under the impression and 
with the belief that he was purchasing their rights to the land. He 
always after maintained that he bought his claim from their chief 
Wabasha, and that no one had a better right to it than himself. 

At the time he took possession there were two or three large 
Indian tepees standing in the vicinity of where his house was built. 
They were about 15x20, of the same style and structure as those 
found on Wabasha prairie and in the mouth of Gilmore valley. 
This locality was the special home of Wabasha and his family rela- 
tives when living in this vicinity. It was sometimes called Wabasha's 
garden by the old settlers. 

Quite a number of Indian graves were on these grounds. Nearly 
in front of the farmhouse there were two or three graves of more 
modern burial lying side by side. These were said to be the last 
resting-place of some of Wabasha's relatives. The Sioux made 
a special request of Mr. Burns and his family that these graves 
should not be disturbed. This Mr, Burns promised, and the little 



276 HISTORY OF WINONA COT^NTY. 

mounds, covered with billets of wood, were never molested, although 
they were in his garden and not far from his house. For many 
years they remained as they were left by the Indians, until the 
wood by which they were covered had rotted away entirely. A light 
fi-ame or fence of poles put there by Mr. Burns always covered the 
locality during his lifetime. 

For several years after Mr. Burns located here the Sioux who visited 
this part of the territory were accustomed to make it their camping- 
grounds. Although tliey were unwelcome visitors, and their arrival 
always dreaded by the female portion of the family, Mr. Burns was 
never annoyed by their presence, — they were never troublesome. 
To allay any demonstrations of timidity on the part of Mrs. Burns 
or her daughters, he would chidingly remark, "Sure ye have no 
cause for fear, — didn't I buy the land from old Wabasha himself — 
and pay him his own price for it too — a barrel of pork and two 
barrels of flour { They will not harm ye — don't be bothering about 
the Indians, now." 

Mr. Burns never lost anything by the Indians. His property 
was never disturbed, and in but one particular were they ever 
familiar or assumed possession of anything without permission. 
During the first season Mr. Burns had a field of corn and pumpkins 
on new breaking. The corn was a poor crop, but the pumpkins 
were plentiful. Thinking to make some contributions to them, Mrs. 
Burns gave tlie squaws permission to take all the pumpkins they 
desired. The squaws helped themselves liberally. Every season 
afterward the squaws made an annual visit and swarmed into Mr. 
Burns' cornfields. They carried off "• Mrs. Burns' pumpkins," but 
left the corn for the blackbirds to forage on. 

Mr. Burns wa^! appointed a justice of the peace, by Gov. Ram- 
sey, not long after he came here. He was the second justice of the 
])eace appointed in Wabasha county ; the first was T. K. Allen, 
of Minnesota City. He held the position until his successor was 
elected in the fall of 1853. 

"The rich Irish brogue " plainly revealed the Milesian origin of 
Mr. Burns. Ilis quaint expressions are pleasantly remembered by 
his friends and acquaintances. As a justice of the peace his court 
was a session of comic drollery that was heartily enjoyed by the set- 
tlers. His rulings and decisions were given from an intuitive and 
imjmlsive feeling of right and justice, rather than from his compre- 
hension of the law governing the cases. His honesty of purpose 



RESPECTABILITY. 277 

was never questioned ; as a citizen he had the respect of the early 
settlers. 

Mr, Burns, his wife, and their daughter Elicia, died on their 
farm in the mouth of Burns valley, — *on the claim where they 
settled in 1853. Mrs. Burns died in September, 1860, Mr. Burns 
in March, 1870. The homestead is yet in possession of one of the 
family. It is owned by Miss Maggie Burns, one of their daughters. 
Mary, the other daughter, is now known as Mrs. E. S. Smith, of 
the city of Winona. An interesting family of sons and daughters, 
young ladies and gentlemen, now call her "mother." "Bill" 
Burns has gone west. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



RESPECTABILITY. 



Among the settlers on Wabasha prairie during the early part of 
the summer of 1852 were the Rev. Hiram S. Hamilton and his son 
Charles S. Hamilto^j, who arrived about the first of June. After 
exploring the prairie in search of claims, without settling on any, 
they made choice of one across the slough at the foot of the Sugar- 
Loaf Bluff, where they built a small claim shanty and commenced 
pioneer life. Finding the location a lonesome and unpleasant one, 
they moved their shanty and housekeeping material over on the 
prairie, and put it up^on the bank of the river — on a mound at 
about what is now the foot of Main street. » 

After living on the levee for a short time, they moved into the 
shanty on claim No. 2 — the claim held by Caleb Nash. While 
living there, H. S. Hamilton acquired possession of the claim, and 
soon after built a house on the bank of the river, a little way 
above where the saw-mill of the Winona Lumber Company now 
stands. He here located himself with his family, consisting of his 
wife and two sons, Charles S. and Eugene, and made it his home 
for about ten years, when he sold his property on Wabasha prairie 
to Henry D. Huff and moved on a farm in the southeast part of 
Wisconsin, where he died a few years ago. 

Rev. Hiram S. Hamilton, or, as he was most commonly called, 
"Elder Hamilton," was a prominent and well-known citizen of this 



278 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COTTNTY. 

county in the pioneer days of its settlement. Through his influence 
very many of the early settlers came into the territ<)ry, and a large 
number of his relations and personal friends, as well as strangers, 
were induced to settle in this county, many oi them on Wabasha 
prairie, now the city of Winona. 

Mr. Hamilton was a gentleman of liberal education, of fine 
personal appearance, pleasing and entertaining in his manners, but 
of (piiet, unobtrusive habits. He was a Congregational minister, 
and had preached for many years before he came here. On account 
of ])Oor health he resigned his position as pastor of a churcli in 
Dubuque and came to Minnesota, expecting to be benefited by the 
change of climate and locality. At Dubuque he was popular with 
his congregation and held in high esteem as a citizen. During his 
residence in Minnesota he was popular as a preacher and respected 
by the early settlers, amcmg whom he had many warm friends who 
knew him personally, many who now hold pleasant recollection and 
retain that respect to his memory. 

From the time he first landed on Wabasha prairie until after 
the society of the Congregational church -was organized, of which he 
was the pastor, he preached quite regularly to attentive congrega- 
tions of mixed religious ideas and beliefs. His well written and 
impressively delivered sermons were interesting and instructive, and 
were always listened to with respectful attention. Their influence 
helped to maintain a moral restraint over the community of 
unorganized citizens, of a locality in which uncertain public opinion 
was the controlling law. His services were gratuitously disposed, 
but were n(me the less valued or beneficial in the settlement. 

Although Elder Hamilton lawfully came in possession of and 
lawfully held claim No. 2, the circumstances and manner by which 
the claim was secured caused a feeling of opposition from interested 
individuals, which, for a time, threatened to lessen his influence as 
a teacher or adviser, but public opinion indorsed his action in the 
matter. His po[)ularity as a preacher was maintained, and his 
reputation as a citizen was unimpaired by the transaction. 

The charges against him by his opponents were, that he had 
taken possession of and held the claim regai-dless of the rights of 
others ; that in his proceedings in the matter he had laid aside his 
"Sunday clothes" and descended to the level of other settlers, and 
"jumped the claim." 

Claim jumping was not considered as a crimirfal offense in public 



RESPEOTABILITy. 279 

opinion if sustained by the laws governing claims. The wrorig, if 
any was committed, was generally forgiven and forgotten by the 
public if the attempt was successful, and particularly if the claim 
proved to be valuable. Some incidents relative to the change of 
proprietors of claim No. 2 will be given to show the circumstances 
under which it was jumped. 

Charles S. Hamilton was about seventeen or eighteen years of 
age when he came here with his father. He was a reckless, dashing 
and rather fast young man, inclined to be inconsiderate and forward 
in .his manners. He was brought here to withdraw him from the 
evil influences of "young America" in Dubuque. Although 
"gassy" and volatile, Charlie was not considered a vicious boy, and 
for awhile he was a general favorite with the settlers, — his restless 
freedom was more amusing than offensive. Many things were over- 
looked because he was Elder Hamilton's son. Without occupation 
he amused himself in hunting and fishing and in explorations of the 
country. He studied the mystery of claims among the groups of 
settlers who gathered to discuss this general topic of conversation.. 

Learning the history, condition and approximate value at which 
every claim was held, he became interested in the idea of forming a 
stock company and laying out another town site on the Nash claim. 
Nash had made his claim under the instructions of Johnson, and 
held it under his directions and patronage, hardly conscious that it 
was his own by right. I^owing this condition of the claim, 
Charlie proposed his plan to Johnson and W. B. Gere, who favored 
the scheme. Johnson readily induced Nash to enter into an arrange- 
ment with them and become one of the company. 

The plan proposed was, that Nash should transfer his claim to 
the new company for a specified consideration, when it was to be 
surveyed and plotted for the company, composed of E. H. Johnson, 
W. B. Gere, Caleb Nash and Charles S. Hamilton. To secure 
equal rights and privilege^ to the proprietors, the services of a lawyer 
in La Crosse were secured, to draw up all necessary papers, by 
making him also one of the stockholders. 

As a preliminary movement, a quit-claim deed was drawn u]), 
transferring all of the right and interest of Nash in the claim to 
Johnson and Co. This deed was given to Charlie Hamilton, to pro- 
cure the signature of Nash. Except a nominal consideration, the 
payment of the full amount agreed upon was postponed until the 
company was organized. 



280 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

To get the signature of Nash to this quit-claim deed Cliarlie went 
to " (roddard's," where Nash was then stopping, laid up on ac- 
count of sickness. On learning the object of his visit Mrs. Goddard 
advised Nash against signing any papers until he received the 
money down for his claim. Her advice was unheeded. Charlie 
Hamilton's "representations that "it was all right" — "only to 
show that he meant business, so that they could organize the com- 
pany " — induced Nash to sign his name. 

In narrating this occurrence "Aunt Catharine" said, "I sup- 
pose tlie boys thought I did not know anything about business, but 
poor Nash was sorry enough afterward that he did not listen to me, 
when I told him he was giving his claim away." 

The deed was given into the hands of the "attorney of the com- 
pany," at La Crosse, for safe keeping. To secure the claim and pre- 
vent Nash or anyone else from attempting to get possession, it was 
proposed to allow Elder Hamilton to occupy the claim, and utilize 
him as a tool in the affair. 

H. S. Hamilton and Charlie were then living in their shanty on 
the public levee. By " request of the company," he was induced to 
move into and occupy the Nash shanty until the necessary papers 
were made out and the company were ready for business. He ac- 
cordingly took possession, sent for his family and made it his home. 
He thus became an actual settler on the claim, and its sole possessor 
in full conformity with the laws governing claims. 

The "joint stock company" lost all right, title and interest in 
the claim they had induced Nash to transfer to them. Neither the 
company nor individuals of the company were ever able to dispossess 
Mr. Hamilton, or obtain remuneration for the losses resulting from 
this failure of their scheme, although several suits at law were 
brought to recover damages. Some effort was made to arouse sym- 
pathy for Nash, whose claim, it was reported, had been jumped by 
Elder Hamilton, but without avail. The settlers generally under- 
stood the matter and took sides with the elder. 

H. S. Hamilton' afterward obtained a quit-claim deed direct 
from Caleb Nash, giving him a reasonable compensation for it, 
although he had previously relinquished his rights to it to Johnson 
and Co. It is said of Nash, by those who knew him, that he was an 
industrious and well-disposed young man, of very moderate acquire- 
ments. He had unlimited confidence in Johnson, who really held 
the claim through him and actually controlled it. Caleb Nash left 



RESPECTABILITY. 



281 



Wabasha prairie and went down the river in tlie spring of 1853. 
It is not known that he ever returned to the territory. 

Rev. H. S. Hamilton held quiet possession of claim No. 2, now 
known as ''Hamilton's addition," until about the time of the public 
land sale, when he became involved in another "difference" rela- 
tive to it, which eventually resulted in bringing about a division of 
the Congregational church, by the withdrawal of a part of its mem- 
bers and an organization of another society, the Presbyterian 

church . 

When Henry C. Gere brought his family to Wabasha prairie he 
attempted to take possession of the Stevens claim, but was prevented 
by the decisive opposition of Mr. Stevens and his friends. Profess- 
ing to have a just right to the claim, he was not satisfied to let the 
matter rest. Not daring to attempt a forcible entry on the land, and 
as there was no legal authority to appeal to, Mr. Gere made applica- 
tion to the Wabasha Protection Club for aid to secure possession. 

A majority of the members of the claim club were non-residents, 
living in La Crosse. The constitution and by-laws of the club, to 
which every member was required to affix his signature, provided 
that all questions of difference relative to claims should be examined 
by a committee of three appointed by the club for that purpose, 
who were required to make a report of their action to that body for 
its final decision. Each party was entitled to counsel and allowed 
to present witnesses. 

Mr. Gere's appeal was duly referred to a special committee for 
investigation. After numerous adjourned meetings, at which the 
parties appeared with their attorneys and witnesses, without arriving 
at a decision, it was agreed to submit the matter to arbitrators. 
The referees were Jacob S. Denman, of Wabasha prairie, and F. M. 
Rublee, of La Crosse. 

Attorneys and witnesses came up from La Crosse two or three 
times to attend this arbitration court before an agreement could 
be effected. The case was finally settled by the parties consenting 
to divide the claim between them,— Silas Stevens to retain the west 
eighty acres, and the east eighty was to be given up to Henry C. 

Gere. 

It was said that the sympathies of the members of the club and 
of the referees were on the side of Gere. Mr. Gere was a large, 
fine-looking man of social habits and pleasing manners, a smooth 
talker that could represent his own side of the question. He was a 



28'2 IIISTOHY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

poor man aiul liad a large fainily dei)endc'nt on his individual efforts 
for their support. 

Mr. Stevens was supposed to have considerable capital which he 
was using in speculations. He was not a popular man with settlers 
in a new country. He was a rigid church member, a strict and 
zealous temperance man, and in ])olitics an abolitionist from the old 
whig ])arty. He was a man firm in his own opinions and in liis own 
ideas of right, and was self-reliant in all of his business affairs. 
He discouraged familiarity and but few comprehended him as a man. 

Silas Stevens was a native of the State of New York, born in 
1799 ; in 1829 removed to Pennsylvania ; in 1840 moved to Illinois, 
driving through with his own teams ; in 1841 settled on a farm in Lake 
county, Illinois. In the spring of 1851, leaving the management 
of his farm to his son Wm. II. Stevens, then a young man living 
with his mother and sister on the homestead, he visited the upper* 
Mississippi for the purpose of making investments. He stopped at 
La Crosse, where he o])ened a lumber yard and speculated in real 
estate, claims, etc. — moderately and carefully, never indulging in 
wild schemes. 

It was through Mr. Stevens that Gere came to La Crosse, where 
he placed him with his fkmily on a claim to hold until a sale could 
be effected. Mr, Stevens furnished the supplies, and, with the men 
employed in his lumber yard, boarded with the family. He also 
employed Gere in his lumber yard as salesman, where Gere's pre- 
tentious style led many to suppose that he was the responsible head 
in the business. 

In Illinois both Stevens and Gere were zealous members of the 
same church. In La Crosse Mr. Gere found different society. The 
free and easy sociability and western style of speculation to which 
he was introduced, suited his active temperament and visionary style 
of business. 

Early in the winter Gere attempted to secure the claim he was 
holding for Mr. Stevens, but was prevented by Mr. Stevens entering 
it at the land office before Gere could file his pre-emption papers. 
From this transaction Mr. Stevens lost confidence in Gere, and all 
friendshij) ceased. He dissolved all association, .for Gere had 
represented that they were partners in their business transactions. 

Mr. George W. Clark, who was in Mr. Stevens' employ at that 
time, says he never heard of a partnership between the two men. 
Gere took charge of business when Mr. Stevens was temporarily 



KESPECTABILITY. 283 

absent. Mr. Stevens once bought a rait of lumber on wliicli he was 
given thirty days' time. Being asked for an indorser, he, for form's 
sake, asked Gere to sign the note with him. The security was 
satisfactory and the note was paid by Mr. Stevens when due. 

Mr. Stevens retained tlie half of the claim which he had made 
in good faith for himself, in the fall previous. The other half as 
justly belonged to him. Pie submitted to this division as a final 
settlement of all difficulties with Gere. The west eighty of the 
original Stevens claim is now known as Stevens' addition. 

Leaving his affairs in Minnesota in the hands of his son, W. H. 
Stevens, Silas Stevens continued his speculations elsewhere for a 
year or two longer, when he made arrangements to locate perma- 
nently in Winona, but never accomplished this design. While on 
his way here from Galena with horses, traveling by land, he was 
taken with cliolera and died after a few hours' sickness. His death 
occurred at Fayette, La Fayette county, Wisconsin, on July 20, 1854. 

His wife and daughter had already moved to Winona, where 
they made it their home while living. His daughter was the wife of 
H. C. Bolcom, a well known citizen, who came here in 1854. 

Wm. H. Stevens is the oldest settler now living on Wabasha 
prairie, the oldest inhabitant of the city of Winona. Norman B. 
Stevens, an older brother, came here in 1856, and is now living in 
the city of Winona. 

After the death of Silas Stevens the Stevens claim passed into 
the possession of W. H. Stevens. He sold an undivided interest in 
it to Wm. Ashley Jones and E. S. Smith. It was surveyed into lots 
and streets on the same scale as the original town site of Smith and 
Johnson, and designated as Stevens' addition. 

AVm. H. Stevens has been interested in many of the enterprises 
by which the city of Winona has been developed. He has held 
several official positions. In the fall of 1853 he was elected justice 
of the peace. He has served as deputy sheriff. In later years he 
was a member of the board of education. In 1872 and in 1873 he 
was a member of the state legislature as senator from the eighth 
district in Winona county. 

Mrs. Stevens, the wife of Wm. H. Stevens, was an early settler 
in this county. She came here in 1852 and lived in tlie colony at 
Eolling Stone with her relatives. She is a sister of Mrs. S. D. 
Putman and of S. A. and O. H. Houk, who were members of the 
association. In the fall and winter of that year Mrs. Stevens (then 



284 HISTORY OF WINONA COTNTY. 

Miss " Hetty " Ilouk) taught the first district school at Minnesota city 
that was ever held in southern Minnesota ; she also taught the lirst 
district school ever opened in the city of "Winona, in the fall of 1854. 

About July 1, 1852, Byron A. Viets came up from La Crosse 
with a small drove of cattle, principally cows and young stock. He 
landed them on Wabasha prairie, where he was successful in 
disposing of his entire herd to the settlers on the prairie and at 
Rolling Stone. 

In a trade with Johnson he purchased two or three lots in the 
town plot. This was the first sale of lots after the claim was 
surveyed and plotted ; the first sale of real estate in the new town 
or village of Montezuma,, now city of Winona. 

One of these lots, purchased by Mr. Viets, was lot 2, block 10, 
on Front street ; another was lot 4, block 14. The quit-claim deeds 
by which the title to these lots was transferred from Smith and 
Johnson to Byron A. Yiets, were placed on record in the oflSce of 
the register of deeds of "Washington county at Stillwater, the county 
seat. 

Mr. Yiets also bought a claim of eighty acres lying between the 
claim held by Wm. B. Gere and the one held by Elijah Silsbee. It 
was early discovered that the Beecher-Cxere claim was an expansive 
one, covering more territory than allowed by law, 'and S. K. 
Thompson gave notice that he had selected a claim in that locality, 
but he failed to protect it by improvements. 

It was in nominal possession of several difJerent persons who 
jumped it one from another, while each failed to occupy it. Early 
in the summer Isaac W. Simonds came up from La Orosse and took 
possession of it. It was said that he was in the employ of Peter 
Burns. To show that it was a claim held by a bona fide settler, he 
planted a few potatoes and cultivated a small patch of ground. 
This garden spot was in the vicinity of where the State Normal 
School now stands. 

It was generally understood among the settlers that this was 
Thompson's claim, although he had not occupied it, — he was living 
with John Evans at the time. In the absence of Simonds at La 
Crosse, where he made his home, Thompson took possession by 
building the customary log pen, and with the aid of John Evans 
held it for a short time. To settle this claim dispute, it was agreed 
that Thompson and Simonds should hold the land jointly or divide 
it between them. 



RESPECTABILITY. 287 

Without the knowledge of Tliompson, Mr. Simonds traded off the 
claim to Mr. Viets, and gave him possession. Thompson lost his 
interest without realizing anything from the sale. Mr. Yiets built 
a shanty on it, and on the 20th of July brought his family from La 
Crosse, and became an actual resident on the prairie. 

Having some surplus funds, Mr. Yiets at once made arrange- 
ments to improve his town lots. He decided to build a house for 
the accommodation of the traveling public on lot 2, block 10, front- 
ing on the levee. He brought up material and carpenters from La 
Crosse, and put up a building about 24 X 28, a story and a half 
high — a low porch extended across the front. It was afterward, in 
1853, improved by the addition of a long one-story attachment in 
the rear for dining-room, kitchen, etc. This was at first known as 
"Yiets Tavern,'' then as the "Yiets House," but was better 
known to the early settlers as the " Winona Hotel," and later as the 
old " Winona House." 

This house was built in August. The roof was* the second on 
the prairie covered with shingles. The first was on the house of 
John Evans, on the Evans claim, the third was on the shanty built 
by Dr. Balcombe, and the fourth on the house built by Elder Ely, 
on the corner of Center and Second streets. In October the rooms 
in the lower part of the house were plastered. The first plastered 
rooms on the prairie were in the house of Elder Ely. Mr. Yiets 
occupied this tavern for about two months, when he leased it to 
David Olmsted for a private residence, and moved his family down 
to La Crosse to spend the winter. 

Late in this season Hon. David Olmsted, accompanied by a 
brother, arrived at Winona from Fort Atkinson, Iowa. They came 
through the country on the same trail Mr. Olmsted had traveled 
before when he accompanied the Winnebagoes on their removal from 
Iowa to Long Prairie, Minnesota. The trail was up through Money 
Creek valley, and along the divide between the Burns and Gilmore 
valley, on the old government trail leading down the ravine back 
of George W. Clark's residence. They traveled on foot frqm Fort 
Atkinson to Wabasha prairie, packing their camp supplies on a pony 
which they brought along. 

Mr. Olmsted then proposed to locate himself on Wabasha prairie 
and make it his home. He leased the Yiets House for a residence, 
and had some furniture sent on and stored there, but his wife re- 
mained east on a visit, and did not return until the following spring. 



/ 

2S8 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

In the meantime Mr. Olmsted changed his pUins and located in St. 
Paul. This part of the territory was always a favorite locality with 
Mr. Olmsted. He came to Winona in 1855, and made it his home 
while he remained in Minnesota. On occount of poor health he 
removed to Vermont, where he died of consumption in 1861. The 
memory of David Olmsted deserves more than this brief notice of 
one of the early settlers of this county, and if space permits farther 
reference will be made of his residence in this locality. 

In 1852, when David Olmsted leased the house of Mr. Viets, he 
placed it and the furniture stored there in the care of Edwin Hamil- 
ton, who lived alone in it during the winter. 

About the last of January, 1853, Mr. Yiets learned that a stranger 
was occupying his claim on Wabasha prairie that he bought of 
Simonds. He came up with liis wife to look after it. On arriving 
here, he found that a man by the name of Benjamin had jumped his 
claim, and was then in possession of it, professing to hold it as an 
abandoned claim. 

Mr. Viets, accompanied by Wm. B. Gere, went immediately to his 
shanty with their revolvers in their hands and requested the claim 
jumper to vacate the locality as soon as possible. Not being able to 
resist so urgent a request presented for his consideration, he hur- 
riedly left the claim and went back to La Crosse, where he had been 
living. It was said this man was in the employ of a Mr. Healy, 
for whom he had jumped the claim. 

In the spring Mr. Viets sold out all of his interest on Wabasha 
prairie and moved back to La Crosse, where he settled in La Crosse 
county. 

About the first of July, 1852, George M. Gere came up from La 
Crosse and settled on Wabasha prairie. He brought with him his 
wife and a very large family of children. He also brought up, with 
his household furniture, tools and material for a boot and shoe shop. 
He was the father of Wni. B. Gere, and brother of H. C. Gere. 

For temporary accommodation they went to the shant}' of H. C. 
Gere, where the two families lived together for a month or two. It 
was said that there were eighteen regular occupants of that little 
shanty, 12x16. The summer was dry and warm, and they found 
plenty of room outside without inconvenience. 

In September, when Mr. Den man closed out his mercantile 
business and moved out on his claim, Mr. Gere leased his house on 
La Fayette street and occupied it with his family during the winter. 



RESPECTABILITY. 289 

He was a boot and shoe maker by trade, and occupied the front 
room of his residence as a shop. He here started the first shop in 
the county for the manufacture and repairs of boots and shoes of the 
settlers. 

The following spring he built a shanty on his son's claim. It 
stood on the south side of Wabasha street, back of where the high 
school building now stands. It was 16x32, one story with a shin- 
gled roof. He occupied this locality until he left Winona. 

Not long after Mr. Gere came into the territory he was appointed 
a justice of the jjeace for the county of Wabasha, by Gov, Ramsey. 
After Fillmore county was created he was continued in the same 
official position. He was also elected justice of the peace at the first 
election, in the fall of 1853. 

His shoe shop was his oflice and where he held his court. When 
he moved from the house belonging to Mr. Denman he built a small 
shop on the alley near the west side of La Fayette street, between 
Front and Second streets. His shop was a favorite lounging place 
for the settlers to while away an idle hour. His house was often 
used on Sundays for preaching and other religious exercises. 

Mr. Gere was a large, dignified appearing man, about fifty years 
of age. His intimate friends speak of him with respect, as being 
an intelligent, consistent and exemplary christian gentleman ; 
usually cheerful ; a good-humored, companionable man, who enjoyed 
a harmless joke and innocent sport, — one who did not consider it a 
sin to smile when pleased. 

Soon after Winona county was created Mr. Gere moved to Chat- 
field, then the county seat of Fillmore county. He left Winona 
about the first of July, 1854. 

During the spring and summer of 1852 Andrew Cole, a lawyer, 
living in La Crosse, made frequent visits to Wabasha prairie. 
These visits were to acquire a knowledge of the country, to form 
the acquaintance of the settlers, speculate in claims, and also to 
attend to pi-ofessional business. 

Although there were no courts of justice, nor even a county or- 
ganization, there was business for the lawyers in contesting the 
claim difficulties, which became frequent as soon as the settlers 
began to wrangle for what they considered to be the best claims or 
choicest locations. These claim disputes were sometimes brought 
before the claim clubs for settlement. It was important to have 
counsel who had some knowledge of claim laws. When justices 



290 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

were appointed these claim disputes were for awhile tried before 
tliem, until it was discovered that, as matters relating to title in real 
estate, they were not under the jurisdiction of that court. 

In tlie fall Mr. Cole brought liis wife up from La Crosse and be- 
came a resident of Minnesota. He was the first lawyer to settle on 
Wabasha prairie — the first to settle in southern Minnesota for the 
practice of his profession. Being the only lawyer on the west side 
of the river, it was said that for the accommodation of his clients, he 
sometimes acted as counsel on both sides in the same suit, and at 
the same time acting as confidential adviser to the claim committee, 
or of the court, if matters of law were not clear to the inexperienced 
justices. 

The house he occupied was one built by E. H. Johnson, which 
stood on lot 4, block 10, fronting on the levee. It was a small 
one-story building about 16x24, with a lean-to on the back part of 
the east side about 10 X 12. This was the third house with plastered 
rooms. The roof was shingled. There were seven buildings with 
shingled roofs at the close of this year. 

Mr. Cole had his office in his residence. He occupied this place 
for three or four years, when he built a house on the corner of Fifth 
and Harriet streets, opposite the First Ward Park, where he lived 
during the remaining time of his residence in Winona. In about 
1858 he went east and located himself in Poughkeepsie, New York, 
where he yet resides. 

When Fillmore county was created Mr. Cole was appointed 
judge of probate by Gov. Kamsey. He was the first official in that 
position in this part of the territory along the Mississippi. 

During the first three or four months after the settlement at 
Minnesota City was commenced, commendable zeal was exhibited by 
the members of the association at their meetings in providing for 
the general interest and future development of the colony. Matters 
of town organization, providing for public improvements — })ublic 
buildings, roads, bridges, etc., — were earnestly discussed and under- 
taken with a spirit of enterprise that was worthy of success. 

They were ambitious and desirous of having a newspaper pub- 
lished in the colony. A subscription was circulated, and quite a 
sum promised as a bonus and for its support, provided a paper was 
started and a printing-office established at Minnesota City. Mr. 
Haddock was a practical printer, and from the encouragement offered 
decided to make the attempt and bring on material for starting a 



LOOKING AROUND. 291 

small weekly newspaper, to be called the "Minnesota City Standard." 
While east after his family, then living in the city of New York, he 
procured a press and material for a printing:office, which he brought 
along as far as Dubuque, where he was compelled to leave it in store 
for want of funds to pay freight. He never brought his press up the 
river. 

They decided to build a town hall : the lumber and material was 
purchased and brought on the grounds, but owing to sickness and 
its attendant misfortunes the project was abandoned and the mate- 
rial used for other purposes. The public spirit of the settlers of this 
colony would have made the association a success if the location 
had been a proper one. 



GHAPTEK XXIX. 



LOOKING AROUND. 



Eaely in the season prominent individuals from St. Paul visited 
the colony and made considerable effort to induce the members of 
the association to abandon Rolling Stone and locate themselves on 
the Minnesota river above St. Paul. It was said that Gov. Ramsey 
himself visited the colony for that purpose. Mr. Haddock was 
opposed to any movement of this kind, and his influence was such 
that no propositions for a change of locality were for a moment 
entertained. 

Mr. Haddock and the members of the association were under the 
impression that Minnesota City jvas on a navigable portion of the 
Mississippi, although the ofiicers of the steamboats refused to go up 
through Straight slough and establish a landing place for the colony. 
They early took into consideration the advantages that would arise 
from making Minnesota City the terminus of a wagon-road into 
the interior, between the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. 

A committee was appointed to explore the interior of the territory 
and "find the most feasible route for a wagon-road from Minnesota 
City to the Great Bend of the St. Peters river at the mouth of the 
Blue Earth," with instructions to note the quality of the land, water 
and timber observed on the route over which they might pass. The 
committee were each allowed a dollar a day to defray their expenses 
while on the survey. 



292 JIISTOUY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

Tlie committee consisted of Robert Pike, jr., Isaac M. Noracong 
and William Stevens. Tliej left the colony on the 26tli of June 
and reached Traverse des Sioux on the 3d of July, where Mr. Pike 
was compelled to lay up from disability to travel. Mr. Noracong 
and Mr. Stevens completed the survey to the mouth of the Blue 
Earth river. Mr. Noracong stopped for a few days at Mankato to 
consult with the proprietors of the new town then but just starting 
at that place, and returned by another route across the country, 
accompanied by D. A. Robertson, one of the proprietors of Mankato. 
Mr. Pike and Mr. Stevens took passage on the Black Hawk down 
the Minnesota river to St. Paul, and from there to Wabasha prairie, 
and thence by land to Minnesota City. 

Mr. Pike drew up a report of the expedition, which was indorsed 
by Mr. Stevens, and presented it to the association as the report of 
the committee. It was formally accepted. Neither this report made 
b}^ Mr. Pike nor a copy of it can now be found. It is said to hilve 
been a fair description of the country over which they passed, and 
recommended the route by way of Faribault to Traverse des Sioux 
as practicable for either a wagon-road or for a railroad at a com- 
paratively moderate expense. 

On his return, Mr, Noracong ])resented his report recommending 
a more southern route to Mankato. He found that the report made 
by Mr. Pike had been adopted, the matter disposed of and the 
committee discharged. The report of Mr. Noracong was listened to, 
but no action was taken by the association. 

The report, in the handwriting of Mr. Noracong, has been 
preserved by the Hon. O. M. Lord. The following was copied 
from it : 

Started June 26, 1852, and went to Mr. Sweet's claim on Rolling Stone 
prairie, a distance of about twelve miles; course south of west. 

June 27, 7 a.m. From Sweet's took a south course one and a-half miles, and 
then a west course across a fine prairie to a grove of burr-oak timber, where we 
found a fine spring of water discharging itself in a sink ; this place was claimed 
by Mr. Hollyer. From thence took a west course and at noon came to a spring 
brook, and thence, after going a short distance came to a branch of the White 
Water running to the north. Continued traveling over burr-oak openings until 
3 P.M., when we came to the head branch of the White Water, a fine brook 
sixteen feet in width and an average depth of two inches, rock bottom, good 
cool water to drink ; saw some trout. Went on three miles and crossed a 
tributary of the same. Here is a prairie eight miles wide east and west, and 
extending north and south as far as the eye can see. This prairie is in the 
valley of the White Water ; the rise of land on either side is about thirty feet- 



LOOKING ABOUND. 293 

We rose on the upland and continued west on burr-oak openings. The upland 
here is not as good as that back of the valley we crossed, being more gravelly. 
Traveled on through openings sometimes thickly set with hazel and tall grass. 
At sundown came to a small ravine, where we found good running water, 
bearing to the northeast, and well timbered with maple, ironwood, basswood* 
white and burr oak, and some willows. 

Monday 28, 6:15 a.m. Started, and at 7:20 a.m., after about three miles' travel, 
came to a small stream of pure water running to the north through a splendid 
burr-oak opening, good timber and land of good soil. To the view north, this 
brook seems to run through a splendid prairie valley of great extent. We here 
saw a wolf catching mice or frogs. At 8:10 a.m. the openings run as far north 
as the eye can see. At 8:40 a.m. we came on an elevated prairie of first-rate 
quality; cannot see the extent to the southeast; six miles to the south there is 
timber ; north the openings continue about ten miles. Soon after, we came to an 
elevated prairie where we could see a large valley to the south of us. This 
valley lies east and west. We continued west along the high lands of this 
valley, supposing it to be the head source of Root river; traveling bad; the 
face of the country being much broken and thickly set with oak underbrush 
and hazel. The most of the ravines we crossed were dry, and we became very 
thirsty for water ; after some trouble we found a spring. There are several 
high mounds or bluffs standing in the midst of the valleys that we crossed, 
surrounded by good grass lands ; they make a very imposing appearance and 
look beautiful in the distance. We have crossed some red-top meadow lands 
that would cut from three to four tons of hay to the acre. At 4 p.m. came to a 
stream of water bearing northward, which I called at the first glance the 
\yassioshie ; overhead, where I am writing, is floodwood and grass in a tree 
eighteen feet above the water in the river. The bed of this stream is about 
sixty feet wide, and an average depth of water of about five inches. The 
majority of the company being in favor of following the stream down (not 
being satisfied that it is the Wassioshie), we went down on the east side some 
three or four miles, forded the river and pitched our tent, while Stevens and 
Pike went north to an elevated bluff to reconnoiter ; from their observations 
they were willing to proceed west and leave the river. 

Tuesday, June 29. A very foggy morning. Through the heavy mist we 
could hear the distant roar of a cataract, to the northward. We went over the 
bluffs to the northwest, through the dew and hazel-brush, until we mounted an 
elevated place where we could see some distance. On the south there was a 
heavy and extensive grove of timber ; also on the west — the greatest quantity 
we have yet seen. We here saw two deer feeding at a distance. From this 
point we diverged from our course to the north and east, in search of the cata- 
ract. We descended about two miles to the river, and found a heavy tributary 
coming in from the west, and at the immediate junction was the fall of water 
we had heard. The water here falls about eight or ten feet in thirty or forty. 
Here is quite a curiosity. The water at its highest pitch rises some sixteen feet 
above where it now is. Altogether, the scenery is romantic. 

This stream proved to be the Wassioshie river. In these waters I saw the 
largest brook-trout that I have ever seen in the Western waters, and also some 
fine black bass. The bluffs are about two-thirds as high as they are in the 
rear of Wabasha prairie. We here saw the tepees of the redmen for the first 



294 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

time, but they wore of ancient date. Returned to where we left our baggage, 
two miles to the southwest ; then took a west course, and traveled, over some 
rolling prairie and broken woodland, about six miles, when we came to a tribu- 
tary of the north branch of the Wassioshie running north. This is also a fine 
stream of water — su'tficient to do a large business. Forded the stream and 
l)itched teut. We left this place on our regular west course ; traveling bad, the 
lands being thickly set with different kinds of brush and tall grass found on 
prairies. Came into what we called second-growth timber, very thickly set with 
underbrush of the yellow oak, hazel, plum, crab-apple, whitethotn, blackberry, 
briers, etc. Not being of a disposition to bolt the course, we penetrated into 
them, and continued on for some time; but, finding such bad traveling, we 
made a halt and mounted a tree to reconnoiter. Nothing was to be seen south 
and west but the same that we had been in for two or three hours. On the 
north of the west branch of the Wassioshie saw a large prairie about two miles 
distant. We struck north for the prairie. In this valley is a fine steam of 
water sixty feet wide, with four to six inches depth. Camped for the night. 
Saw some large suckers and black bass. 

AVednesday, June 30. Took our course northwest to a high mound and re- 
connoitered. Found that the stream we camped on came from the west of 
north, and that the south side was thickly set with second-growth timber. 
Having found, by experience the day before, that we had better keep clear of 
that kind of traveling, we continued on the north side. After following up this 
branch about ten miles we struck north about a mile and came on an elevated 
prairie, that we could not reach its eastern extent with the naked eye, and ap- 
peared to extend some distance north. On the west we could not see its limits ; 
it was dotted with groves of burr-oak and poplar. Starting west, we encoun- 
tered some large tracts of hazel-brush, but continued to travel on until 
sundown. We here found ourselves on a dividing ridge without water or 
wood, and could not pitch our tent. In the west we could see timber in the 
distan('e, about eight miles off; in the south the timber opened so that we 
could see through, and discovered that there was a large prairie in that direc- 
tion. We continued west through grass on the prairie often as high as the 
brim of my hat, and scarce any less than to my hips. The rain was falling and 
wind blowing strong from the northeast. Traveling on, by wind and compass, 
we came to a swamj), where we found some good swamp water. Taking a bucket- 
ful with us, we reached the timber, and penetrated an awful thicket, to get out 
of the wind. When we had pitched our tent and made a fire the watch said 
11 o'clock, in a rainy night. We then had our suppers to cook, for we had eaten 
nothing from the time we took our breakfast except dry bread and raw pork. 

Thursday, July 1. We made a start west. The water here evidently runs 
to the west and north. We found bad traveling through hazel-brush, swamps 
and wet meadows, with very high grass of bluejoint. 

At 11 o'clock A.M. we came to a small stream of water running to the north 
and west, that proved to be a branch of the Cannon river. Continuing west 
through thickets thickly set with underbrusli, consisting of prickly asli, black- 
berry-briers, grcenbriers, grapevines and nettles, we struck a small stream of 
water, the bottoms of which were covered with heavy timber. Following this 
down, we came to a large stream, which proved to be the eastern branch of the 
Cannon river. On the west side was a large prairie. A majority of the company 



LOOKING AROUND. 295 

being in favor of following down this stream, we at once forded it, and after going 
about two miles struck an Indian trail, which we traveled on down to the 
valleys, where we found a Frenchman who could talk good English. From him 
we learned that we were forty miles from Traverse des Sioux, and from thence 
eighteen miles to the Blue Earth. We then set out on the Indian trail for 
Traverse des Sioux, the trail leading through a fine valley of bottom prairie, in 
which flows the north branch of the Cannon river. On the north of this 
branch the whole country is heavy timbered to its source ; the east side of the 
south branch is also heavy timbered with elm, maple, black-walnut, butternut, 
ash, etc. Between these forks are extensive rolling prairies, frequently dotted 
with burr-oak groves. 

Traveling until nearly sunset, we pitched (nir tent on the bank of a beautiful 
lake. There are three beautiful small lakes on this branch, with pretty 
generally bold gravelly shores and clear water. There were numerous dead 
fish lying on the beach, — suckers, mullet, bass, pant and pickerel. On the north 
of the lakes is heavy timber ; some on the south. 

Friday July 2. Took an early start expecting to get through today. We 
traveled over a very broken country; not so bad, ho^wever, as to be unfit for 
cultivation. The country over which we passed in the forenoon is better 
adapted for stock, there being extensive meadow lands on the shores of the 
lakes. 

After dinner we came to the head of the lakes, wh(jre we were some 
troubled in finding the right trail ; the trail diverging ofi" in different direc- 
tions and very dim at this place. Soon after we succeeded in getting on the 
right trail we found ourselves in a diff'erent country altogether; it was up 
hill and down, through a swamp, over a knoll, through the brush, into a swamp, 
and so on until 3 p.m., when we came to a lake on our left, or south side ; 
following along this lake, winding our way through a swamp connected with 
it, then through an island of timber and another swamp, and so on until we 
camped for the night, on the bank of the lake, in an Indian tepee. The water 
of the lake was so full of particles of something, that we were obliged to strain 
it for drinking or cooking purposes. 

The lake was on the south and a large watery marsh on the north, the 
outlet of which we forded a short distance from our camp. All the dry land, 
from the place where we struck the lake, is heavy timbered and of good soil. 
I think three-fourths of the face of the country here is taken up with lakes and 
swamps. 

On the north side of this lake there were several swamps connecting with 
it, and there wfis a plain visible embankment of stone and earth thrown across 
them ; the stone were granite boulders or hard head, of which there were an 
abundance <>f this section of country. These embankments could not be easily 
mistaken, for some parts of them were four or five feet high, where the rocks 
could be seen on both sides ; they answered for a road to cross on. At one 
place, where it appeared the outlet of the lake was, there were two streams of 
water flowing out of the lake into the marsh ; here the boulders could be seen 
peering above the water in a direct line, from one point of high land to another, 
on the opposite side. 

These stone have evidently been placed there by artificial means — of this 
there is no doubt, but by whom is not known and probably never will be. 



296 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

This lake is very likely the head fountain of the Vermilion river, that empties 
into the Mississippi, some distance above the Cannon. On the shores of this 
lake there were dead fish of diflcrent kinds, showing that these waters were 
stocked with fish. 

Saturday, July 3. Traveled over islands of timber, and through brush and 
morasses — the timber was of good quality — saw several small lakes and some 
sugar-houses. It was a rainy morning, and although it continued raining we 
kept on traveling, and came out of the timber into brush from two to eight feet 
high, overhanging the trail ; the only way to follow a trail in such a case is to 
go where the feet go the easiest. We crossed several morasses and at last 
reached a bank, and down a hill we soon came out into the valley of the Min- 
nesota, opposite Traverse des Sioux. We followed the trail down a .short 
distance and then struck for the buildings on the other side of the river. We 
soon found ourselves in a morass, or quagmire, which had the appearance 
as if there was sulphur or salt water in it; did not admire the place and did 
not taste of the water. This continued from the bank nearly to the river. 

At the river an Indian boy came to us with a canoe, but no paddles ; we 
managed to cross safely by using small round sticks for j)addles. We proceeded 
direct to the house of the Rev. Mr. Huggins, at the Mission, and took dinner 
at a house for the first time in seven days. Mr. Huggins and lady appeared 
to be very accommodating and refined people ; they were good and kind to us, 
and will be^ remembered by me in time to come. This place has been long 
settled by civilized people. 

Our provisions having run out, we here got a new supply. Stevens and 
myself started for the Blue Earth (]Mr. Pike having a boil on his ankle, which 
affected the nerve to the knee and upward). We fell in with two young men 
that were going to where a Mr. Babcock was building a saw-mill, and reached 
the place about sundown. It was on the east side of the Minnesota, five miles 
above Traverse des Sioux. We were kindly received and put up for the night 
with them. Here fell in with a company of men that came the overland route 
from Jackson, Iowa, with two wagons and sixteen yoke of cattle, some cows, 
one horse, breaking plows, etc. They were twenty-one days coming through. 

Sunday, July 4. We shouldered our packs and wended our way for the 
Blue Earth. The trail led through a fine prairie descending toward the river ; 
the high lands to the east are heavy timbered. We diverged from the trail to 
get a drink, and in the bed of the stream we found stone coal. A specimen I 
brought home and tested by the fire, and found that it burned well. 

Arrived at the town of Mankato about noon. Finding that the boys of this 
place were dressing a large turtle, we held on and took dinner with them. 
After dinner, started for the Blue Earth, a distance of two miles above the 
town, and soon reached the long looked-for locality. Traveled up some dis- 
tance and then returned to the junction and down the INIinnescjta to Mankato, 
where we put up for the night. Having accomplished our purpose, we resolved 
to make a canoe on the following day, and return home by descending the 
Minnesota and INIississippi rivers. 

Monday, Jtily 5. Slept late ; soon after getting up, news came that a 
steamboat was within hearing; soon after, the Black Hawk made her appear- 
ance. We at once resolved to return on the steamer. The Mankato company 
came on this boat. Learning where I was from and the business I was on, 



LOOKESTG AROUND. 



29V 



they wished me to stop a few days with them. I accordingly did so. Stevens 
left with the boat for home. 

Mankato is pleasantly situated on the east side of the Minnesota, 
directly on the great bend of the river and two miles below the confluence of 
the Blue Earth, on an elevated rise of ground, sufficiently above high-water 
mark, but not so much so as to make it inconvenient of access at any place for 
some distance up and down the river. It is located on a prairie of good quality 
of soil, well watered and plenty of timber. It has been regularly laid out by a 
competent surveyor. This place, from the observations I could make, must 
eventually be the great western terminus of a railroad from Minnesota city on 
the Mississippi to the waters of the Minnesota river. Having traveled through 
the country on two difl"erent routes, mostly, I find no obstacles in the way of 
any kind of a road from the former to the latter place. My impression is, that 
Mankato is decidedly the place for the termination of roads of any kind. 
The face of the country farther north is so thickly set with lakes and swamps 
and marshes, that it will cost a vast amount of money to erect bridges and 
build roads. The route for a road from Mankato to the southeast waters of the 
Cannon river is mostly on a dividing ridge and principally on prairie of good 
soil, well adapted for farming purposes and the raising of stock. 

From Mankato to the La Seur river, which empties into the Blue Earth about 
two miles from its junction with Minnesota, is about six miles. The land 
is good for a road and is well timbered. After crossing the La Seur there is 
timber for about three-fourths of a mile, then it is prairie and opening to the 
southeast waters of the Cannon, where there is a prairie extending east out of 
reach of the naked eye. I- M. Noracong. 

The country over which we have traveled in the direction of Minnesota 
City is well adapted for roads, and I have no doubt, from what I have seen, 
that a good wagon-road may be made at a small expense from Mankato to 
Minnesota City. I also believe that the Mankato company would unite with 
the Minnesota City company in making the roads, and make, as their proposi- 
tion, the western fifty miles. I>- A. Robertson. 

Mr. Kobertson was one of the "Mankato Company"— one 
of the original town proprietors and first settlers in Mankato. It 
was through his influence that Mr. Noracong remained at that 
place to discuss the feasibility of opening a road. Mr. Kobertson 
accompanied Mr. Noracong on his return across the country, and 
appended the above proposition to the report of Mr. Noracong to 
the association. 

This committee was sent out by the association to explore the 
country and ascertain the feasibility of opening a wagon-road from 
. Minnesota Gty to the great bend of the Minnesota river, and not 
for the purpose of making a preliminary survey for a proposed rail- 
road route to St. Peters, as has been sometimes represented in 
newspaper articles. The real object was to establish a highway into 
the back country from the colony ; to secure the advantages of a 



298 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

main traveled route, when the country should be settled, and to 
make the terminus of the road at Minnesota City. The recom- 
mendation of the route for the pur])oses of a railroad was but an 
incidental part of the report. 

The first mail route ever established across the country in the 
southern part of the territory was between Minnesota City and 
Traverse des Sioux, over nearly the same route traveled by this com- 
mittee. The contractor was O. M. Lord, of Minnesota City. 



CHAPTEK XXX. 



REFLECTIONS. 



Thp:re is no doubt but what Haddock and Murphy were consci- 
entious in their acts when they located the colony at Rolling Stone. 
They reported to the association that their village site was on the 
Mississippi, and it was believed that such was the case. Mr. Had- 
dock was the leading spirit of the organization, and apparently 
controlled it by a sort of mesmeric influence. For the first three 
months the colonists had almost unbounded confidence in their 
leader. He made a mistake when he assumed it to be a fact that 
Straight slough was a navigable channel ; and, firm in his belief, he 
impressed the same idea on the settlers, and it was a year or two 
before they were fully convinced to the contrary. 

Mr. Haddock assumed that the reason why Minnesota City was 
not made a landing-place for the steamboats was because the man- 
agement of the boats was in the hands of men interested in rival 
town sites. This was believed by the settlers, because repeated ap- 
plications had been made to have the boats land passengers at the 
colony during the high water, but without success ; none would 
make the attempt. 

When the flood in the river had subsided and the water was con- 
fined to its ordinary channels, and about the time that the report of 
the committee which had been sent to explore the back country was 
received, it was considered imjiortant that a landing should be estab- 
lished on Straight slough. The matter was freely discussed in the 
meetings of the association, and referred to a committee for investi- 
gation. 



KEFLECTIONS. 



299 



This committee, with other members equally interested in estab- 
lishing the fact that navigation was practicable, made, as they sup- 
posed, a thorough survey of Straight slough, from its head, above 
Minnesota City, to its mouth, a short distance above Johnson's 
landing. A chart was drawn showing soundings, etc. The com- 
mittee reported that there were no serious obstacles in the way, and 
that the slough was navigable for the largest boats running on the 
upper Mississippi. 

At the time of this survey the slough next to the bluff, which 
empties into Straight slough nearly opposite Minnesota City, was 
given the name of Haddock slough, the name by which it is now 
known. Mr. Haddock had selected the shore next to the bluffs, 
above where Mr. Burley now lives, as a proper landing-place for 
immediate purposes. A landing-place on the slough below was 
selected for future improvement. 

The committee were instructed to present the matter before the 
proprietors of the steamboat lines at Galena, by whom it was re- 
ferred to Capt. Smith. Notwithstanding their chart demonstrated 
the feasibility of a free passage through Straight slough, Capt. 
Smith considered the route impracticable ; and, as it was charged 
against him that his opposition to it was because of his holding an 
interest on Wabasha prairie, he consented to allow his own boat, 
the Nominee, to make a trial trip under the pilotage of the com- 
mittee. 

The success of the committee thus far was duly reported to the 
to the Association. So confident were the colonists of the arrival 
of the steamboat that many of them went down to the landing at 
Wabasha prairie to meet the boat, while the whole settlement pre- 
pared to give it a joyful welcome. For this trip the Nominee was 
given in charge of the first clerk, with instructions to go through 
the slough, if possible, without delay. The boat, with Mr. Brook 
as captain, arrived at Johnson's about noon on Sunday. As the 
trip was a holiday excursion the settlers on the prairie were invited 
to make a social visit to the colony. 

The Nominee started up Straight slough under the guidance of 
the committee. After ascending for a mile or so the boat struck a bar 
and came to a sudden stop. By some oversight this obstruction had 
not been noted on the chart. After repeated attempts to pass this 
barrier without success, the officers of the boat decided that Straight 
slough was not navigable by the Nominee at that stage of water. 



300 HISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Tliis failure was a great disappointment to the settlers, both at 
Minnesota City and at A^abasha prairie. The boat swung around 
and steamed back to Wabasha prairie, and, after discharging the 
excursionists, started up the river under the guidance of her own 
pilot. 

The failure of the Nominee to go through Straight slough was 
a serious blow to the colony. The ideal maritime port of Mr. Had- 
dock was unfortunately at least six miles from any practicable 
steamboat landing. Still the colonists were not wholly disheart- 
ened. Many of them believed that the slough might be made 
practicably navigable by opening a passage over the bar, the only 
obstruction that was supposed to exist. During the following winter 
the colonists built a large log building on the bank of the slough 
opposite Minnesota City, which they designed for a warehouse 
and landing-i)lace. A road was surveyed across the bottom, but 
never improved. No passengers or freight were ever landed there. 
No attempt was ever made to improve the navigation of Straight 
slough. 

The extreme high water was followed by an extreme low stage 
of water in the river. The summer of 1852 was hot and dry, and the 
miasma eliminated from the sloughs and large marshes in the im- 
mediate vicinity of Minnesota City i-endered that locality particu- 
larly unhealthy. Serious bilious diseases afflicted the settlers in 
the colony. They were mostly from the Eastern States, unacclima- 
ted, unprotected by suitable dwellings, and a large majority of them 
incompetent and unsuited for pioneer life. A few deaths occurred 
early in the season, and exaggerated accounts of the sickness and 
mortality at Minnesota City were put in circulation and prevented 
many from locating there. The most common disease was inter- 
mittent and remittent fevers. 

There were no regular medical practitioners belonging to the 
association or living on the west side of the river ; domestic treat- 
ment and patent medicines were generally depended on. Quinine 
was quite extensively relied upon in these malarious diseases. One 
of the colonists was attacked with intermittent fever, for which a 
neighbor recjommended quinine. He sent for a pound or two of 
quinine by a friend who had business at St. Paul. From insuffi- 
cient funds only four ounces were procured. When the bill of $20 
was presented the exorbitant charges of the St. Paul druggist was 
strongly condemned. The neighbor who had prescribed the article 



REFLECTIONS. 301 

was called in to dose out the medicine, and he explained that it was 
a dram or two he had recommended him to send for instead of a 
pound or two. "The Squire"" said, in relating the incident, "I 
knew nothing about the stuff — any way , it was no serious mistake, 
because it was needed in the settlement, and the neighbors took it 
off my hands without any pecuniary loss." 

It was said that not a settler in the colony escaped an attack of 
fever and ague. Robert Pike, Jr., in a letter published in 1854, 
says, "Although most were prostrated by sickness, only fourteen 
deaths occurred {in 185'2) and a majority of these were young 
children. The wonder is that the mortality was not greater." 

Among the deaths which occurred was that of Mrs. Haddock, 
the wife of the president of the association. Mr. Haddock went 
down to New York city and brought her here to make her a home 
in the colony he had labored so hard to build up. She arrived on 
the 13th of July and died on the 24th of August. 

After the death of his wife Mr. Haddock became disheartened 
and completely discouraged. Many of the settlers were compelled 
to leave because they could find nothing to do by which to earn a 
living. The most of them were mechanics from the city of New 
York, and they went down the river to find employment. Although 
the association maintained its organization, it was no longer attract- 
ive to Mr. Haddock. It had apparently accomplished all that could 
be expected from it. With a large party of his friends Mr. Haddock, 
left the colony on the 11th of September and went down the river. 
He stopped for awhile at Dubuque, and moved from there to Ana- 
mosa, Jones county, Iowa, where he engaged in publishing a news- 
paper, using the press and material designed for a printing-office in 
Minnesota City. 

Although the organization was kept up in the colony during the 
next year, but comparatively few members of the association re- 
mained to become citizens of this county. 

Quite a number of the members of the association lived on their 
village lots in Minnesota City until after the survey of public lands 
in this part of the territory. Several of them then made claims of 
the locality they were occupying according to the divisions made by 
the government surveyors, without regard to the previous divisions 
made by Mr. Haddock. 

The tovrn site of the Western Farm and Tillage Association was 
never made a matter of record. The whole village plot was ab- 



302' HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

sorbed by claims whicli were pre-empted as homesteads by their 
resident chiimants. The ph)t of the origimil village of Minnesota 
City was thus wiped out — swe})t entirely away. The name has 
been preserved for the locality, and a more diminutive and modern 
village has grown up under it, on what was originally tlie claim of 
Israel M. Noracong. 

The original village plot was pre-empted by T. K. Allen, A. A. 
Gilbert, H. B. Waterman, Kobert Pike, Jr., James Wright, O. M. 
Lord, Hiram Campbell, S. E. Cotton and D. Q. Burley, all mem- 
bers of the association. Each of them had held claims in other 
localities, which were abandoned to enable them to share in the 
spoils of the dead metropolis of the colony. 

H. B. Waterman and family have continuously occupied the 
same locality he settled upon in 1852, when he first came into 
the colony. When Mr. Waterman came to Minnesota City he built 
a very comfortable house, a part of it of logs and a part of frame 
and boards. This he inhabited for several years. After the gov- 
ernment survey was made he selected this locality as a homestead, 
and claimed a quarter-section of land in the vicinity, which he pre- 
empted after the land-office was opened at Winona. 

With the exception of a large and comfortable dwelling-house 
and a good barn, which stand in a beautiful grove on a sightly eleva- 
tion, with a small field of cultivation, but little improvement was 
made on this claim until within a few years past. The table on 
which it lies was covered with groves of oak. As this timber is 
cut away and the clearing enlarged a fine farm is becoming 
developed. 

Mr. Waterman was a lawyer by profession when he joined the 
colony, but he never practiced his profession in Minnesota. He 
had but little taste for agricultural pursuits, and but little inclination 
to make it an occupation. He made the farm his home without 
making the cultivation of the soil his business. 

In November, 1852, Mr. Waterman was appointed by Gov. 
Ramsey one of the justices of the peace for Wabasha county. He 
was subsequently elected to the same office, and held the official 
position of justice of the peace over twenty years for Winona county, 
in the town of Rolling Stone, where he resided. He was also elected 
judge of probate at the election in the fall of 1853. 

Tire first case on his docket in 1852 was Jacob S. Denman vs. 
individual members of the association. This was a matter which 



REFLECTIONS. 305 

grew out of the claim difficulty already mentioned. These mem- 
bers of the association went on to Denman's claim, destroyed his 
fences and burned his rails, with the intent to drive him off the 
claim. Denman refused to leave, and sued them for damages to 
his property. The matter had been commenced before Squire 
Allen, but when Squire Waterman received his commission the case 
was discontinued and again brought on before the new justice of the 
peace, where it was settled by the members of the association paying 
the costs of prosecution and the damages assessed. 

Robert Pike, Jr., made a claim among the village lots of the 
colony on the same table on which the school-building now stands. 
He here used his pre-emption right and made a farm of part of the 
original village. A part of this claim is still in possession of Mrs. 
Pike, his widow. 

Mr. Pike came to Rolling Stone early in May, 1852, and at once 
became prominently active in the enterprises of the association to 
develop the resources of the country and build up the colony. His 
eccentric genius and zealous efforts made him popular in the settle- 
ment. Soon after his ai-rival he was appointed surveyor for the 
colony, explored a road to the Minnesota river. He was chosen as 
a proper person to be appointed postmaster. He was elected jus- 
tice of the peace, served as county commissioner and as county 
surveyor. During his whole life he was active in all of his public 
duties. 

Robert Pike, Jr., died about the middle of April, 1874. At the 
time of his death he was interested in an effort to start a colony in 
the vicinity of Lake Kampeska, Dakota Territory. His widow is 
yet a resident of Minnesota City. One of the two children who 
came here with her in 1852 died many years ago. The other is the 
wife of Frank D. Stewart, living in the town of Rolling Stone. 

Mr. Pike was in many respects a very remarkable man. Natu- 
rally ingenious, he made mechanical improvements a study. On 
most of the questions of the day, religious and political, he es- 
poused the radical side. Among his many friends, his special peculi- 
arities were overshadowed by the open-handed generosity of the 
man toward his fellow-man. 

As a specimen of his eccentricity, his business card has been 
copied from the "Winona Republican," as regularly advertised in 
1856, as follows : 

18 



306 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

" Robert Pike, who writes this ditty, 
Lives at Minnesota City ; 
Is Postmaster, Magistrate, 
Buys and sells Keal Estate, 
Conveyancer and County Surveyor, 
(The City's small and needs no Mayor). 
Sectarian rult*s he dares resist, 
And thinks Christ was a Socialist. 
Loving mankind and needing dimes. 
He waits to serve them at all times." 

When disaffected members of tlie association decided to aban- 
don the colony, O. M. Lord purchased tlieir interest in such of the 
village lots as were in the vicinity of where he resided ; and after 
the government survey, when the village plot was comparatively 
abandoned, he made a claim of the quarter-section on which he was 
living and pre-empted it. The village lots surveyed by Mr. Had- 
dock for the association, that were included in this claim, are a part 
of the homestead on which the Hon. O. M. Lord now resides. 

The first claim selected by Mr. Lord was before he joined the 
association, while on the first exploration made into the country 
back from the Mississippi. This he abandoned for another about 
three miles above Minnesota City, in what is now known as Deer- 
ing's Valley, where he then proposed to establish a stock-farm. On 
account of its isolated situation he did not move his family there, 
but located them in the settlement or village. Like many others, he 
also made other selections of good claims which were marked with 
his name. 

From the time Mr. Lord came here in the spring of 1852 to the 
present time he has been prominently before the public, in very 
many instances intimately connected with events that make up the 
history of Winona county. Owing to his habitual modest reserve, 
no record of these instances has ever been compiled for reference. 
It is indeed questionable whether a connected biographical sketch of 
this pioneer settler has ever been given to the public. Advantage 
of a long-time acquaintance and personal friendship has been the • 
source of the following memoranda of events in history with which 
he has been connected. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS. 

Hon. O. M. Lord was a native of the State of New York • bom 
in Wyoming county in 1826. In 1837 he moved witli his father's 
family to Michigan. He attended school winters until he was about 
sixteen, after which he attended a select school for about three 
months. His education has since that been acquired by private 
study in active life. His younger days were spent on a farm and in 
sometimes assisting his father in his blacksmith shop. 

Mr. Lord was married in 1848, and settled on a farm. He was 
elected town clerk, and was ex-officio school inspector for two years 
In the spring of 1852 he sold his farm in Lapeer county, Michigan, 
and came to Minnesota, where he arrived May 2. He brought on 
his family, a wife and two children, on July 16. He brought with 
him all of his household goods, a span of horses and farming tools, 
intending to make farming his exclusive business. His horses were 
the first brought into the colony. 

Instead of settling on a claim, as he had at first designed, Mr 
Lord located himself in the village of the colony at Minnesota City 
He bought several village lots and built a house. Having acquired 
some knowledge of blacksmithing when young, he bought the tools 
of a blacksmith and carried on the business for a year or two, his 
shop being the only blacksmith shop in the county during that time. 
In 1852 he shod the first span of horses ever' brought into this 
county by a settler, and the first horses ever shod here. The shoes 
were brought from La Crosse. They belonged to Hon. William H 
Stevens. In the spring of 1853 he shod fourteen horses for Wm! 
Ashley Jones, government surveyor. 

July 2, 1853, Mr. Lord was appointed coroner for Fillmore 
county. This appointment, unsolicited, was conferred by Gov. 
Gorman, who had recently assumed his official position. 

At the election held in the fall of 1853 Mr. Lord was elected as 
representative to the territorial legislature from this district. The 
session was held from January 4 to March 4, 1854. 

Among the acts of which he secured the passage were the original 



308 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

charter for the Transit railroad, the division of Fillmore county 
and creating of Winona county, and the establishment of the county 
seat at what is now the city of Winona. The present boundaries of 
Winona couuty were defined by Mr. Lord, and submitted to Mr. 
Huff and other citizens of the village of Winona for their api)roval. 
He also secured the passage of a memorial for a post-route from 
Minnesota City to Traverse des Sioux, 

In 1854 Mr. Lord built the first saw-mill in the county at Minne- 
sota city. In 1855 he was awarded a contract for carrying the mail 
from Minnesota city to Traverse des Sioux, and carried the mails for 
about two years — a part of the time semimonthly. This was the 
first post-route across the country. 

In 1857 or 1858 Mr. Lord was appointed by Gov. Medavy com- 
missioner for selecting land for the Transit Eailroad Company. He 
was also appointed by Gov. Medavy, October 12, 1857, as a notary 
public. These a])pointments were unsolicited by Mr. Lord. In 1859 
he was a candidate for the legislature, but was defeated by Judge 
Orlando Stevens. 

When questioned as to his war record, he replied, '*I fought, 
bled and died for my country by able-bodied substitute during the 
war — price $600." 

Mr. Lord moved back to Michigan, and lived near Kalamazoo 
from 1861 to 1864, when he returned to Minnesota, and again took 
up his residence at Minnesota City. He was a candidate for the 
legislature in 1871, and was defeated by seven votes by H. A. 
Covey. In 1873 he was elected to the legislature, and served at the 
next session. 

On September 28, 1875, Mr. Lord was appointed county superin- 
tendent of schools, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation 
of Rev. David Burt, who had been appointed state superintendent 
of public instruction. He has been elected continuously to the 
position of county superintendent of schools since that time, and is 
yet serving the people in that capacity. He was president of the 
last annual meeting of county superintendents, held at St. Paul 
about January 1, 1883. 

Mr. Lord has always taken an active interest in popular educa- 
tion, and in addition to his other official positions has been almost 
continuously one of the school committee in Minnesota City since 
the first school was started there in 1852. He is at present director 
of the district. He has been a member of the town board of the 



PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS. 809 

town of RoIlin,£^ Stone for the" past twelve years, and is now chair- 
man of board of supervisors. Mr. Lord was made a Mason in 1862. 
He never united with any other organization. If circumstances per- 
mitted, he would take more pride and pleasure in stock-raising and 
cultivation of small fruit than in any other pursuit. 

Hiram Campbell settled'on his village lot and built a house, which 
he occupied with his family for several years. With this as his 
place of residence, he made a claim and pre-empted a homestead 
which included a portion of the village lots of the colony. This 
claim is now known as the "Campbell Farm." It joins the farms of 
O. M. Lord and James Kennedy. The present farm house is of brick. 

Hiram Campbell has been dead many years. His widow, with 
his family, owned and occupied the farm until about two years ago, 
when she sold out and moved west. Wiith other branches of 
farming Mr. and Mrs. Campbell took a great deal of interest in the 
cultivation of fruit, particularly of different varieties of apples, 
which they were very successful in growing. 

When David Densmore and John Shaw came to Rolling Stone 
they brought with them a large supply of apple-seeds which they 
procured from the State of Maine. These seeds were planted on 
their village lots. The lot of Mr. Densmore was on the land now 
owned by O. C. Tucker. The lot of Mr. Shaw was on the Campbell 
farm. Both Mr. Densmore and Mr. Shaw died early in the summer 
of 1852, and their lots passed into other hands. Mr. Densmore left 
his nursery for the general benefit of the colonists. 

Mr. Campbell assumed charge of the lot of Mr. Shaw and started 
a nursery of fruit-tr^es from the seed sown on it. From this little 
nursery, started by Mr. Campbell on his own claim, sprang some of 
the finest varieties of apples that have ever been known in Min- 
nesota. 

John Nicklin, with his family, settled on his lot selected by 
number in New York. His location was on the table above where 
Troust's mill recently stood. He built a log house, lived here two 
or three years and made a claim of forty acres among the village 
lots. He also had a farm claim in the valley about two miles above 
the village. To hold them both he pre-empted the farm claim, 
and his son pre-empted a part of the village property. He lived on 
his farm for a number of years, when he sold out and moved back to 
New York, where he died a few years ago. None of his family are 
now living in this county. A son resides in Dakota Territory. 



310 iriSTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

George Foster pre-empted a forty of village lots ; sold out and 
moved to Winona. He left there and moved south. None of his 
family are now livin'g in this county. 

Other members of the association besides Mr. Denman and 
W. H. Coryell made claims below Minnesota City. Nearly the 
whole upper })rairie was at one time claimed by the colonists, 
although unimproved. 

P. D. Follett made a claim adjoining the farm now occupied by 
Mr. Charles Vila. He built a log house and occupied it for two or 
three years, when he sold out and left the county. 

William T. Luark made a claim along the bluifs below Mr. 
Den man's, where Mr. Colman now lives. He improved this by 
building a log-house and making some cultivation, and held it for 
several years. He moved to Winona, where he opened the first 
wagon-shop started in the county. The first wagon was made by 
Mr.' Luark in the spring of 1855. About ten years ago he moved to 
Milwaukee, where he died after a residence there of a year or two. 

John lams also made a claim along the bluffs, the next below 
that made by Mr. Luark. He built a log-house and occupied this 
locality two or three years, and then moved to Winona, and after a 
few years' residence there left the county and went into the western 
part of the state to reside. Mr. lams was the first sheriff appointed 
or elected to serve in that oflBce in this part of the territory. He 
was the first sheriff' in Fillmore county in 1853. 

John C. Laird came to Wabasha prairie about the last of August, 
1852, to attend upon Abner S. Goddard during his last sickness. 
After the death of Mr. Goddard, which occurred on the lltli of Sep- 
tember, he decided to remain and make it his future home. 

Mr. Laird was a citizen of La Crosse at the time he came up to 
help his sister in the care of her sick husband. It was on her ac- 
count that he changed his place of residence and came to Minnesota, 
where he has ever since resided. ' He was deputy register of deeds 
for La Crosse county. The register elected was a resident of a dis- 
tant part of the county, and, not wishing to change his location, Mr. 
Laird was deputized to act for him and receive the emoluments of 
the position. 

In the winter and spring previous Mr. Laird had visited Waba- 
sha prairie, but never selected any special location as a claim. After 
he had decided to settle here he explored the country until in Octo- 
ber, when, observing that the east "eighty" of the original Stevens 



PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS. 311 

claim was unoccupied, and without improvements of anj kind, he 
was induced to take possession of it as an abandoned claim. Mr. 
Laird quietly procured the necessary material, and before the settlers 
were aware of his intention, they were surprised to see a snug and 
comfortable-looking shanty on "that lower eighty of Stevens's." 
This shanty stood about where Laird Norton & Go's stables now 
stand, — on the west side of Chestnut street, between Second and 
Third streets. 

As soon as the circumstance became known, H. C. Gere made 
application to the members of the claim club for aid to remove the 
trespasser on the land relinquished to him by Silas Stevens. Some 
of tlie meftibers of the club came together and called on Mr. Laird 
to learn why he had built the shanty and to ascertain if he really 
intended to jump Gere's claim. 

Mr. Laird informed them that he had taken possession of "that 
eighty " because there was no one occupying it — nothing to indicate 
that any one had possession of it, and informed them that his 
shanty was the only improvement on the claim. This self-consti- 
tuted claim committee decided to let Mr. Gere take care of his own 
affairs if he had got into trouble from his own mismanagement. 
He was then holding other claims. 

Mr. Laird completed his shanty on Saturday evening, and, sup- 
posing that he had possession safe enough, stayed contentedly at 
Mrs. Goddard's, because it was Sunday and a day of rest generally 
observed by the settlers. It clmnced to be the day on which Elder 
Hamilton had made an appointment to preach at Mrs. Goddard's 
shanty, and there the settlers assembled to listen to one of his best 
sermons. 

Taking a great interest in the subject of the discourse, Mr. 
Laird for the time forgot about his recently acquired earthly posses- 
sion, and gave his undivided attention to the sermon of the elder. 
After the service was over and the audience began to disperse, he 
cast his eyes toward his new shanty, not fifty rods away, and dis- 
covered Henry C. Gere on its roof. Accompanied by Wm. H. 
Stevens, and followed more deliberately by Elder Hamilton and his 
whole congregation, he rushed toward his unprotected claim im- 
provement and found that Gere had jumped the shanty, if not the 
claim. 

Taking advantage of the security from observation afforded 
while the attention of the settlers were engaged by Elder Hamilton, 



312 JIISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

Mr. Gere had taken a load of his household goods to the shanty 
and taken possession of it. 

On reaching the locality Mr. Laird found the shanty occupied ; 
a table with a few dishes and a chair or two were on one side of the 
room, and on the other a cook-stove, on which was a tea-kettle, a 
pot of potatoes, and a frying-pan with a slice of ham ready for cook- 
ing. Mrs. Gere was comfortably seated in a rocking-chair in front 
of the stove, waiting to touch a match to the kindling-wood as soon 
as the stove-pipe was put in place, and Mr. Gere was on the roof 
cutting a hole for it to pass through. 

Mr. Laird called to Gere to come down, but he refused, reply- 
ing, "You are too late, for I now hold possession." Xaird and 
Stevens then tore off the boards from the roof, and notwithstanding 
Gere's resistance, caught him by the legs and dragged him to the 
ground. They then proceeded to carry the stove and other furni- 
ture outside, except the rocking-chair, which Mrs. Gere occuj)ied, 
and very composedly maintained })Ossession of the roofless shanty. 

Elder Hamilton sedately seated himself on one of the chairs 
ejected from the cabin and calmly watched the proceedings. Occa- 
sionally a quiet smile would illumine his dignified expression as he 
observed the demonstrative movements of the noisy and excited 
settlers, who but a very few minutes before had been model repre- 
sentatives of a moral, intellectual and order-loving community. 
Feelings of partisanship were exhibited by loud expressions of opin- 
ion in emphatic language rather than by active participation. Men 
and women espoused the cause of one side or the other. Some 
threats were passed, but no serious collisions occurred. 

Mrs. Goddard took a firm and determined stand in support of the 
rights of her brother to the claim. While Laird and Stevens were 
tearing or knocking the boards from the roof on which Gere stood, 
she observed a second load of Gere's furniture approaching from the 
east; they had gone down the prairie and come up along the river. 
Kushing toward the team and brandishing a cudgel, which she 
caught up on the first alarm, Mrs. Goddard ordered the driver to 
stop, and, taking the horses by the bridles, led them back across the 
line of the claim and told the driver to leave as soon as possible. 
Without a show of resistance the teamster drove off. The team 
belonged to John Evans. In speaking of the occurrence afterward, 
Frank Curtiss, the driver, said it was not the first time he had been 



PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS. 313 

captured by a woman, and he did not propose to get into a quarrel 
with Mrs. Goddard. 

It was charged that Elder Hamilton had a foreknowledge of 
Gere's design, and had selected one of his most interesting and 
lengthy sermons to give him ample opportunity to accomplish his 
purpose unmolested. "Aunt Catharine" says "that was not so. 
Elder Hamilton and John C. were always warm friends, but Elder 
Ely knew all about it, for he kept going out every few minutes as if 
to see if a steamboat was coming. I know Elder Hamilton was on 
John's side that day, because he beckoned to me, and when I went 
over to where he was sitting on one of the chairs he said, 'The 
boys had better tear the shanty down now they are at it' I told the 
boys and they tore the whole thing down without disturbing Mrs. 
Gere, and left her sitting in her rocking-chair on the bare prairie." 
As soon as the shanty was demolished the excitement subsided 
and all started for their homes, leaving Laird and Gere to watch 
each other and hold the claim. Mrs. Gere went to her own shanty 
and sent her husband his supper, while Mrs. Goddard bountifully 
iurnished rations for JolmG, who stood guard over his promiscuous 
pile of lumber. 

The night was a cold, disagreeable one ; a chilly west wind swept 
over the bleak prairie and compelled the lonely, unsocial watchmen 
to keep in motion to preserve proper circulation. Although each 
had a blanket in which they wrapped themselves, Mr. Laird formed 
a windbreak of boards. Mr. Gere solicited the loan of a few 
boards for a like protection, but Laird objected to his lumber being 
used for such purposes. 

Finding it impossible to get any rest while so uncomfortable, 
Gere called to Laird about midnight and said — "I have a proposition 
to make to you which I think will be of advantage to both of us. I 
have no more confidence in your honesty than I have in men gen- 
erally, but I believe you will keep your word when you make a 
promise. Now, suppose we agree to let .this claim matter remain 
just where it is, without either of us doing anything until to- 
morrow ; we can then go home and get some sleep." Mr. Laird 
was amused at the proposition, but did not object to it. The two 
men solemnly pledged themselves to leave the claim undisturbed 
until the next morning, and bidding each other ' ' good night " in 
more social tones than they had previously observed, they left 
the locality. 



314 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Both parties made their appearance at sunrise, and hostilities 
were resumed. Mr. Laird rebuilt his shanty, but moved to another 
location nearer the river and a little below, on what is now block 5 
in Laird's addition. Gere tried for two or three months to obtain 
possession, but without effect, the cold weather interfering with any 
active measures. On the night of January 24, 1853, while Mr. 
Laird was tem[)orari]y absent from tlie prairie, his slianty was torn 
down and the lumber destroyed — chopped ih pieces, Mr, Laird 
built another cabin on the same ground. It is said that this destruc- 
tion of the claim-shanty was effected by a young man employed by 
Gere for that purpose, who received a hundred pounds of flour for 
his services. 

Satisfied that it would not be possible for him to get possession 
and hold it against the opposition he had to contend with, Mr, Gere 
appealed to Justice Burns for aid to remove the trespasser, feeling 
confident that a select jury would award him his rights. 

There were at this time two justices in this vicinit}^, George M, 
Gere, on Wabasha prairie, and John Burns, at the mouth of Burns 
valley, Jabez McDermott, of Wabasha prairie, was constable. In 
February, H, C. Gei-e sued John C. Laird before John Burns, Esq., 
for trespass, etc. , to get possession of the claim. The trial by jury 
came off in March, This was the first jury trial ever held in this 
part of the territory — the first jury ever called in what is now 
Winona county. The court was held in the upper part of the 
" Viets House'- (the old Winona House), which was then unfin- 
ished, Squire Burns having adjourned the court from his office at 
his house to this place to accommodate all parties interested. The 
trial was considered an important event by the settlers. 

Mr. Gere engaged the professional services of Mr. Flint, a law- 
yer living in La Crosse, and of Andrew Cole, of Wabasha prairie. 
Mr. Cole was then the only practicing attorney living on the west 
side of the river. Mr. Laird had for counsel and management of 
his defense, a lawyer from La Crosse by tlie name of French. The 
jury im])aneled to try the case was George W. Clark, Scott Clark, 
O. S. Holbrook, William Hewitt, W. H. Coryell and Hiram 
Campbell. 

This being the first important case brought before Squire Biirns, 
his inex])erience in his official position made it necessary for him to 
seek advice as to his own duties. He selected as his confidential 
adviser the ''home attorney." He was personally acquainted with 



persojs^al paragraphs. 315 

Mr. Cole, and had great confidence in his opinions of law. This 
peculiarity in the case excited some comment from outsiders, — Mr. 
Cole being attorney for the plaintiff, but no charges were ever made 
that any improper or unjust proceedings were entertained by the 
court. Notwithstanding the very marked eccentricities exhibited by 
the squire, his court and official position was duly respected. His 
comical expressions and blundering style of doing business afforded 
considerable amusement during the trial, and were subjects for many 
a hearty laugh for a long time afterward. 

About two dq,ys were spent in the examinations of witnesses and 
speech-making by the attorneys before the case was submitted to the 
jury. After due deliberation it was ascertained that there was no 
probability of the jury agreeing, and they were discharged. The 
court adjourned until the next Monday, March 14, at which time 
another jury was impaneled and the trial of the case again re- 
peated. 

In the first trial the jury stood five for the defendant and one 
for the plaintiff. The one who stood out against his fellow jurors 
was Hiram Campbell. The jury on the second trial was John 
lams, S. A. Houck, H. B. Waterman, Wm. L. Luark, S. D. Putnam, 
and Elijah Silsbee, all residents of Minnesota City except the last. 
After about the same amount of time consumed as with the first 
trial the case was given to the jury, and at about 11 o'clock at 
night, March 16, the jury decided unanimously in favor of the 
plaintiff, Henry C. Gere. 

The next morning Mr. Laird and Wm. H. Stevens started for 
La Crosse, and took the lawyers home. The condition of the ice 
in the river would not permit of delay — even then traveling on 
the river was unsafe. The ice in the river appeared as if it might 
break up in a few days. It did leave the river in fi'ont of the prairie 
on the 20th of March. 

Mr. Laird left the claim in charge of Mrs. Gbddard to hold until 
his return, not supposing that any movement would be made be- 
fore that time. Mrs. Goddard, with a young lady, Miss Salina 
Kellogg, of La Crosse, who was up on a visit, accordingly took pos- 
session of the shanty, with a firm determination to hold the fort. 

The suit had been decided in Gere's favor, and he became anx- 
ious to get the claim into his possession before Mr. Laird should 
have an opportunity to appeal to a higher court, as he had given 
notice that he should do on his return. Under the management of 



316 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Mr. Cole, his attorney, judgment was entered up against Mr. Laird 
on the justice's docket, and an attachment issued to take possession 
of his property for the payment of tlie costs in the suit. A writ of 
restitution was also issued, under which it was sup])osed possession 
would be acquired and the claim held. 

The constable, McDermott, was friendly and in full sympathy 
with Mr. Laird, and was also a boarder with Mrs. Goddard. Before 
the papers were placed in his hands, he notified Mrs. (xoddard of the 
proceedings, and arranged with her a plan of defense. He aided 
them to procure material and barricade the building, so as to resist 
an assault if Gere and his friends attempted to take forcible posses- 
sion of the shanty. It was supposed that they were provided with 
firearms. Being forewarned, they had the courage to believe that 
they would be able to resist the officer of the law, witli his consent, 
and hold Gere and his friends at bay until the return of Mr. Laird 
from La C'rosse. 

Learning from McDermott that the yoke of oxen would be 
attached when they came across the river from their work, Mrs. 
Goddard sent for the cattle and had them brought over and chained 
to a post by the side of the shanty, while the constable had business 
elsewhere. 

When the writ was placed in McDermott's hands he went down 
to the claim. As he advanced, Mrs. Goddard warned him that if 
anyone attempted to come near the shanty it would be at their own 
peril. The constable withdrew to a safe distance and apparently 
waited for a more favorable opportunity to perform his official duties. 
Neither Mr. Gere or any of his friends ventured within short range 
of the cabin where Mrs. Goddard and Miss Kellogg stood guard, 
and, to the surprise of the settlers, successfully resisted the execution 
of the law and boldly defied any one who should dare molest 
them. 

These two women held the claim and retained possession of the 
oxen until Mr. Laird returned from La Crosse with the money to 
defray the expenses of the suit, which had been the principal object 
of his trip. He at once paid the cost and apjjealed the case to the 
United States district court. The writ of restitution was never 
enforced. 

Of the proceedings in the district court, nothing official can be 
learned. It is said that, from some cause, judgment in the justice's 
court was suspended and the case dismissed. Mr. Laird was never 



PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS. 317 

afterward disturbed in his possession of the claim. It is now known 
as Laird's Addition. 

Although Mr. Gere never made any actual attempts to obtain 
possession of the claim, he several times threatened suits tor its 
recovery. Mr. Laird soon foimd that a little money would stop all 
proceedings — less than the fee of a lawyer to defend the case. Gere 
consulted about every lawyer that located here for the next two or 
three years. He was among the first clients of Hon. Judge Wilson, 
when he came here in 1855. Mr. Wilson, then a young lawyer, 
became interested in the story of Gere, and, considering it an im- 
portant case, at once commenced suit against Mr. Laird. He was 
greatly surprised a day or two after to learn from his client that, on 
account of a satisfactory arrangement with Mr. Laird, he wished to 
stop all proceedings against him. The lawyers never shared in 
these periodical settlements. When Gere again ran short of funds, 
he again called on his attorney to bring suit against Laird, but Mr. 
Wilson indignantly refused to have anything further to do with the 
case. 

Mr. Laird became a permanent settler on Wabasha prairie, 
where he was prominently identified with public and private enter- 
prises which tended to the development of the resources of the 
county. Although for many years Mr. Laird gave his attention to 
the cultivation of a large farm in the eastern part of Olmsted 
county, and lived there with his family a portion of each year, he 
has maintained an interest in Winona county and occupied his resi- 
dence in the city of Winona. 

John C. Laird now lives on the same claim he ' ' jumped " from 
Henry C. Gere, on Wabasha prairie, in the fall of 1852. His pres- 
ent residence is within two blocks of where his claim-shanties stood 
while contesting possession with Mr. Gere. This is the only instance 
where any one of the original claimholders of land on Wabasha 
prairie, now the city of Winona, is living on the claim he held in 
1852, and with one exception Mr. Laird is the only one in the city 
living on land which they held prior to the sale of public lands in 
1855. A part of the original claim of Captain Smith, claim JSTo. 1, 
was pre-empted by John Keyes,. His widow and family are yet resi- 
dents of that locality. 

In the spring of 1853 Mr. Laird built quite a stylish and com- 
fortable one-story house, with two wings, on his claim, and made it 
his headquarters. He brought up a breaking-team of three yoke 



318 HISTORY OF WENONA COUNTY. 

of large oxen and two large breaking-plows. His reason for having 
two plows to one team was, that he found it economical to send his 
plows to Galena by steamboat for repairs — to keep his team at work 
an extra plow was necessary. This team he kept busy breaking for 
the settlers by the acre during the season, under the management of 
A. B. Smith. 

Mr. Laird started the first livery stable in the county of Winona. 
The heavy horses and wagons he furnished for hire in 1853 would 
hardly represent the business if compared with the dashing turn- 
outs now furnished from the " liveries " in the city of Winona. 

Although not strictly the first man to deal in lumber, Mr. Laird 
was the first to commence the business and estabish a lumber-yard 
for the retail of lumber as a regular business occupation. He com- 
menced the lumber business a little above where the sawmill of 
Laird, Norton & Co. now stands. His little retail yard was the 
nucleus from which the vast lumber establishments and immense 
business of Laird, Norton & Co. has been developed. John C. 
Laird was once a member of this firm, but withdrew from it many 
years ago. It was through him and his influence that many of our 
best citizens came into this county. 

In the summer of 1852 Enos P. Williams, who made the claim 
next east of that held by Beecher Gere, traded it to B. B. Healy for 
three or four village lots in La Crosse. Mr. Williams had made no 
improvement except a pretense of a garden. He was then living 
in La Crosse, where he remained for three or four years, after which 
he came up the river and settled in this county, in what is now the 
town of Utica, where he yet resides. 

Mr. Healy built quite a comfortable house on the Williams claim 
and placed a man on it to hold possession. The claimkeeper neg- 
lected his charge and it was jumped by Rufus Emerson, who was 
employed by Andrew Cole. Mr. Healy contested the matter, and 
after a suit or two at law recovered possession of the claim and then 
disposed of it to Rev. H. S. Hamilton, who bought it for some of 
his relatives, John I. and Harvey Hubbard. It was then called the 
John I. Hubbard claim, and is now known as Hubbard's Addition to 
the plat of Winona. 

But few claims were made in the southern part of what is now 
Winona county during the season of 1852. Two or three were 
selected on Pine creek, one or two along the river and in the valleys. 

Hamilton McCollura settled on the river in the lower part of the 



PERSONAL PARAGRAPHS. 319 

county. His house was for a year or two a favorite stopping- 
place for travelers by land on the trail between Winona and La- 
Crosse. 

James Campbell, a Scotchman, settled in Cedar creek valley three 
or four miles .from its mouth. William and Robert Campbell came 
not long after. Mr. Campbell now holds a large amount of land 
in that vicinity, where he yet resides. 

Leonard Johnson lived with W. B. Bunnell for a year or two, 
and then with Frank Wilson started a wood-yard at Johnson's Point, 
below the present village of Homer. Mr. Johnson is yet a resident 
of the county, living in the town of Pleasant Hill, on a farm selected 
by him in an early day. 

Harry Herrick, for many years a man of all work for Bunnell, 
made a claim in Burns valley, about two miles above its mouth, 
where the road crosses the stream. He built a small log cabin, 
which is yet standing and is a part of the old building on the upper 
side of the road, east of the bridge. 

Mr. Herrick held this claim for a year or two, when he sold it 
and went back to live with Bunnell, where he died two or three 
years after. The claim was purchased by Rev. Edward Ely, and 
was long known as the " Ely claim." It is now a part of the farm 
of Mr. Henry Bitner. 

William Hewett came into the county in the latter part of this 
season and made a claim in Burns valley, next above Herrick. He 
built a frame house near the big spring next to the road and settled 
there with his family. This house was burned down several years 
after. A log house now occupies the same site. Mr. Hewett 
occupied the locality for two or three years and then sold out and 
left this part of the country. 

Joseph S. Wilson selected his claim in Burns valley, next 
above Hewett's, where Charles Miller now has a stock-farm. He 
built his claim shanty about where the present farm buildings stand, 
near the spring. His first shanty was only designed to show that 
the claim was "occupied by a settler." He left his claim in the 
care of Roderick Kellogg until the next spring, when he returned 
with his family, built a comfortable house and opened up a fiirm, 
which he cultivated for three or four years. He then sold his farm 
and moved into Winona, where he carried on the business of harness- 
making until about 1880, when he went west and located in the 
territory of Dakota. Mr. Wilson was a well-known citizen of the 



320 JirSTOllY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

county. Tlie town of Wilson was given its name from liira, he 
being one of its oldest settlers and the best known in that locality. 

The same season that Mr. Wilson brought his family to live in 
Burns valley, a German by the name of Schabe, or Schape, made 
a claim above Wilson's. lie built a log house near the spring by the 
side of the road and lived there until his death, ten or twelve years 
ago. This house was the last one in that direction until the spring 
of 1S54. 

The log house built by jVfr. Schape was standing until within the 
past year. On Christmas day, 1882, the writer passed the locality 
and found the present owner of the pro|)erty tearing down the old 
house. The timber of which it was composed was apparently sound; 
the oak logs were hard and dry ; the oak shingles, or more properly 
shakes, were sound oh the nnder side, but much worn on the outer 
side. 

L man by the name of Blodgett made a claim in West Burns 
valley, where P. B. Palmer now lives. He brought with him a 
small herd of cows and lived on this claim during the summer. 
"NVliile here he lost two children from sickness. He sold out his 
stock and abandoned the claim in the tall and went back down the 
river. 

In the tall of this year A. B. Smith came to Wabasha prairie, and 
for awhile had the west half of the McDermott claim — the eighty 
next west of the claim owned by Dr. Childs. It was said that he 
was holding this for Mr. Healey, by whom he was employed. It 
was difficult to tell who was the real owner of the claim ; it was 
jumped several times by different individuals. It was sold by Mc- 
Dermott to David Olmsted. Mr. Smith did not reside on any 
claim, although he held several. Prior to his coming here he had 
been engaged in lumbering business, cutting and rafting, and as a 
pilot in running lumber down the Ohio and on the Mississippi 
rivers. He spent the winter as a regular boarder with Mrs. God- 
dard, and married the widow the following season. 

A. B. Smith was well known to all of the early settlers as a hotel 
keeper, — as the landlord of the old ''Minnesota House," built by 
him in 1853, on the comer of Center and Second streets, where S. 
C. White's store now stands. He was also the proprietor of the 
" Wabasha Prairie House," which stood on the corner of Front and 
Franklin streets, built by him in the summer of 1855. While living 
here he suddenly left home in the night, without the family or any 



PERSOI^AL PARAGRAPHS. 323 

one connected with the house being aware of his intentions to do 
80. Nothing of a certainty was ever learned relative to any circum- 
stances connected with his mysterious disappearance. It was known 
that at about that time he was accustomed to carry a considerable 
sum of money about his person. He sometimes indulged freely in 
intoxicating drinks. It was generally supposed that he had been 
foully dealt with — probably murdered for his money and his body 
thrown into the river. Suspicion rested on some with whom he 
familiarly associated at about that time, but no evidence was ever 
secured that appeared to justify making any arrests. There was 
no proof of his death. 

During the latter part of this season Koderick Kellogg came 
up from La Crosse to do some mason-work for the settlers on 
Wabasha prairie. He was a competent mechanic in his line of busi- 
ness, and a man of more than usual abilities and general informa- 
tion, but his intemperate habits had isolated him from his family. 
He was readily induced to come here and work at his trade, although 
there was but little to do, because, as he expressed himself, he 
• "would by so doing, get away from the temptation of the hell-holes 
where intoxicating drinks could at all times be procured." Mr. 
Kellogg was, for a year or so, benefited by the change, but when 
the hell-holes opened in Winona he found them, although they 
were small ones. 

The first regular mason-work done in this county was by Rod- 
erick Kellogg. His first job of work was on Wabasha prairie, 
where he plastered two rooms for Kev. Edward Ely, on the corner 
of Center and Second streets. This was the first plastered house in 
the county. His next job of plastering was the lower rooms in the 
" Yiets House," afterward known as the Winona House — it stood 
on Front street, on the levee. The first brick chimney built in the 
county was by Mr. Kellogg, in the Viets House. His third job of 
plastering and chimnej^-building was in a small one-story house of 
two rooms built by Johnson for Andrew Cole, on lot 4, block 10. 
Johnson's original claim shanty, on claim No. 4, was torn down 
and used in the construction of this building. These three build- 
ings were the only houses in the county with plastered rooms until 
the season of 1853. 

Nearly all of the mason-work required by the settlers of this 
vicinity was done by Mr. Kellogg. He worked at his trade here 
for three or four years, and then went back to La Crosse. He 
19 



324 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

owned the lot on the corner of Franklin and Second streets, where 
Kohweder's meat-market now stands. In the spring of 1853 he 
built a small one-storj house on the corner, about 12x20, plastered 
inside and outside. This he occupied as his residence — his family 
living in La Crosse. He also built the house which stands on the 
same lot next to the alley. It was at onetime used as a hotel. 

Roderick Kellogg was an industrious man, seldom idle if there 
was anything to do, excei)t when intoxicated ; then he was inclined 
to be quarrelsome. He was a handy man of all work, and when not 
engaged at his trade he was always ready to undertake any small 
jobs for the settlers, such as rough carpenter work, gardening, etc. 

Mr. Kellogg always found a sympatliizing friend in Rev. Mr. 
Ely, who had, from his lirst acquaintance with him, taken an inter- 
est in trying to bring about a reform in his life, but without success: 
the series of efforts were balanced by a like series of failures. 
After Mr. Ely engaged in mercantile business, in 1854, he sometimes 
found Mr. Kellogg's services about the store a convenience, and at 
times employed him. On one occasion Kellogg made his appear- 
ance when partially intoxicated. He was told that his services were 
not needed while in that condition. He attempted by argument to 
show that he was not drunk — that he knew what he was about, 
although he had taken a drink. His remarks became insulting, and 
Mr. Ely told him to leave the store — to go away and not come back 
again, for he would have nothing more to do with him. 

Kellogg went outside and became noisy and abusive — attracting 
the attention of the idlers about (of whom the writer was one). 
Becoming excited in his harangue, he fairly jumped up und down, 
until suddenly he stopped, as if strongly im})ressed with a new idea 
of retaliation for the fancied wrong done him, and exclaimed, "D — 
you, Elder Ely ! I'll get even with you yet — I'll go and jump your 
claim for this." He at once turned and marched off down the street 
as if his determination was a fixed one. He did not attempt to carry 
out his threat, for when sober he respected the elder. The idea was 
a popular one, that the greatest wrong that could be inflicted on a 
settler was to jump his claim,. 

During the latter part of the season John and Rufus Emerson, 
brothers, came into this county and settled on Wabasha prairie. 
John Emerson had a wife and two or three children. After looking 
about for awhile he selected a location south of the Evans claim, 
toward the upper end of the lake. He built a shanty on it and made 



POSTOFFICES. 325 

it his home, with liis iamily, for about two years, when he sold it to 
Edwin Foster. Taylor's Addition is a part of the Emerson claim. 
Mr. Emerson moved to the western part of the county, where he 
located himself on a farm. 

Rufus Emerson was a' single man. Without permanently locating 
himself, he speculated in claims by taking possession of some un- 
occupied land (jumping claims) and selling out his interest to other 
settlers. He was identified with several ditiiculties where claim- 
jumping was charged, either for his own individual benefit or as an 
employe of others. He pre-empted a claim on the bottom-land 
west of Gilmore's. Rufus Emerson built a house on the Stevens 
claim in the spring of 1854. This house is yet standing. It is on 
Second Street, between Market and Franklin streets, on lot 2, block 
143. This building was constructed from lumber found floating 
down the river and picked up at different times. Emerson sold it 
before it was completed. It was afterward clapboarded and finished 
b}^ W. H. Stevens, into whose hands it fell. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



POSTOFFICES. 



During the season of 1852 there were two postoffices created in 
this county by the postoflice department, although there was but 
one in regular operation until about the beginning of the following 
year. The first was at Minnesota City, with Robert Pike, Jr., as 
postmaster. The other at Wabasha prairie, with George G. Barber 
as postmaster. 

The office at Minnesota City was established with the proviso 
that the mails should be transported, free of charge to the depart 
ment, to and from the nearest postoffice on the Mississippi. The 
mails were made up and received in regular form at this office, 
but no regular carrier employed. The special mail-bag provided, 
was usually carried by some of the colonists who chanced to go to 
La Crosse, the nearest postoffice on the river, or it was taken to 
Wabasha prairie and sent down by the boats. On certain days, 
about every week, the mail-bag was brought up from La Crosse by 



326 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

the "boats and left at Wabasha prairie, wliere some one from the 
colony awaited its arrival. Prior to this all mail matter belonging 
to the members of the association was usually carried and looked 
after by the settlers of the colony. 

It was usual for the postmaster at La Crosse to deliver to s<:)me 
well known settler all of the mail matter of the settlement to which 
he belonged. Where parties were well known, their letters were 
sometimes sent to them by the clerks of the boats, to be left at their 
nearest landing-place. In this way Nathan Brown received letters 
at his landing. Bunnell took charge of all mail matter for Bunnell's 
landing, and in the early part of the season all letters for settlers 
on Wabasha prairie were left in the care of Johnson. 

During the summer and early })art of the winter the Kev. Ed- 
ward Ely made frequent visits between Wabasha prairie and La 
Crosse. A portion of the time his family was living at the latter 
place. When he brought his family to Johnson's landing, he for 
awhile occupied Johnson's claim shanty on claim No. 4. His fre- 
quent trips between the two places were made the means by which 
the settlers on Wabasha prairie received and sent away their letters. 
Mr. Ely always made it a duty to bring up all mail matter be- 
longing to this locality, and was accustomed to carry it about with 
him until distributed to the settlers, who usually flocked around him 
as soon as his arrival was known. This was readily ascertained, 
for it was the usual custom for everybody to visit the landing on the 
arrival of a steamboat from below. All letters sent by the boats 
were then left in his care for delivery. It was from this matter of 
accommodation, and from his custom of carrying all letters about his 
person, the traditional story originated, that "in the early days of 
the settlement of this county the postoffice was in Elder EIj^'s hat." 

The second postofhce in the county was on Wabasha prairie. It 
was called Montezuma ; the postmaster was George G. Barber. 
The first movement toward making application for this office 
originated with the Wabasha Protection Club. Mention has already 
been made that a majority of the members of this organization 
were residents of La Crosse, who held claims on this side of the 
river, many of them never residents of the territory. The laws of 
the club allowed its members to hold claims for six months without 
making a residence on them, and with but nominal improvements. 
The members were pledged to aid each other in retaining possession 
during that time. This law conflicted with the Uidted States and 



\ POSTOFFICES. 327 

Territorial claim laws, and led to frequent differences among the 
earlj settlers. 

At one of the meetings of the club the necessity of a postoffice 
was discussed and action taken in favor of making application to 
the postoffice department. A hlanh petition was signed, but the 
drawing up of the necessary papers and forwarding the same was 
referred to Andrew Cole, a lawyer in La Crosse and a member of 
the club. It was then supposed, and generally understood, that the 
secretary, Abner S. Goddard, would be recommended in the petition 
for postmaster, and that the name of the postoffice would be 
Wabasha prairie. 

When the papers were drawn up, the attorney, with the approval 
of some of the members of the club, inserted Montezuma as the 
name of the postoffice, and recommended George G. Barber as post- 
master. Mr. Barber was a resident of La Crosse. He had made a 
claim in Gilmore valley early in the spring, but never improved it. 
The Hank petition filled out at La Crosse was forwarded to the 
postoffice department and the appointment duly made. Mr. Barber 
received his commission about the middle of June, gave the 
required bonds and took the oath of office. He came up to make 
his arrangements for supplying the settlers of Wabasha prairie with 
their mail and offered the position of deputy -postmaster to Mr. 
Goddard, who indignantly refused to accept the position. Mr. 
Barber returned to La Crosse without being able to secure a deputy. 
The settlers on Wabasha prairie declined the honor, — the only 
instance in the history of this county where official position has been 
generally declined. 

No improvements were made in postal facilities; "the elder" 
continued to carry the " mail in his hat." About the 20th of July 
Byron Yiets moved up from La Crosse and accepted the position of 
deputy-postmaster from Mr, Barber. 

Mr. Yiets did not open the office regularly. The mails were 
made up and distributed as before, at La Crosse. The only additional 
advantage afforded was that the mail was carried by the boats in a 
canvas bag without a lock. By request of Mr. Yiets, the elder 
distributed the contents of the bag left in his charge as he had 
previously done. 

The settlers were dissatisfied with tlie appointment of a non- 
resident as postmaster, who lived thirty miles away. The name of 
Montezuma was equally objectionable, although Johnson had 



328 JIISTOKY OF WLNONA COUNTY. 

adopted it as the name of tlio town-site, then just plotted by John 
Ball on Wabasha prairie. 

A public meeting was called to consider the matter and the 
question freely discussed. All united in a petition to the postofRce 
department ior the appointment of Abner S. Goddard as postmaster 
in place of George G. Barber, a resident of another state. Nearly 
all petitioned to have the name of the office changed from Monte- 
zuma to Winona. In discussing this change several nanies were 
proposed, Winona, Wabasha, Wabasha City, Prairie and Ozelle. 
The name of Winona was adopted by a majority of one when the 
vote was taken. 

It is now uncertain who first suggested the name of Winona. 
It has been said that it was proposed by Captain Smith. Some are 
equally positive that it was suggested ]>y Dr. Balcombe. Otliers 
say it was Dr. Childs. Dr. Childs was noted for his peculiarity of 
giving names to localities, and to all animals in his possession. 
Gilmore valley was called by him "Winona valley," about the time 
the name of Winona was selected as the name of the postoffice. 

Letters in the hands of Mrs. Calista Balcombe, the widow 
of Dr. John L. Balcombe, show that Dr. Balcombe, Mr. How- 
ard and Ed. Hamilton, then the proprietors of No. 5, the Ham- 
ilton claim m-ged upon Captain Smith the propriety of calling 
the new town plot Wabasha. This Captain Smith consented to 
do, provided he could induce Alexis Bailey to have the name 
of the postoffice at Wabasha changed, but Bailey would not con- 
sent. They then proposed to call it Wabasha City, and adopted 
the name themselves for use in their correspondence. Dr. Bal- 
combe was always anxious to have a Dakota name given to the 
town. Neither Captain Smith nor the proprietors of claim No. 5 
were present when the name of Winona was adopted. The post- 
office department promptly changed the name of the postoffice to 
Winona and appointed Mr. Goddard postmaster. AVhen his com- 
mission arrived he was lying on his bed of sickness, from which 
he never recovered. He died before he was able to qualify for the 
position. The postoffice was without a legal postmaster. The 
boats, however, carried the mails between La Crosse and the prairie, 
■where they were taken care of by the volunteer postmaster. Elder 
Ely obtained ])ossession of the keys and acted in that capacity with- 
out taking the oath of office required from those who handle the 
United States mail. No mails were made up or officially received 



POSTOFFICES. 829 

at this oflQce. This duty was performed at La Crosse. The elder 
was simply acting in the same capacity of messenger that he had 
been previously doing, except instead of carrying the letters "in 
his hat " he was accommodated with a mail bag. The faithfulness 
shown by Mr. Ely in his attention to this self-imposed duty was 
satisfactory to the settlers. Among the traditional anecdotes of the 
early days is one showing the zeal of the elder in the performance 
of his duties. He received the mail bag from the boat and also de- 
livered it with the letters to be posted at La Crosse. It was his 
custom to preach here on Sundays when not engaged at La Crosse, 
where he had regular appointments, alternating with Elder Hamil- 
ton — one preaching on one Sunday and the other on the next. 
While holding forth eloquently to an attentive congregation in his 
own shanty, on one of his days to speak to the people, the settlers 
were suddenly and unexpectedly startled by the whistle of a steam- 
boat approaching the landing. The elder brought his sermon to a 
close very abruptly, with the remark, "There's a boat from be- 
low," and hastened to the levee to receive the expected mail. The 
elder denies having any recollection of this occurrence. Those who 
are familiar with his eccentricities believe it. George W. Clark says 
it is true, for he was one of his audience — that the elder stopped short 
in one of the best sermons he ever heard him attempt to deliver, 
and left his astonished congregation to ponder on the finale of the 
discourse if completed, or to follow him to the levee and see if there 
was any one on the boat that they knew, and inquire for long ex- 
pected letters when the elder had secured the United States mail bag. 

To remedy all difficulties arising from the irregularities of mail 
facilities, a meeting of the settlers was called to take the matter 
under consideration and recommend a candidate to fill the vacancy 
of postmaster. The Rev. Edward Ely was selected for the position 
by an unanimous vote, and a petition, signed by all on the prairie, 
forwarded to the department in Washington. 

At this meeting an effort was made to again change the name of 
the postoffice — to call it Wabasha City — but the matter was settled 
by a vote, and one majority for Winona. The elder says that his 
vote retained the name of Winona. 

Elder Ely duly received his commission and became the lawful 
postmaster at Winona, on Wabasha prairie, where he had had the 
distribution of letters that came by mail about nine months 
unofficially. The first regular mail made up by him after receiving 



330 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

his appointment was on the 8th day of January, 1853. The office 
was in his residence on the corner of Center and Second streets, 
where now the "Ely block" stands. Mr. Ely held this position 
until early in the spring of 1855, when he was superseded by J. W. 
Downer, and the postoffice removed to the "'Downer building," 
which stood about midway between Market and Walnut streets, on 
the north side of Front street. 

This change was a political movement. When the United States 
laud-office was established at Winona and the little settlement at 
Johnson's landing began to assume some importance it was 
considered advisable that the postmaster should be one in sympathy 
with the party in power. The administration was democratic, and 
as the elder was of different political faith the services of the 
pioneer postmaster were no longer required. 

The first marriage on Wabasha prairie, now the city of Winona, 
and the first marriage within the present boundaries of this county, 
was that of S. K. Thompson and Mrs. Sutherland, on the 9th of 
November, 1852. The marriage ceremony was performed by the 
Rev. Edward Ely at his own house, where the parties were stopping 
temporarily while waiting for a down boat to take them to LaCrosse. 

S. K. Thompson was among the first arrivals here in the spring. 
Without locating himself on a claim he had remained on Wabasha 
prairie during the season and made his home with John Evans. He 
was about forty-five years old, a man of good general intelligence 
and of dignified personal appearance. Mrs. Sutlierland was a 
widow about forty years of age. She came here with her brother, 
O. S. Holbrook, and kept house for him until her marriage, after 
which Thompson and Holbrook lived together for awhile on 
Holbrookes claim, which he had discovered lying south of and 
adjoining the McDermott claim, until Thompson made a claim back 
of the lake and moved on it. 

The claim, back of the lake, made by George Wallace early in 
the spring of 1852, had laid during this season with but little, if any- 
thing, to show that it was claimed. Its exposed situation was a 
temptation for some one without a claim to watch. The Rev. Mr. 
Ely had not, as yet, taken a claim. On the 2d of December, 1852, 
he, with his axe on his shoulder, crossed the lake on the ice and 
jumped Wallace's claim. He took possession by chopping down 
some trees and blazing others, on which he conspicuously displayed 
his name. 



POSTOFFICES. 331 

Mr. Wallace was a nephew of Thompson's wife, the late Widow 
Sutherland. Considering the Wallace claim to be a family posses- 
sion which should be guarded, Thompson jumped it from Mr. Ely on 
January 15, 1853, while the elder was at La Crosse holding a series 
of revival meetings for which he had been employed. The elder 
was too much engaged in his professional labors to devote his time 
and attention to the protection of his rights, and Thompson estab- 
lished himself on the claim by building a cabin on it, which he occu- 
pied with his wife. Mr. Thompson afterward bought the claim of 
George Wallace and built a comfortable frame house, a story and a 
half building, in which he lived for ten or twelve years, or while he 
remained in this part of the country. The house is yet standing, and 
forms part of the present farmhouse of Mr. John Zenk. 

S. K. Thompson was a gentlemanly appearing man in dress and 
manners, and always seemed to have control of funds to engage in 
business. He held official positions, — was county commissioner, 
and for several years was justice of the peace. In his younger days 
he had been a merchant in Ohio. For about ten years before set- 
tling in this county he had been engaged in speculative investments 
along the upper Mississippi. He was for awhile in business as a 
merchant at Winona. 

It has been already related that when Elijah Silsbee sold his 
claim in 1854, he, with Charles S, Hamilton, started a store on the 
corner of Front and Center streets. About January 1, 1855, they 
dissolved partnership, Mr. Silsbee retaining the stock of goods. 
Soon after this S. K. Tliompson bought the goods and carried on 
the business for about one year. In the fall of 1855 he purchased 
quite a large stock of general merchandise, groceries, etc. During 
the winter he sold out to Burr Deuel and Luke Blair. The incidents 
of this sale are noted to show something of the manner of doing 
business at that date. When Mr. Thompson sold out to Deuel & 
Blair he gave possession at once, and was to receive the first pay- 
ment as soon as the inventory was taken, and the balance in notes of 
the firm. The inventory was taken by Thompson and Holbrook. 
Before the inventory was completed enough was realized from sales 
to make the first payment. The notes for the balance at six and 
twelve months were paid before due, the firm buying their own 
paper through an agent, A. P. Foster, at a liberal discount of 3 pe^ 
cent per month. A portion of the Silsbee stock had been damaged 
by the sinking of the barge in which it was brought up the river in 



332 IILsroIIV OF WINONA COFNTY. 

1854. To get rid of all of the unsalable goods, auction sales were 
held, at which "Uncle Luke" was himself the auctioneer and a pop- 
ular salesman. It was a current report that D. & B. made about 
$3,000 clear in this transaction before the opening of navigation in 
the spring, when they renewed their stock. 

Two or three years before Mr. Thompson left this part of the 
country the community was soraewhat_startled to learn that he had 
two wives, a married daughter and a very affectionate adopted 
daughter living with him in his house across the lake back of Wino- 
na. Some inquisitive ones, whose sensibilities were shocked by the 
revelations, attempted to have the affair investigated by the grand 
jury, to whom complaint was made, but the harmony of the happy 
family prevented a full expose of the scandal. After remaining here 
about a year the wife with the married daughter moved to ISTebraska. 
Thompson followed in a year or two after with wife No. 2 and the 
adopted daughter. It is rumored that Tliompson and wife No. 2' 
died from the effects of ])oison in Nebraska. 

The stores started by Mr. Robertson at Minnesota City, and 
Mr. Denman at Wabasha prairie, were closed out early in the fall. 
To procure their supplies for the winter, the settlers sent orders to 
Galena by the boats; some combined and bought their groceries 
and provisions at wholesale prices through Mr. Denman as agent. 
Mr. Johnson went down to Galena and purchased goods for the 
settlers on the prairie. These supplies were brought up by the 
Nominee on her last trip and left at La Crosse on November 15. 
Captain Smith was afraid to venture farther up the river against the 
ice that had began to form in the river. A severe snowstorm 
occurred on November 11, followed by intense cold, the thermome- 
ter indicating several degrees below zero. 

Mr. Burley says that he went down to La Crosse with Mr. Den- 
man, and was there when the Nominee turned back down the river. 
They came up with Johnson the next day on foot, on the west side 
of the river; the snow was about six inches deep. They stayed all 
night at Brown's. The news that their supplies were stopped at 
La Crosse was not very cheering to the settlers, for the most of 
them had but a limited amount on hand, and the prospect was that 
they would be unable to procure more until the ice formed sufficient 
to enable them to travel on the river. The weather moderated, the 
snow melted away and the river cleared of ice. It was then exj)ected 



POSTOFFICES. 333 

that the steamboats would again come up and bring their freight, but 
no boats ventured on another trip. 

On December 9 a party of five men, from the Rolling Stone, 
with half-a-dozen from Wabasha prairie, went down to La Crosse 
for the supplies left by the Nominee, expecting to bring them up on 
one of the Black River boats. Among this party were D. Q. Burley, 
S. E. Cotton, Wm. T. Luark, J. S. Denman and Charles Bannan, of 
Minnesota City; from the prairie were E. H. Johnson, A. B. Smith, 
John C. Laird, George W. Clark, Wm. H. Stevens and Peter Gorr. 
The weather became intensely cold and ice formed in the river, mak- 
ing, the trip a laborious one. They reached Brown's the first day 
from La Crosse, and stopped all night. The following day they 
landed their freight on tlie lower end of the prairie late in the even- 
ing. The boat was at once unloaded and started back to La Crosse 
under the pilotage of A. B. Smith and an assistant. Elder Ely also 
took passage down. They landed at Brown's and stayed until day- 
light, when they safely reached La Crosse without accident, although 
the channel was filled with floating ice. 

The settlers who remained in the colony and made their homes 
in Minnesota City during the winter of 1852-3 had comfortable 
. cabins, in which they passed the winter. Some of these cabins were 
of logs, others were of boards. No cases of suffering from 
insufficient food or clothing were known in the settlement. Their 
principal employment was providing firewood for present use and 
laying in a su]>ply for the ensuing year. 

After the sloughs were frozen over they engaged in chopping on 
the islands, cutting and banking steamboat-wood, getting out logs, 
timber, posts and rails for use in claim improvements. Their social 
enjoyments were quiet visits exchanged with each other and 
occasional meetings of the association. 

Among the incidents qf the winter was the loss of the horses of 
S. M. Burns. On* Christmas day he with his wife left their home 
on the bank of the river at what was afterward called Mt. Yernon, 
for the purpose of visiting the settlement at Minnesota City. He 
started down on the ice with his horses and sleigh. While on Had- 
dock slough his horses broke through the ice and were drowned. 
Burns and his wife narrowly escaped the same fate. This team 
was the one Burns brought with him when he came to Minnesota. 
Tliere was but one other team of horses in the north part of the 
county, that belonging to O. M. Lord, of Minnesota City. 



334 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Mr. Burns and his wife spent the day \nth their friends in the 
colony. In the evening Mr. Lord took them u}) to their home with 
his horses and sleigh, over the trail along the blufts. He came near 
losing his own team while on this neighborly trip. In crossing the 
run in the mouth of Deering's valley he missed the trail and drove 
below, where the banks were higher and drifted with snow. The 
horses attempted to jump across, but fell head first into the little 
stream and were unable to rise. The long sleigh-tongue, which 
projected two or three feet in front of the horses, was driven into 
the bank and held them fast. Their bodies formed a dam and the 
water was soon pouring over their backs. Mr. Lord never traveled 
without his ax ; he was a natural pioneer and prompt to act in cases 
of emergency. Although it was dark he comprehended the 
difficulty, and with two or three blows with his ax severed the sleigh- 
tongue in the rear of the horses and set them at liberty, but not 
until they were nearly drowned. The tongue was soon repaired 
with cord brought along in the sleigh, and Mr. Lord made the trip 
without other accident. His team occupied Burns' stable until the 
next morning. 

The following is a list of members of the Farm and Village 
Association who settled in the colony at Rolling Stone in 1852 with 
their families, and who in 1883 are yet residents of that locality: 
O. M. Lord and wife, James Wright and wife, Egbert Chapman and 
-wife, Mrs. H. B. Waterman, Mrs. Pike (widow of Robert Pike, 
Jr.,) and her daughter Emma, now Mrs. Frank D. Stewart, Robert 
Thorp and wife, E. B. Drew, S. E. Cotton and wife, Lawrence 
Dilworth and wife, Charles Bannon, S. D. Putnam and wife, 
William Sweet, D. Q. Burley and H. Jones. H. B. Waterman 
resides in the State of New York. Rufus Waterman is living in 
the city of Winona. 

The settlers on Wabasha prairie, like others along the river, in 
the winter ^f 1852-3 engaged in cutting steamboat-wood, logs, 
timber, etc., on the island 0})po8ite. Among their social enjoy- 
ments was a general gathering and Christmas dinner held at the 
Viets House, then occupied by Edwin Hamilton. At the Christmas 
gathering held on the i)rairie twelve months before, Ed. Hamilton 
was the chief cook and general manager of the bachelor dinner. 
At this second affair he was general manager, but Mrs. Goddard 
had charge of the cooking department, although it is stated that Ed. 
Hamilton provided a roast coon of his own preparation for the table. 



nsrciDENTS. 835 

This dinner was got up by a general contribution of material from 
those interested. Each family provided a part ; even the iurniture 
and dishes were furnished for the occasion. It is said by one who 
enjoyed it that the dinner was a good one. About half of the 
settlers on the prairie attended this gathering. Charles Bannon 
and S. E. Cotton with their wives were present from Rolling Stone. 

The following is a list of the settlers living on Wabasha prairie 
at that date : Rev. H. S. Hamilton, wife and two sons, Charles S. 
and Eugene ; Rev. Edward Ely, wife and two children, "Charlie" 
and "Nellie"; Dr. George F. Childs and jwife ; Mrs. Goddard and 
son Charles ; George M. Gere, wife and a large family ; Wm. B. 
Gere, Edwin Gere, Mary Gere, Henry C. Gere, wife and a large 
family ; Angelia Gere, Helen Gere, John Evans and wife, Abigal 
Evans, Royal B. Evans, John Emerson, wife and children ; S. K. 
Thompson and wife, E. H. Johnson, Ed. Hamilton, George W. 
Clark, Scott Clark, John C. Laird, Wm. H. Stevens, O. S. Holbrook, 
Frank Curtiss, Rufus Emerson, A. B. Smith, Allen Gilmore, Caleb 
Nash, Jabez McDermott, Roberts and Elijah Silsbee. 

Of the settlers living on Wabasha prairie at the close of the year 
1852 the following are yet living in the county of Winona in 1883 : 
Mrs. Goddard, now known as Mrs. Catharine Smith, Elder Ely and 
wife, Wm. H. Stevens, John C. Laird, Royal B. Evans and George 
W. Clark. 

Without the aid of an official census, it was estimated by M. 
Wheeler Sargent "that the population within the present boundaries 
of Winona county on the 1st day of January, 1853, was about 350, 
of whom a majority were or had been members of the Western 
Farm and Village Association." 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

INCIDENTS. 

Among the incidents of this winter at Winona, noted by Dr. 
Childs in his diary, was the following — " Sunday, January 30, 1853: 
Attended meetmg ; Elder Hamilton preached. At night had the 
privilege of leading a prayer meeting at the house of Mr. Evans — 
the first prayer meeting ever held on the prairie ; Elder Ely 
present." 



88() IHSTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

The buikliiig of the first bridge across the Gilmore valley creek, 
the tirst bridge in this part of the county, is thus noted by Dr. 
Childs — "■Monday, January 31, 1853: Very mild, snow fast dis- 
appearing. Engaged building a bridge on th6 Winona creek, aided 
by George and Scott Clark, Royal Evans, Edwin Hamiltgn and 
Allen Gilmore. Of all the men who voted at the meeting in favor 
of the work, pledging their assistance, from the village and lower 
end of tlie prairie, but one was present." 

The following is also co])ied from the diary of Dr. Childs — 
"Sunday, February 27, 1853: Thawing, with rain; Allen Gil- 
more immersed.'"' At a prayer meeting held at Mr. Evans' on Sun- 
day, February 20, "Allen Gilmore ex])ressed a wish to be im- 
mersed, which was decided to take place next Sabbath." This was 
the first instance of the observance of this religious ordinance in 
what is now the city of Winona. It is said that Rev. E. Ely oflB- 
ciated at this baptism. 

An incident which occurred about the first of March of this year 
(1853) will illustrate the reckless impulsiveness of Charles S. Ham- 
ilton, of whom mention has-been made. During the winter a party 
of Winnebago Indians were camped over on the Trempealeau 
bottoms, and for the purpose of selling venison and furs and skins 
they frequently visited the settlement on the prairie. Aside from 
being inveterate beggars, they were in no way troublesome. At the 
time spoken of, two of these Indians, who had been up to the vil- 
lage, stopped at H. S. Hamilton's while on their way back to their 
camp. They asked permission to sharpen their knives on the 
grindstone which stood outside. This was readily allowed by 
Charlie, who, with his young brother Eugene, were the only ones at 
home. The Indians quietly used the grindstone and started . across 
the river on the ice. When they were at full long range distance 
of his rifle from the house, Charlie, standing in the doorway, de- 
liberately took aim and fired at them. One fell senseless. Fearing 
another shot, his comrade seized and dragged him beyond the range 
of the gun. The wounded Indian, after lying a short time on the ice, 
got up and, with the help of the other, went on over to the Trempea- 
leau. 

The Winnebagoes complained to Bunnell of the unjustifiable 
assault. Bunnell called at Elder Hamilton's to learn the cause of 
the shooting, but Charley had no excuse for the cowardly act except 
that he only shot at them to scare them, supposing they were 



risrciDENTS. 337 

beyond the range of his rifle. The ball struck the Indian on the 
head and glanced off, inflicting a scalp-wound. The force was 
sufiicient to knock him down and render him senseless without 
producing serious injuries. Bunnell warned Charley to be on his 
guard and take care of himself, for the Indian might attempt to 
retaliate if he had an opportunity. Charlie was afraid of the 
Winnebagoes after this occurrence, but no hostilities were ever 
threatened that was known. 

During the winter the matter of a county organization was a 
general topic of discussion among tlie settlers along the river. The 
counties of Dakota and Wabashaw had remained unorganized, as 
they were created in 1849. The territorial legislature, during its 
session of 1858, divided them and made provision for several counties 
from these divisions. While this matter was under consideration 
the question of the establishment of the county seats of the new 
counties became an important matter ; almost every settlement pre- 
sented claims for the location of the county offices. Every settle- 
ment along the river in this part of Wabashaw county had lobby 
representatives in St. Paul for the purpose of securing" fhe location 
of the county seat of this division. Minnesota City, Winona, Min- 
neowah and Brownsville were rivals for the honor. By a general 
• act the legislature conferred the authority on the county commis- 
sioners to locate the county seats. 

When Wabashaw county was divided and Fillmore county was 
created from the southern portion, March 5, 1853, its ' boundaries 
were described as "Beginning at the southwest corner of Wabashaw 
county, thence southeast to the Iowa state line, thence east on said 
Iowa state line to the Mississippi river, thence up the middle of said 
river to the mouth of the Minneska or White river, thence up said 
river on the south line of Wabashaw county to the place of begin- 
ning." The western boundary of Fillmore county was then supposed 
to include the present city of Rochester, in Olmsted county, and the 
present village of Chatfleld in Fillmore county. Its northern and 
western boundaries were not clearly defined. 

The act by which Fillmore county was created declared it to be 
an organized county, "invested with all and singular the rights and 
privileges and immunities to which all organized counties are in this 
territory entitled to by law," and that it was the duty of the gover- 
nor "at so soon a time as possible to appoint all county officers, 
justices o"f the peace and constables, as said county may be entitled 



338 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY.. 

to by hiw, who shall hold their offices until their successors shall be 
elected and qualified at the next general election." 

Wabashaw county, before it was divided, had no county seat. 
The act creating Fillmore county provided as follows: "It shall be 
the duty of the first board of county commissioners which shall be 
hereafter elected in any county laid off in pursuance of this act, as 
soon sifter said board shall have been elected and qualified as 
provided by law, as the said board or a majority of them shall 
determine, to locate the county seat of the county, and the location 
so made as aforesaid shall be the county seat of the county, to all 
intents and purposes, until otherwise provided by law.'' 

Under this act the governor appointed the following officers : 
Register of deeds, H. B. Stoll, of Minneowah ; treasurer, Erwin H. 
Johnson, of Winona ; judge of probate, Andrew Cole ; sheriff, John 
lams. [The justices of the peace previously appointed for Wabashaw 
county were continued, viz, T. K. Allen, John Burns, Geo M. 
Gere and H. B. Waterman. The county commissioners appointed 
were Henry C. Gere, of Winona, Myron Toms, of Minneowah, and 
William T. Luark, of Minnesota City. 

The first meeting of the board of county commissioners was held 
at the " Winona House " on May 28. H. C. Gere was chairman 
and H. B. Stoll as register of deeds was clerk. The business trans- 
acted was the appointment of three assessors, — S. A. Houck, J. C. 
Laird and Jeremiah Tibbets. The approval of the bond of sheriff 
John lams, witli O. M. Lord and E. B. Drew as sureties. 

The following names were ordered to be entered as a grand jury 
list for the June circuit court : H. B. Stoll, James F. Toms, Myron 
Toms, Nathan Brown, Willard B. Bunnell, H. Carroll, Henry C. 
Gere, George M. Gere, Wm. T. Luark, George H. Sanborn, Har- 
vey Hubbard, Isaac Hamilton, O. S. Holbrook, Wm. B. Gere, S, 
A. Houk, S. A. Putnam, H. B. Waterman, E. B. Drew, O. M. 
Lord, T. K. Allen, Egbert Chapman, A. A. Gilbert, Eobert|^Taylor 
and A. P. Hall. 

The petit jurors for the same court were Edwin B. Gere, John 
Evans, Erastus H. Murray, Edwin Hamilton, William H. Stevens, 
John C. Laird, Alex. Smith, John Emerson, Erwin Johnson, John 
Burns, Frank Curtiss, George W. Clark, Scott Clark, Allen Gilmore, 
H. B. Thompson, Isaac W. Simonds, Jerry Tibbets, Asa Pierce. 

Fortune, S. J. Burnet, H. J. Harrington, William E. Hewitt, 

Henry Herrick, Warren Rowell, James Kinkade, Fletcher, 



INCIDENTS. 341 

Squire Day, A. T. Pentler, James Campbell, Thompson, 

Webster, Peter Gorr, O. H. Houk, J. S. Denman, Charles Bannan, 
S. E. Cotton, H. Stradlin^, Wm. H. Coryell, H. Hull, J. W. Bently, 
D. Q. Burly, J. Nicklin, J. Wright, P. D. Follett, R. Thorp, Louis 
Krutzly, Henry W. Driver, C. R, Coryell and Alex. McClintock. 

The second meeting of the board of county commissioners was 
held at the house of John Burns, in the mouth of Burns valley. 
Mr. Toms, Mr. Luark, and the clerk, StoU, were present, but there 
is no record of any business except to approve the bonds of the 
assessors, Mr. Toms acting as chairman. 

The next meeting was July 4, at Minneowah, at which no one 
was present except Mr. Toms and the clerk. "The chairman ad- 
journed to meet at Winona July 5." 

The next meeting was held pursuant to adjournment, and the 
following entry afterward made on the record by Mr. Stoll, who was 
not present. It was evidently designed as a squib at Wabasha 
prairie : " Winona, July 6, 1853 — H. C. Gere and Wm. T. Luark, 
commissioners, met pursuant to adjournment at the Winona hotel. 
Myron Toms, one of the absent commissioners, not being able to 
reach Winona on account of the high state of water and the then 
impassable gulf, the former commissioners adjourned to meet at the 
Winona Hotel July 9, 1853. Approved the bond of E. H. Johnson, 
county treasurer of Fillmore county. H. B. Stoll, clerk." 

The office of H. B. Stoll, the register of deeds, was in the vil- 
lage of Minneowah. The first deed recorded was one from Isaac 
Van Etten to H. B. Stoll, dated January 4, 1853, ^nd filed in the 
office May 11, 1853. This conveyed one half of Van Etten's inter- 
est in Minneowah. The consideration was $300. 

The hrst deed made in this county that was placed on record 
was a quit-claim from William B. Gere of part of his claim on 
Wabasha prairie to A. M. Fridley, of St. Paul. It is dated No- 
vember 1, 1852, but not filed for record until the 29th of June, 1853. 
The consideration was $150. The acknowledgment was before 
George M. Gere, justice of the peace, November 4, 1852. 

The part of William B. Gere's claim transferred by this deed 
was eighty acres, on which the shanty of Henry C. Gere stood. 
The incidents of this transaction were given to the writer by Mr. 
Fridley many years ago. During the latter part of the season of 
1852 Mr. Fridley made the acquaintance of Henry C. Gere, while 
on a steamboat between La Crosse and Wabasha prairie. Gere 
20 



342 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

then projiosed to sell liim a claim of eighty acres he held on War 
baslia prairie. Mr. Fridley purchased the eighty acres where H. 
C. Gere was then living for $150, receiving a quit-claim from 
William B. Gere. He also gave H. C. Gere $50 to hold the claim 
for him until the following spring. Gere continued to occupy the 
shanty until the spring of 1854, drawing upon Mr. Fridley during 
tluit time, in consideration of his services as claimkeeper, until the 
sum total paid H. C. Gere by A. M. Fridley for that eighty was 
$1,200. The claim was then placed in possession of L. D. Smith, 
who came here from St. Paul with his family in the spring of 1S54. 
It is now known as Plummer's Addition to the plat of Winona. 

During the season of 1852, and until the following year, the 
claim of Captain Smith at the lower end of the prairie — claim 
No. 1, — held by Smith and Johnson, had remained undisturbed, 
no attempt having been made to molest it. Johnson removed the 
shanty, using the lumber for other purjjoses at the upper landing. 

Early in the s])ring, in A])ril, 1853, the unoccupied claim was 
jumped by Isaac W. Simonds. As soon as this was known to E. 
H. Johnson, he, by direction of Captain Smith, commenced suit 
against Simonds in justice's court, before Squire Gere, to oust him 
from the possession he had assumed. The defense was under the 
management of a lawyer by the name of Stevens, from La Crosse. 
It was then learned that Simonds had taken possession of the claim 
for a stock company, composed of William B. Gere, Charles S. 

Hamilton, Isaac W. Simonds and Stevens, the attorney in the 

claim suit. The suit was adjourned from time to time, from in 
April to about the first of June, without coming to trial. In the 
meantime the company had a town surveyed and platted cover- 
ing 141 acres of the claim. It was given the name of Wabasha 
City. The claim shanty stood a little in front of where the residence 
of Mrs. Keyes now stands. This was occupied by Simonds and 
Charlie Hamilton. 



CHAPTER XXXIY. 



A BLOODY CONFLICT. 



During the winter and spring Johnson had made his head- 
quarters at the house he had built on Front street for the use of 
Andrew Cole, which he afterward sold to him. He, however, made 
his home with John Evans, whose daughter, Abigal M. Evans, he 
married later in the season. He usually spent his evenings at 
Evans' when on the prairie. Johnson became impatient at the 
delay in the trial of his suit against Simon ds, and while at supper 
one evening he remarked that he would have to go down to the 
lower claim and "clean them out" himself if he ever expected to 
get possession. He soon after started for the village. This 
indicated another claim-fight. Johnson "cleaned them out "that 
night. The jjarticulars of this fight were related to the writer by 
Royal B. Evans, a son of John Evans, who took part in the afi'ray. 
Mr. Evans says : "It was about the middle of May or a little after 
that Johnson shot Simonds. I came home rather late that day and 
found that the rest of the family had been to supper ; they were 
talking about Johnson, who had just gone down to the village. 
Father said Johnson would get into trouble if he attempted to drive 
Simonds and Charlie Hamilton off from the lower claim without he 
had some help. My sister wanted I should find hirn and tell him 
that father wished to see him. 

"After supper I went down to the landing ; a steamboat had just 
come up and almost everybody living on the prairie was on the 
levee. Simonds and Charlie Hamilton were conspicuous, but 
Johnson was not there. John McDermott told me he saw him 
going back on the prairie just after the boat landed. It was then 
dark. I expected I should find him at the lower claim, and went 
down there in search of him. As I approached the Simonds shanty 
Johnson hailed me and ordered me to halt. I answered him and he 
told me to come in. Johnson said he expected to have a fight and 
was ready for them. He had a Colt's rifle and an old 'pepper 
box ' pistol. I had brought nothing with me, not even a club. He 
said that when he saw Simonds and Hamilton up at the village he 



344 HISTORY OF WLNONA COUNTY. 

went and got his gun and pistol and started. We sat down in front 
of the shanty and examined them ; they had not been used in a long 
time. The i-ilie was out of rei)air and would not work. Finding it 
was of no use, he took the barrel off and stood it beside the door, 
saying, ' That will do to use as a club.' 

"About ten o'clock we heard some one coming down the prairie, 
and knew that it was Simonds by his loud voice. Johnson hailed 
them to stop, and threatened them if they advanced. He then 
snapped two caps on the pistol without a discharge. They came on 
to where we were standing, near the shanty, when Simonds pitched 
at Johnson and they two had a regular fist-fight, which lasted some 
time. Charlie and I looked on without doing anything. We were 
about the same age and size. Simonds was much the larger and 
stronger man, and was too much for Johnson. They clinched, and 
Johnson, finding that Simonds had the advantage, drew his pistol 
and shot him. The ball passed through the muscles of the forearm 
and broke the bone above the elbow. They continued clinched for 
awhile after, when Simonds called for Hamilton to take him off. 
Hamilton caught Johnson by the throat and tried to choke him. I 
then attacked C'harlie with my fists and knocked him down." 

"It was a still, clear, starlight night, and the noise made while 
the fight was going on was heard at Hamilton's house, where some 
one halloed in return. Simonds called to them to bring his shot- 
gun. Elder Hamilton and Jake McDermott came up just after 
Charlie and I had had our set-to ; Johnson kept back out of sight. 
Simonds complained of being faint, and asked the elder to take him 
over to his house. I had not received any very hard blows, but 
Johnson, as well as the other two, had been severely pounded. 

"Elder Hamilton took hold of Simonds and supported his 
wounded arm, while I took hold of him on the other side to help take 
him to Hamilton's house. Just as we started, Charlie Hamilton 
attacked me from behind with a club — one of the oak stakes used in 
surveying the plot. He hit me once before I turned, and then struck 
me once or twice across the face, cutting me severely before 
McDermott separated us. McDermott then helped the elder take 
Simonds home. Not hearing anything of Johnson I went over to 
Hamilton's to see what was going on there. A steamboat chanced 
to be coming down and the elder signaled them with his lantern to 
stop at his landing, intending to send Simonds to La Crosse. A 
doctor on board examined and dressed the wounded arm, and word 



A BLOODY CONFLICT. 345 

was sent by the boat to La Crosse to have a surgeon come up from 
there. The elder washed the blood off from my head and face and 
bandaged up my wounds. The scalp-cut on the back of my head 
was the worst, but my face was badly cut and bruised. I then went 
back down the prairie in search of Johnson. While I was up at 
Hamilton's he had torn the shanty down, and thrown it and every- 
thing belonging to it into the river. We then went up home ; 
Johnson was living with us. The next morning we were both 
arrested by McDermott, the constable. After we had had our 
breakfast he took us down to Squire Gere's office, where we were 
detained some time, when the justice decided that the examination 
could not go on without the testimony of Simonds, and adjourned 
the court to H. S. Hamilton's house. Johnson refused to walk down 
there. Squire Gere then sent the constable to find a conveyance. 
We walked down toward the river, when the justice called to us not 
to go away, but stay around where we could be found when 
McDermott came back. Johnson made no reply — I told him I was 
not going very far away. Johnson went over to Andrew Cole's 
house to change his clothes. Mr. Cole was then absent. I went 
home, had my wounds dressed and went to bed, where I slept until 
the next morning. I then came down to the justice's office and was 
discharged from custody." 

Considerable excitement was aroused over the matter by the new 
town site company, and when Johnson failed to make his appear- 
ance Sheriff lams was sent to find him and bring him before the 
court. The sheriff got trace of him at Minnesota City, and overtook 
him at Hall's landing, below the mouth of the White Water, where 
he was waiting for a steamboat to come along. Johnson left the 
river and went up the bluff with the sheriff' after him. Johnson 
could outrun and outclimb the sheriff, and when beyond reach he 
stopped and told lams if he came any farther he would send some 
loose rocks down on him. The sheriff went back to the trail and 
watched for Johnson to again make his appearance. He was com- 
pelled to return without his prisoner. Johnson succeeded in 
reaching the river without being observed. The steamboats at that 
time would land anywhere if hailed by a passenger. Johnson went 
to St. Paul, where he secured counsel and returned to have the case 
disposed of and settled in some manner. He delivered himself up, 
and no one appearing against him he was discharged from custody. 
Simonds had been detained on the prairie to await the examination, 



346 HISTORY OF WINONA COUWTY. 

but went to La Crosse two or three days before Johnson's return, 
which was on June 3. 

As soon as Captain Smith learned of the shooting of Simonds by 
Johnson he sent his son S. J. Smith here to take charge of matters. 
By the advice of John Evans it was deemed necessary to put up a 
shanty on the lower claim to hold possession. Mr. Smith secured 
the services of Mr. Evans and his son Royal, and took a load of 
lumber down to build a cabin. He was met there by Mr. Stevens 
from La Crosse, one of the proprietors of the new town, who warned 
him not to attempt to occupy it, for they should defend their rights 
to the claim. Mr. Smith decided not to have any more iii>:liting, but 
trust to the law for redress. He ordered the lumber taken back to 
the upper landing, notwithstanding the protests of Mr. Evans, who 
asserted that he could stand as much shooting as they could. Mr. 
Smith then remained quiet at the hotel where he was stopping. 

As soon as Stevens returned to La Crosse he sent Asa Hedge up, 
who built a shanty and took possession of the claim. The next 
day after he was discharged from custody Johnson went down and 
put up a shanty about whei-e the one stood which Augustus Pentler 
once occupied. This was held by John Evans and Johnson. No 
collisions occurred between the occupants of the two shanties. 

About a week afterward Captain Smitli brought up from Galena 
a house ready made for claim No. 1. It was put up a few rods 
above where the house of Mrs. Keyes now stands. The same day 
Mr. Hedge went to La Crosse and his shanty was torn down. It 
was done by the consent of Mr. Hedge, who sold the possession 
of the claim to Captain Smith for one or two lots on Front street, 
fronting on the levee. 

Mr. Hedge at once built a small house on lot 1, block 11 — 
brought his family from La Crosse and made it his home for many 
years. He here opened a restaurant and saloon — the first saloon or 
place where intoxicating drinks were sold in the city of Winona. 
His liquors were bought up by the citizens and destroyed. The 
ladies were the movers in this transaction. He afterward opened 
his saloon with a new stock, when they were again destroyed or 
seized by the sheriff. He afterward put up a better building and 
opened a grocery store, where he carried on quite a trade for two 
or three years. Frank D. Sloan was his clerk and salesman in the 
grocery business. 

As an illustration of valuation of real estate and manner of 



A BLOODY CONFLICT. 347 

doing business, the following incident is noted relative to this prop- 
erty. In about 1856 or 1857 Mr. Hedge found it necessary to secure 
a loan to carry on his business. Gable & Werst, money loaners and 
dealers in real estate, advanced him $5,000 and took a mortgage on 
the lot and store to secure the payment of his notes drawing two 
per cent per month. As a matter of course Mr. Hedge failed in 
business and the property was sold under the mortgage. How 
much Gable and Werst posted to profit and loss in this transaction 
is unknown. They held the property for many years. 

Among the early arrivals this season were Itliael Hamilton, the 
father, and Enoch C. Hamilton, the brother, of H. S. Hamilton, and 
Erastus H. Murray, a brother-in-law. Harvey Hubbard and John I. 
Hubbard were also relatives of the Hamiltons. 

Enoch C. Hamilton made a claim where the city hospital is now 
located. His claim shanty stood twenty or thirty rods south of the 
building now used as a hospital. While living here the house was 
struck by lightning, during a severe thunderstorm on Sunday, June 
19, 1853, and his wife instantly killed. 

Mrs. Hamilton opened a select school, which she had been teach- 
ing for a week or, two previous to her death. This may with a great 
deal of propriety be called the first school on the prairie. TJie 
school opened in Mrs. Goddard's shanty, in 1852, by Miss Gere, then 
a girl of fourteen or fifteen, was hardly entitled to mention as an 
institution for instruction. Mrs. Hamilton was an experienced 
school-teacher. She left three children, Alvin, Alice and Julia. 
Previous to her marriage Miss Alice Hamilton was for many years 
a well known teacher in the public schools of the city of Winona. 

Mr. Hamilton married again and pre-empted his claim as a home- 
stead. It is now known as E. C. Hamilton's addition. Mr. Ham- 
ilton, with his second family, is now living at Minnesota City. 

Ithael Hamilton and his son Otis Hamilton made claims on the 
lower end of the prairie. They have been dead many years. 

Harvey and John I. Hubbard built two large dwelling-houses 
on what is now block 5, Hamilton's addition, which they occupied 
for several years. None of their families are now residents of this 
county. 

Erastus H. Murray bought the Yiets House, and improved it by 
putting on additions in the rear, finishing off the second story, and 
building a good frame barn on the rear of the lot. He made it a 
comfortable hotel, although limited in capacity, to accommodate the 



348 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

traveling public. lie gave it the name of " Winona House, " and 
kept it until early in the spring of 1854, when he sold it to Charles 
Eaton, who came here at that time. The following June Mr. Eaton 
sold out his interest in the Winona House to S. H. Lombard, a 
recent arrival, and moved upon his claim, where George I. Parsons 
now lives. He is now a citizen of St. Paul. S. H. Lombard kept 
the Winona House a year or two, when he leased or sold it. The 
building was burned in the big fire of 1862. Mr. Lombard is yet a 
resident of Winona. 

Mr. Murray built a dwelling on Fourth street, which is yet stand- 
ing and is part of the New England House. In 1854 he built a 
dwelling on lot 4, block 14, and also a building for a boot and shoe 
shop on lot 5 of the same block, on the corner of Second, and Lafay- 
ette streets, where "Mues' Block" now stands. He carried on 
business here for two or three years with his brother, W. H. Mur- 
ray. His shoe-shop was afterward used for the postoffice. None 
of Mr. Murray's family are now residents of this part of the state. 

Warren Rowell became a resident of this county in April, 1853. 
He landed on Wabasha prairie and staid there with his family for 
about a month. During that time he occupied a part of the shantj 
built by Mr. Stevens the year before for Mr. Goddard. Late in the 
fall Mrs. Goddard had built a house on the southeast corner of 
Franklin and Front streets, where she lived during the winter. 

Finding no better accommodations, Mr. Powell fixed up a part 
of the Stevens shanty as a place for his family to stay in for a few 
weeks, until he could select a location suitable for a farm. The 
other end of the shanty (a long building) was used as a barn, or 
place for the storage of hay and corn. This building was afterward 
burned by a prairie fire. 

Mr. Powell selected a claim next above Gorr's, in what is now 
Pleasant Valley, built a log house, and moved there about the first 
of June. Some of the settlers from the prairie went out and helped 
raise his cabin. The claim he made in the spring of 1853 he still 
occupies ; it is the farm where he now resides, and has been his 
home about thirty years. The claim shanty — the log cabin of early 
days — has been superseded by more modern buildings. Large 
barns and outbuildings have taken the place of the pole sheds 
covered with wild grass. 

Mr. Powell was among the earlier settlers in this county to 
locate on farming lands as a home. By attentively minding his 



A BLOODY CONFLICT. 349 

own business he has made farming a profitable business in the valley 
where he lives. 

In May, 1853, Dr. John L. Balcombe returned to Wabasha 
prairie from Illinois, where he had spent the winter. When he left, 
in the fall previous, he sold out his interest here, including his 
houses, to Edwin Hamilton, retaining his shanty on the acre given 
him by Johnson. During the winter Ed. Hamilton had used his 
dwelling as a stable. When the doctor resumed possession he 
found it more economical and agreeable to move the cabin to a new 
locality rather than attempt to remove the refuse and renovate the 
building as it stood. He occupied this temporarily. 

Not liking his location on the acre he had first selected, he aban- 
doned it, and purchased lot 3 in block 9 of Smith and Johnson, for 
which he paid twenty dollars. The deed, a quit-claim, was made 
September 29, 1853, and tiled for record January 25, 1854. He 
had had possession of the lot for two or three months previous, and 
built a house on it. This building fronted toward the river, and 
was designed for a stoi-e. It was about 20 X 40, two stories high. 
The front of the lower story was finished with large windows and 
folding doors. On the east side of the building a lean-to was 
attached, about 12x24. Before it was completed Dr. Balcombe 
sold this structure to Horace Ranney, but did not deliver possession 
of it until the spring of 1854. It was afterward known as the 
"Ranney Building," and was used for quite a variety of purposes 
— as a private dwelling, for offices, as a hotel, and lastly as a tene- 
ment house for several families. It was burned in the fire of 1862. 

Early in the summer of 1853 (July 11) Dr. Balcombe bought 
an undivided half of twenty acres of the Beecher Gere claim, east of 
the eighty sold to A. M. Fridley, and of twenty acres west of the 
Fridley claim. The other half of these two lots was purchased by 
Sanborn and Colburn. He also made a claim on the upper prairie, 
where Charles Riley now lives. This he afterward improved, and 
built the farmhouse now standing, which he occupied at the time 
of his death, September 24, 1856. Although poor health prevented 
Dr. Balcombe from being prominent, he took an active interest in 
the development of this part of the territory and in the political 
questions of his day. M. Wheeler Sargent says, in his historical 
address, "Dr. John L. Balcombe was a man of the most extended 
information of any among the early settlers, * * * one of the 
first and best of our early citizens." 



350 JllS'l'OJiV OF WINONA COUNTY. 

George H. Sanborn came into the county early in the spring ol 
1853 and settled on Wabasha prairie. Soon after Wm. H. Colborn 
came on and joined him here. About the middle of June these two 
young men o])ened the lirst store iri the county, with a general 
assortment of goods. For temporary occupancy, the "car-house" 
of Denman was moved to lot 5, block 10, and covered with a 
shingled roof. They here commenced business as Sanborn & Col- 
born. During the summer they built a store on the corner of the 
same lot, about 20x40, two stories high, and continued in business 
until the spring of 1854, when Mr. Colborn withdrew and a new 
lirm was formed, consisting of G. H. Sanborn and M. K. Drew. E. 
L. King became a partner the same spring. They carried on the 
business during" that season and then sold their stock of goods to 
Dr. Childs, who continued business for a short time in the same 
location. In 1855 Sanborn & King started in the forwarding and 
commission and wholesale and retail grocery business at the toot 
of Johnson street. 

Mr. Sanborn in 1856 built a very large three-story building on 
the river, at the foot of Washington street, which was known as 
Sanborn's warehouse. The third story of this building was used as 
a hall for public meetings. It was fitted up with a stage and scenery 
by the Philharmonic Society soon after it was first organized, and 
used by them until they moved to their present location. T!ie 
building was torn down many years ago by the railroad company, 
into whose possession the property passed. 

Soon after he came here in 1853 Mr. Sanborn purchased the 
Viets claim and subsequently had it surveyed and plotted. It is 
now known as Sanborn's addition. He built his first residence on 
this claim in 1855, a small story-and-a-half house, on the corner of 
Lafayette and Wabasha streets. It is yet standing, and forms a 
part ot the present residence of J. L. Brink. Mr. Sanborn was 
engaged in business for several years in Winona. About 1859 he 
closed up his affairs here and went east to live. He is now in 
Northern Dakota, where it is reported that he has made some 
fortunate specuUitions as a pioneer in that locality. 

As an incident of early days, an adventure of Mr. Sanborn's, 
brought to the mind of the writer, is thought worthy of notice. Mr. 
Sanborn was the owner of a pair of fine driving-horses. One of 
these was a valuable horse, which he used as a saddle-horse. 
Although broken to harness, he had nothing that he considered 



A BLOODY CONFLICT. o51 

suitable to drive him in during the winter. Having business in St. 
Paul, he adopted the idea of taking his horse with him and bringing 
back a stylish cutter. There was not sufficient snow to drive up, 
and he proposed to ride his horse to St. Paul. 

On the first of January, 1855, he started on his trip, taking 
along a new single-harness, with blankets and a biiifalo-skin, on 
which he proposed to ride, instead of a saddle, expecting to reach 
Wabasha that day. He went up Straight slough on the ice. When 
he reached Haddock slough, about where S. M. Burns lost his 
horses two years before, his horse broke through the ice, which was 
thin at that place, and took Mr. Sanborn into the water with him. 
With some difficulty he crawled out on the ice, which was brittle 
and gave way to his weight. He was within about twenty reds of 
the shore, for which he was headed when the accident occurred. 

The day was intensely cold, with a piercing wind, and a cold 
bath was far from agreeable with the thermometer showing zero. 
His horse remained afloat and broke the ice in his efforts to climb 
out after his master. Mr. Sanborn hastened to the shore and 
procured some logs of wood and rocks, with which he broke the ice 
and opened a channel to where the water was less than two feet 
deep. The intelligent animal followed him closely, but was unable 
to climb out on the ice. He was chilled through by the length of 
time he had been in the water. Mr. Sanborn was completely 
exhausted from the fatigue and cold, he having slipped in several 
times while breaking the ice. 

Feeling benumbed and unable to do more for his horse, he 
started off for help. When he reached Mr. Burley's, nearly a mile 
below, he was almost unconscious. His clothing was frozen stiff 
and solid, and he was compelled to crawl on his hands and knees to 
reach the house. He was taken care of, and men went up to help 
the horse, if he was not beyond help. Thej^ found him dead. Mr. 
Sanborn had loosened the harness and blankets while the horse was 
in the deep water, and they had floated away under the ice. 

Mr. Sanborn recovered from his exposure with some frost-bites, 
but without any serious illness following. He returned to Winona 
as soon as he was able to be moved, which was in a day or two 
after, and sent to St. Paul for his cutter, which was brought down 
by the mail-carrier. His second-best horse was promoted and 
became the pet. 

William Davidson came into this county April 6, 1853. After 



352 HISTORY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

some time spent in prospecting and explorations in the western part 
of the county, he selected a claim at the head of a small branch of 
the White Water, in what is now the town of St. Charles, on 
Sec. 10, T. 106, R. 10. He returned to Clayton county, Iowa, 
where his family were then living, and made his arrangement to 
transport them with his household goods, farming implements and 
live stock, up througli the country- to the location he had selected in 
Minnesota as his future home. 

Mr. Davidson started with four yoke of oxen and three wagons ; 
these, with his cows and young stock, and a saddle-pony used to 
collect the cattle, made up quite an immigrant train. They came 
into this county on the "old government trail," — the trail over 
which the Winiiebagoes were taken when removed from Iowa to 
Long Prairie in 1848, up through Money Creek valley and out on 
the ridge near the head of Burns valley. They then went west, 
keeping on the high land to avoid the ravines leading into the 
Rolling Stone, to Bentleys, now Utica, and reached their destination 
about the first of June. They were eleven days making this trip of 
about 125 miles. 

Mr. Davidson was the first settler to come into the county by 
the "overland route." He immediately set his breaking team to 
work and put in a field of seed-corn and planted a garden. He 
built a commodious log house, making a trip to Winona in the latter 
part of June for lumber to complete it. Until their log house was 
ready for occupancy they lived in camp with but temporary shelter. 
He raised a good crop of corn and vegetables the first season, 
sufficient for his own use. The cornmeal used in his family was 
ground by hand in a large coffee-mill. 

Mr. Davidson here opened uj) a large farm, and in early days 
was prominently active in public affairs relative to the development 
of the county. He was county commissioner and held other official 
positions. He is now a resident of the city of St. Charles. 

L. H. Springer and Benjamin Langworthy landed on Wabasha 
prairie on May 31, 1853. They brought with them their families 
and four yoke of oxen, three horses, eight cows and other animals, 
and also two wagons. Mr. Laird gave them the use of his shantj 
for temporary occupancy until they found satisfactory locations. 
They made claims on the White Water, and moved there with their 
families about the middle of June. 

L. H. Springer settled at wliat is now the village of St. Charles. - 



A BLOODY CONFLICJ. 853 

He built a large, substantial log house and comfortable stables, and 
opened up a farm in tlris locality. This log house was used as a 
hotel for two or three years. " Springer's" was a favorite stopping 
place for all who had business in that vicinity. These were the only 
settlers in the west part of the county in 1853. 

In the fall of 1854 L. H. Springer, George H. Sanborn and 
M. Wheeler Sargent, laid out the land claimed by Springer as a 
town site, and gave it the name of St. Charles. It was advertised as 
being " on the N.E. i of Sec. 19, T. 106, K. 10, twenty-tive miles west 
from Winona on the south fork of theMeniska or White Water river, 
in the midst of as good farming lands as can be found anywhere." 
Mr. Springer was prominently active in all measures to promote the 
general good. He, with William Davidson, was the first to open a 
wagon trail from St. Charles to Winona. Mr. Springer lived a^ St. 
Charles for several years and then removed to Olmsted county, 
where he yet resides. 

Alexander McClintock came into the county this season and 
settled on a claim in the south Eolling Stone valley, above Putnams. 
He built a log house, and pre-empted this as a homestead after, and 
lived here with bis family for several years, until his death. Kone 
of his family are now residents of the county. 

^ Henry D. Huff landed on Wabasha prairie Sunday, June 26, 
1853. He stopped at the Winona House, then kept by E. H. Mur- 
ray. It was su])posed at the time that he came to assume charge of 
Capt. Smith's interest in the town, which his son, S. J. Smith, was 
then here [looking after. He purchased an undivided interest in 
the original town plot of Smith and Johnson, and later in the season 
also purchased the claim of Ed. Hamilton — claim ISTo. 5. Hamilton 
had previously sold undivided interests to others ; Mark Howard 
held a third ; David Olmsted and Orlando Stevens held an interest. 
Through an arrangement with Hamilton and the others the whole 
claim was transferred to Mr. Huff, who at once had it surveyed and 
plotted, and recorded with the plot of Smith and Johnson's claim as 
the "original plot" of the city of Winona. 

Mr. Huff built the cottage now occupied by Lafayett Stout, near 
the corner of Fourth and Huff streets, and brought his family here. 
He lived in this cottage for several years, when he built the house 
on the same corner now owned and occupied by Hon. H. W. Lam- 
berton, in which he resided until he left Minnesota. From the first of 
his coming here he was prominently active in all public enterprises. 



854 JIISTOKY OF WINONA OOITNTY. 

Mr. Huff luul becMi in mercantile l)usiness in Kenosha, and a 
dealer in real estate, before coming here ' He had prior to that 
passed some years of pioneer life in Wisconsin and Illinois, and was 
familiar with early settlements in towns and country. His expe- 
rience, with his natural sagacity and enterprise and his indomitable 
will power, made him a leader in all public matters or affairs in 
whicli others were associated with him. His interests were inti- 
nuvtely connected with the development and prosperity of the county 
and city of Winona. There was no one among the pioneer settlers 
who accomplished so much by his individual efforts to build up the 
city of Winona as Henry D. Huff. To him more than to any other 
person this city is justly indebted for its early prosperity and many 
of its present advantages. It was by him that the name of Winona 
was substituted for that of Montezuma. It was through his efforts 
that Fillmore county was divided and Winona county created with 
the county seat at the village of Winona. 

Mr. Huff started the second newspaper in Winona — the first was 
the "Winona Argus," edited by Wm. Ashley Jones. The first 
issue was September 20, 1854. In April, 1855, Mr. Huff issued the 
first number of the "Winona Express," edited by.W. Creek. In 
November, 1855, Mr. Huff sold the establishment to W. G. Dye & 
Co., who started the "Winona Republican." Soon after D. Sinclair 
became connected with it, and the paper has since been continuously 
issued under that name by D. Sinclair & Co. with the addition of a 
daily paper. 

Huff's Hotel was built by Mr. Huff in 1855. In 1857 he built a 
large flouring-mill near Youmans Bros. & Ilodgins' sawmill. It 
was built at a cost of about $25,000, and was burned a few years 
after. He was one of the stockholders in the original Transit 
Railroad Company. 

Mr. Huff sold out the most of his property here about ten years 
ago and went to Chicago. 

The time set by Judge A. G. Chatfield for holding the first 
session of a district court in what was then Fillmore county was at 
Wabasha prairie, on Monday, June 27, 1853, but the judge failed to 
reach Winona on that day. On Tuesday, June 28, he arrived with 
quite a large party of ladies and gentlemen from St. Paul, among 
whom were two attorneys, L. A. Babcock and H. L. Moss. He 
opened court in the Winona House. Wm. B. Gere was appointed 
clerk of the court. The petit jury was dismissed. The grand jury 



A BLOODY CONFLICT. 355 

was organized and held a sitting on that day. On Wednesday, June 
29. the grand jury made a presentment in the case of Erwin H. 
Johnson, for the shooting of Isaac W. Simonds, and indicted S. M. 
Burns, of Mt. Yernon (Hall's landing), for selling liquor to the 
Indians. They were dismissed at noon on that day and the court 
adjourned. This was the lirst district court held in southern Min- 
nesota. In the afternoon Judge Chattield, with the party from St. 
Paul, visited Minnesota City and the valley of the Rolling Stone. 

.John lams was the sheriff' in attendance on the court. It is said 
that the sheriff" brought his dinner with him from home each day. 
On the first day, as he approached the crowd assembled around the 
Winona House, he was greeted by W. T. Luark, who, with a laugh 
of ridicule, cried out, "Here comes the great high sheriff of Fillmore 
county with his dinner pail on his arm!" At noon the same crowd 
saw the sheriff and Mr. Luark sitting on the bank of the river eating 
their dinner from the dinner-bucket of the sheriff', and washing it 
down with river water. 

Grove W. Willis came to Wabasha prairie about the first of July 
of this year. Before coming. here he had been promised the posi- 
tion of clerk of the court by Judge Chatfield, but on account of his 
failure to arrive in time to attend to the duties of the office, the 
Judge was compelled to appoint Wm. B. Gere to the place. When 
Judge Chatfield was notified that Mr. Willis was at Winona await- 
ing his order, he revoked the appointment of Gere and gave the 
position to Mr. Willis, who was appointed clerk of the district court 
about the 7tli of July. 

Mr. Willis brought his family here and rented tlie building on 
Front street built by Dr. Balcombe (the Ranney building), where he 
lived during the winter. He used the lean-to of the building as his 
office. The same room was also used as a schoolroom for a select 
school kept by his daughter, now Mrs. Gillett, living in the village 
of Chatfield. This school is really entitled to be called the first 
fully established school taught in Winona. It was kept three or 
four months with about twenty-five pupils. 

Mr. Willis lived at Winona during the winter and moved to Chat- 
field in the spring of 1854. About ten or twelve years ago he re- 
turned to Winona, and has since made it his home. 

John Keyes came to Winona on September 12, 1853. He landed 
with his wife and two children at Hamilton's, on the lower end of the 
prairie. He bought an undivided one-eighth of H. S. Hamilton's 



356 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

claim, and lived in a part of his house during the winter and follow- 
ing summer. While living here he procured timber and lumber to 
build a house on the upper part of the claim next below where the 
Hubbards built their houses. The following season he became dis- 
satisfied with his investment with Mr. Hamilton, and having an 
o})portunity purchased the interest of Cai)tain Smith in claim No. 
1, the lower claim. The claim had been divided between Smith and 
Johnson, Johnson taking the west part, leaving the eastern portion 
for Oa])tain Smith. 

Mr. Ke3^es at once put up a shanty and took possession. He 
moved his family there about September 1, 1854, and the same fall 
built the house in which he lived nearly a score of years before he 
built the brick house (to which the old one is attached) where his 
family now resides. John Keyes died in November, 1877. Mr. 
Keyes was a lawyer by profession, and held his office in his house 
when he commenced business here. In the fall of 1855 he was 
appointed clerk in the United States land office by L. D. Smith, the 
receiver, and continued in that position until the spring of 1857, after 
the land office was removed to Faribault. He then resumed the 
practice of law. His office was in a small building on the levee 
near the Winona House, owned and occupied by John A. Mathews 
as a real estate and loan office. In 1862 this office was burned. He 
was afterward one of the firm of Sargent, Franklin & Keyes, and 
at the time of his death one of the law firm of Keyes & Snow. 

From an early day Mr. Keyes took a great interest in the public 
schools of the city of Winona. He was a director and clerk of the 
board from the time the first district school was opened until long 
after the present system was established. The city of Winona is 
more indebted to John Keyes for its present system of graded 
schools than to any other one person among the pioneer settlers or 
citizens of more modern days. 

M. Wheeler Sargent came to Winona in this year. His arrival, 
given in his address, from which quotations have been made, is 
mentioned as follows: ''I first saw this county August 1, 1853, 
carrying a chain northward between towns 105 of ranges 8 and 9. 
The first house I saw was that of Wm. Davidson, August 11. 
Town 105 of ranges 7, 8, 9 and 10 had no occupants. Town 106, 
of the same ranges, had no inhabitants except L. H. Springer, Wm. 
Davidson and families, in 106. range 10, and Hull and Bently in 
range 9. 



A CELEBRATION. 359 

"Town 107, range 9, had Wm. Sweet and family — 107, range 
10, none — 108, range 10, had John and David Cook. The other 
settlers of our county were on the Mississippi, or in the immediate 
valleys of some of its tributaries. 

"On the 19th of September of that year the speaker first saw 
this prairie, coming in from the Gilmore valley. Fancy he made 
something of a spread that night, for, with a half-dozen others, he 
slept at full length on the ground, between his present office and the 
Mississippi, with his hat for a nightcap and boots for a pillow. His 
toilet he prefers giving in an autobiography when called for ; it is 
not particularly allied to the history of this county." 

"When Mr. Sargent came into this county he was in the employ 
of Wm. Ashley Jones, who was engaged in surveying the public 
lands in this part of the territory. On reaching Wabasha prairie 
he decided to locate there and establish himself in the practice of 
his profession as a lawyer. He was appointed district attorney 
before the county of Fillmore was divided, and after Winona county 
was created he was elected register of deeds and appointed clerk of 
the district court. He was the first mayor of the city of Winona ; 
he was also a member of tlie legislature from this county. When 
he first came here he began the practice of law by himself; in 1855 
he was of the law firm of Sargent, Wilson & Windom, and at the 
time of his death, which occurred in 1866, he was one of the firm of 
Sargent, Franklin & Keyes. ^ 

More extended notices of these two prominent pioneer settlers 
(John Keyes and M. Wheeler Sargent) would be made if it were 
not that their biographical sketches will be given under another 
division of this history. 



CHAPTEK XXXY. 

A CELEBRATION. 

The fourth of July, 1853, was celebrated with a great deal ot 
patriotic enthusiasm at Minnesota City. The settlers of Kolling 
Stone invited the citizens of Wabasha prairie to join them in the 
customary honors and hospitalities of "independence day." The 
invitation was accepted, and many from the prairie were in attend- 
2i 



360 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

ance. The occasion was said to have been one of unusual interest 
and gratification to the settlers assembled. 

The celebration was held in "the public square," under the 
oaks. The introductory was the following song, written by Robert 
Pike, Jr., the })oet of the colony. It was sung to the tune of 
*' Baker's Farewell" : 

" We've left the homes our childhood loved, 
The friends we never can forget ; 
The friends that long, long years have proved, 
The friends who still in dreams are met. 

We've come to make us other homes, 

On Minnesota's garden lands, 
Where ev'ry gen'rous heart that comes 

Is met by loving hearts and hands. 

What though the red-man roams the woods, 
And wild and rude the landscape seems ; 

Is it not fairer than it stood. 

As seen in fancy's brightest dreams? 

What though our domes are all unreared. 

And labor in our pathway lies ; 
Labor is pleasant, when 'tis cheered 

By helping hands and loving eyes. 

No greener valleys meet the sight. 

No purer fountains, gushing free. 
No birds of song, or flowers more bright, 

Bringing perfume and melody. 

Hurra ! then, for our chosen home, 

While bound by friendship's silken bond ; 

Our feet no more shall seek to roam. 

Our hearts shall never more despond." 

The orator of the day was Egbert Chapman, who, it is said, gave 
an admirable and exceedingly appropriate address. He was fol- 
lowed by Robert Pike, Jr., who became really eloquent in his 
remarks, which were listened to with pleased expressions by the 
assemblage. 

An elegant repast was furnished by the ladies, to which all were 
invited. The concourse then adjourned from "the park" to the 
tables prepared under the shade of the walnuts, where ample justice 
was awarded the good things provided. After all were satisfied, 
volunteer toasts were drank from glasses filled with pure cold water 
plentifully furnished. 



A CELEBRATION. 361 

Toasts were given by Robert Pike, Jr., Edwin Hamilton, W. H. 
Colburn, R. Taylor, O. M. Lord, T. K. Allen, S. J. Smith, and 
others. Some of them are given to show the character of the enter- 
tainment. 

The first was by Robert Pike, Jr.: "The ladies. May they 
ever be pure, as our own bright fountains ; beautiful, as our wild 
flowers ; as even of temper as our own delightful climate ( except 
the thunderstorms ), and as fruitful as the soil to which they have 
been transplanted." 

The second was by Edwin Hamilton : " Superior cookerv. The 
art that makes us happy, and that none better understand than the 
ladies of Minnesota City. " 

The third was by W. H. Colburn : "The motto of our glorious 
country, ' Union is Strength.' Minnesota City and Winona,— may 
they be ever thus united is the earnest wish of Winona to-day." 

The sixth was by Robert Pike, Jr.: "Winona and Minnesota 
City. May all the rivalry which exists between them be the rivalry 
of good neighborhood, and the desire to excel in offices of kindness 
and humanity." 

The eighth was by T. K. Allen: "Peace, prosperity and 
equality. May it long be enjoyed in Minnesota." 

The twelfth was by E. Chapman : " The glorious 4th of July. 
May the remembrance of the day ever be in the hearts of the 
people. " 

The thirteenth was by O. M. Lord: "Winona. Like her 
namesake, wild and JDeautiful, may she prosper till the height of 
her aspiration is amply rewarded." 

The eighteenth was by S. J. Smith: "Here is to Minnesota 
City from her eldest daughter, Winona. Although the Dark Water 
city, yet her waters are clear and sparkling ; and to its men, who 
being Rolling Stone men, yet gather commercial moss ; and to its 
ladies, who are blooming." 

Another by O. M. Lord : "The Mississippi river, the highway 
of the nation. As long as the water flows in its channel may her 
valleys annually resound with the sound of cannon proclaiming the 
independence of the American people." 

The day's enjoyment closed with another song written by Robert 
Pike, Jr. This was the first time the " Glorious Fourth " was ever 
celebrated in southern Minnesota. 

July 9 the board of county commissioners of Fillmore county 



362 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

met at the Winona hotel, and divided the county into precincts and 
appointed judges of election. 

The part of the county north of a line west from a point five 
miles below the town plat of Mt. Vernon on the Mississippi river 
to the west line of the county was called Mt. Yernon precinct. 
James Kirkman and Louis Krutzly, living at the mouth of the 
White Water, and A. P. Hall, of Mt. Vernon, were appointed 
judsres of election. This precinct had twelve legal voters. 

The Minnesota City precinct was the next south ot tlie Mt. Ver- 
non precinct. The judges of election were II. B. Waterman, O. H. 
Hauk and E. B. Drew. This had the largest number of voters of 
any precinct. 

The Winona precinct included Wabasha prairie only. The 
judges of election were Harvey Hubbard, O. S. Holbrook and 
George F. Childs. 

The Minneowah precinct extended south to a line due west from 
a point on the Mississippi opposite the mouth of Black river to the 
west line of the county. The line between this and the Minnesota 
City precinct was not defined. The judges of election were W. B. 
Bunnell, of Bunnell's landing, James F. Toms, of Minneowah, and 
William Hewitt, of Burns valley. This had sixteen voters. 

The Root River precinct was between the south line of the Min- 
neowah precinct and a line west from the mouth of Root river to 
the west line of the county. The judges of election were G. W. 
Gilfillan, Joseph Brown and John L. Looney. It had ten legal voters. 

The Brownsville precinct was all of the county lying between 
the Root River precinct at the Iowa state line. The judges of elec- 
tion were Charles Brown, Samuel McPhail and M. C. Young. 

At this meeting of the board of commissioners a school district 
was established at Minnesota City, but no specific boundaries given. 
It was presumed to include the whole precinct. 

A petition for a public road from Winona to Minnesota City was 
received and the following examiners appointed — Harvey Hubbard 
and E. B. Drew. These road examiners were to meet on Tuesday, 
July 19, at Minnesota City. C. R. Coryell, of Rolling Stone, was 
appointed county surveyor. 

The next meeting of the board was at the Winona House, on July 
22, 1853. At this meeting Gere and Luark were present. In the 
absence of Mr. Stall, the commissioners appointed Sylvester J. 
Smith clerk of the board pro tem. 



A CELEBRATION. ^ 363 

"The examiners of the road between Minnesota City and 
Winona reported that they had located the road. The report was 
received, examined and fully accepted, and an order issued to the 
county surveyor to locate and survey tlie same." 

This was the first public road ofiicially located in the county. 
The above copy of tlie record is the only documentary evidence of 
the fact. All books and papers relative to the proceedings of this 
board of county commissioners were taken to Chatfield, the first 
county seat of Fillmore county. Mr. E. B. Drew, one of the exam- 
iners, says the road was surveyed and located about where the 
present road from Minnesota City to Winona is now laid. It was 
resurveyed after Winona county was created. 

The first general election held in the county was on the second 
Tuesday, the 11th of October, 1853. At this general election Hon. 
H. M. Kice was elected delegate to congress from the Territory of 
Minnesota. Hon. O. M. Lord was elected a representative to the 
territorial legislature from this representative district. In Jan- 
uary, 1854, when Mr. Lord attended the fifth legislature to which 
he was elected, he walked from Minnesota City to St. Paul for that 
purpose. 

. At this election the following officers were elected in Fillmore 
county: county attorney, Andrew Cole; judge of probate, H. B. 
Waterman ; register of deeds, William B. Gere ; sheriff, John lams; 
county commissioners, John C. Laird, Robert Pike, Jr., and W. B. 
Bunnell. 

The justices of the peace elected were — for Wabasha prairie, 
George M. Gere and Wm. H. Stevens (Mr. Stevens had previously 
served as justice of the peace. He was appointed in July, 1853, 
by Governor Gorman) ; for Minnesota City, H. B. Waterman and 
Robert Pike, Jr. ; for Mt. Vernon, S. M. Burns ; for Minneowah, 
Mynon Lewis. 

Among the settlers who came into the county later in this season 
were Mathew Ewing, Dr. Allen, E. S. Smith, A. C. Smith, James 
McClellan, Luke Blair, G. W. Wiltse, Lysander Kately, James 
Worrall, George Gay and T. B. Twiford. 

Mathew Ewing settled onH. S. Hamilton's claim, where he built 
a comfortable frame house and opened a store with a fair assortment 
of goods. He sold goods during the winter and in the spring closed 
out his stock and gave up the business. He then located himself in 
the village and purchased two lots on the corner of Third and John- 



364 HISTORY op^ winona county. 

son streets, and also a lot on the corner of Johnson and Front streets, 
where he built the building now standing on it. After two or 
three years here he sold out and left the county. 

James McClcllan brought a stock of goods with him and opened 
a store in the front part of the nuiin portion of the residence of Rev. 
E. Ely, which was built this year. Mr. McClellan remained here 
until early in the spring, when he moved his family and goods to 
Chatfield. 

Dr. Allen (his initials are unknown to the writer) came here and 
located himself as a practicing physician. He was the first to settle 
in the county to make that profession his special business. He 
remained here until the spring of 1854, when he moved to Chatfield. 

E. S. Smith bought an interest in the Stevens claim, and for a 
year or two lived in Winona, dealing in real estate, etc. He 
married Miss Mary Burns, and settled in Burns valley, where he 
built the Glen Flouring Mill. He remained there several years and 
then sold out and moved to Winona, where his family yet resides. 
Mr. Smith went to Washington Territory, where he was for awhile 
connected with the western portion of the North Pacific railroad. 
Although he occasionally visits his home in Minnesota, he is yet 
engaged in business in Washington Territory, which requires his 
personal attention there much of his time. 

Andrew C. Smith settled in Winona. In 1855 he started the 
first drug store ever opened in the county. Afler several years' 
residence here he moved to Stockton. He was a member of the 
State legislature from this county in 1869. He is now a resident of 
Rochester, Olmsted county. 

L. D. Smith visited Wabasha prairie during the fall and winter 
of 1853, but did not bring his family here to live until the spring of 
1854. He purchased the " Fridley claim" and built a house on it, 
where he lived several years. This house is yet standing near the 
corner of Franklin and Wabasha streets. He then moved to his 
farm in the south Rolling Stone valley about half a mile above the 
village of Stockton, where he lived at the time of his death. 
He was appointed receiver in the United States land office in 1854, 
and was one of the most active in securing the land grant for the 
benefit of the railroads in this state. Further mention will be made 
of him in other divisions of this history. 

Wm. Ashley Jones was a deputy , United States surveyor. 
During the summer of 1853 he was engaged in the survey of 



4 CELEBRATION. 365 

public lands in southern Minnesota. In the fall of this year he 
visited "Wabasha prairie, and in the spring following moved his 
family there and made Winona his home for about ten years, when 
he moved to Dubuque. He is now a resident of Dakota. 

Mr. Jones held an undivided interest in the Smith and Johnson 
town plot, and also an interest in the Stevens claim (Stevens' addi- 
tion). He opened up a large farm in the town of St. Charles. • It is 
now known as the ' ' Lamberton Farm. " Besides dealing in real 
estate, Mr. Jones found time and means to start the first newspaper 
published in the county, " The Winona Argus." 

Luke Blair came to Wabasha prairie in the fall of this year. He 
bought two lots on the corner of Center and Second streets, where 
the ' ' Simpson Block " now stands. He brought with him a small 
drove of cattle, which he wintered in stables built on the back part 
of these lots. He made a claim in what is now the town of 
Saratoga, but did not occupy it until the following season. Early in 
the spring of 1854 he built a store on lot 4, block 16, and brought 
on a stock of general merchandise. 

During the summer he moved his family out on his claim. In 
the fall he sold the two lots with his store building to W. G. Dye, 
who sold them to Y. Simpson, the present owner, and sold his stock 
of goods to James H. Jacoby, who continued the business in the 
same locality under the name of Day & Co. The upper part of 
Blair's building was used as a public hall. Meetings were held here 
until it was used as a printing-ofiice by Wm. Ashley Jones. This 
was where the "Winona Argus" was started, with Samuel Melvin 
as associate editor and foreman in the office. W. G. Dye set the first 
type for this paper. 

Mr. Blair settled on his claim, which has been his permanent 
home. The vipinity was long known as the Blair settlement. Mr. 
Wiltse and Mr. Kately made claims in that part of the county, and 
wintered there in 1853-4. 

George Gay made a claim in Burns valley, on what was after- 
ward known as the Salisbury Place. He remained here a year or two 
and moved to Wabasha county. James Worrall settled in Winona, 
and about two years after went to Wabasha county. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

CHATFIELD SETTLED AND WINONA COUNTY ORGANIZED. 

In the fall of this year, 1853, T. B. Twiford came into this countj 
from Lansing, Iowa. In his prospecting excursions and explorations 
he discovered the present site of Chatfield, in the northern part of 
Fillmore county, and conceived the project of making it a town site. 
At Winona he formed the acquaintance of Grove W, Willis, and a 
scheme was concocted to form a stock company and make Twiford's 
newly-discovered town site the county seat of Fillmore county. 

The plan proposed was to divide the stock into twelve shares. 
The shareholders were T. B. Twiford, G. W. Willis, H. C. Gere, 
Myron Toms, William B. Gere, Harvey Hubbard, John I. Hub- 
bard, Robert Pike, Jr., James McClellan and W. B. Bunnell. It was 
designed that each of the members of the board of county commis- 
sioners should be presented with a share in the new town site--- the 
proposed county seat, but Mr. Luark of the appointed "board was 
absent fi-om the territory, and John C. Laird, of the newly-elected 
board was too strongly interested in Winona to be utilized. Neither 
of these men were shareholders in the project. 

Twiford and Willis put up a log shanty on the proposed town 
site, to which they gave the name of Chatfield, and placed a man by 
the name of Case in the shanty temporarily, to hold the locality for 
the company. It was generally known that the members of the old 
board of county commissioners, Gere and Toms, whose term of office 
expired on January 1, 1854, were in favor of locating the countj 
seat in the locality selected by Mr. Twiford, but it was considered 
extremely doubtful if they had any authority to act in the matter. 
The law provided that it should be the duty of the first board of 
county commissioners elected to locate the county seat. The first 
board had been ajjpointed by the governor as provided by the act 
creating Fillmore county. 

In furtherance of the plan of Twiford and Willis the appointed 
board assumed the authority to locate the county seat, although it 
was generally conceded by everybody that this power belonged to 
the first elected board. 



CIIATFIELD SETTLED. 367 

The following entry was made on the record of the proceedings 
of the county commissioners by the clerk : 

Pursuant to agreement, the commissioners of Fillmore county, Minnesota 
Territory, on December ]<), a.d. 1853, at the residence of Mr. Case, in Root River 
precinct, in the town of Chatfield— present Henry C. Gere and Myron Toms. 
The object of said meeting was to locate the county seat of said Fillmore 
county, pursuant to the statute in such case made and provided. It was then 
and there resolved that the county seat should be located at Chatfield, in the 
center of section 6, town 104 north, of range 11 west. Then the commissioners 
adjourned, to meet at the residence of W. B. Bunnell, in Minneowah, on Tues- 
day, December 27, a.d. 1853. G. W. Willis, 

Clerk County Commissioners, pro tem. 
The commissioners Gere and Toms met at Bunnell's on the 
27th of December, 1853, and appointed C. F. Buck clerk of the 
board. They here audited the accounts of county officers presented, 
and issued county orders to the amount of $411.47. This was the 
last meeting of this board of commissioners. 

At the time, the county seat of Fillmore county was located at 
what is now Chatfield. The nearest settler was at Springer's, now 
St. Charles. There was not even a claim shanty within ten miles 
of the log pen designated as "the residence of Mr. Case." It was 
then considered uncertain whether the county seat was located 
within the western boundary of Fillmore county. 

It was estimated that on January 1, 1854, there were about 800 
inhabitants witliin the present boundaries of Winona county. This 
is thought to be a liberal estimate and probably a large excess >over 
actual numbers. 

The board of county commissioners of Fillmore county elected 
October 11, 1853, met at the house of Eobert Pike, Jr., in Minne- 
sota City January' 2, 1854. Eobert Pike, Jr., John C. Laird and 
W. B. Bunnell were present. The register of deeds, W. B. Gere, 
clerk of the board, was also present. The board was organized 
by electing W. B. Bunnell chairman. This session of the board 
continued two days. It is evident from the records that consider- 
able business was done. 

The following extract was copied from the record : "The board 
then proceeded to ballot for the location of the county seat, which 
resulted in one vote for Winona, one vote for Chatfield and one vote 
for Minnesota City. As the board could not agree upon the loca- 
tion, they decided that the locating should be postponed until a 
future meeting." 



368 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Aside from the stock company, the shareholders, there was not 
a settler in the county that favored the location of the county seat at 
Chatiield. Meetings were held at Minnesota (^ity, Winona and 
Minneowali condemning the action of the ajipointed board, but each 
locality instructed its representative commissioner to locate the 
county seat at his own home or place, and uilder no circumstances 
to give it to a rival town. 

Mr. Sinclair says in his historical sketch in 1876: "At these 
meetings the commissioner from Minnesota City, Mr. Pike, was 
instructed by his constituents to vote for the location of the county 
seat at that place, and in no event at Winona; but if it became 
necessary for him to exercise discretionary power in making a second 
choice, to vote in favor of Chatfield. The reason is obvious : the 
location at Chatfield, upon the division of the county, would give 
Minnesota City another chance, whereas locating the county seat 
at Winona would forever debar Minnesota City from securing the 
coveted prize. The same reasoning led Bunnell, from his stand- 
point, to operate in like manner in favor of that other rival of 
Winona, the much-vaunted Minneowah." 

While each of the rival localities was clamorous for the county 
seat, without a prospect of either securing it, there were conserva- 
tive men in each locality who favored a division of the county rather 
than have the county seat located at Chatfield, as indications showed 
it would be. This was most strongly advocated at Winona. H. 
D. Huff assumed the leadership of this scheme for the purpose of 
securing the county seat at his town. It was found that Mr. Lord, 
the representative in the territorial legislature from this district, 
although a resident of Minnesota City, was in favor of a division of 
Fillmore county, and promised his aid. He gave Mr. Huff wliat he 
considered the proper boundaries for a new county — tlie same that 
are now the boundaries of Winona county. 

Every means available was brought to bear to induce commis- 
sioners Bunnell and Pike to cast their vote for Winona. Friendship 
and diplomacy failed to win the desired vote. There was no 
compromise with Bunnell. It was said that a bribe of a block of land 
was offered to Robert Pike, Jr., from two prominent citizens of 
Winona, in consideration of his vote, which he indignantly refused 
to accept. 

On January 7 the board met at the office of John C. Laird and 
accomplished considerable business, but failed to settle the county- 



CHATFIELD SETTLED. 369 

seat question. The following extract from record shows the financial 
condition of the county: "There being no receipts, the liabilities 
of the county at this date, by reference to .the bills on file, is 
$536.86." 

M. Wheeler Sargent says in his address: "L. H. Springer 
and myself met H. D. HufiP at his residence, where we agreed upon 
the outlines of a new county, to be called Winona, with exactly its 
present boundaries. Hufit", having the most time and money, agreed 
to engineer it through the legislature. Upon this mission, armed 
with a petition having as many names as we thought the population 
would justify, and the other documents adapted to various sup- 
posable emergencies, he started for St. Paul. 

On January 30, 1854, the board of county commissioners, 
pursuant to adjournment, met at the house of Kobert Pike, Jr., in 
Minnesota City, at which meeting Robert Pike, Jr., John C. Laird 
and W. B. Bunnell, the chairman, were present. The register of 
deeds, W. B. Gere, was clerk of the board. At this meeting 
vacancies were filled by the following appointments : M. Wheeler 
Sargent, district attorney, and C. F. Buck, judge of probate. The 
clerk was ordered to notify them of their appointments. Robert 
Pike, Jr., had been appointed county surveyor at a previous 
meeting. 

The all-absorbing topic of conversation, the vexed question of 
location of the county seat, was settled at this meeting. The 
following copy of the record of their proceedings shows their action 
in the matter: "In pursuance of and in accordance with the 
eighteenth section of the eleventh chapter of the session laws of 
Minnesota Territory, passed by the legislative assembly at the session 
commencing January 5, a.d. 1853, the county commissioners 
proceeded to locate the county seat of Fillmore county. It was 
decided by the board of commissioners that the county seat of said 
Fillmore county should be at Chatfield, in said county, on section 6, 
township 104 north, of range 11 west." 

It was charged by some of the disappointed Winonians that 
John C. Laird sold out his constituents for a share in Chatfield. G. 
W. Willis, now living in the city of Winona, says this was not so ; 
that Mr. Laird never held a share in the Chatfield Land Company. 
Although Mr. Twiford was the originator, Mr. Willis was the 
leader and manager, of the scheme to locate the county seat at 
Chatfield. He says: "Bunnell and Pike located the county seat 



370 IIISTOUY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

— a majority of the board could do it. I never knew tliat Laird 
voted for it, and doubt that he did so, for he always opposed us. 
None of the commissioners were bribed to vote for it, although 
everything else was done to influence them. Bunnell and Pike 
would have voted for Tophet rather than have given it to Winona." 

Mr. G. W. Willis went to St. Paul to procure a charter for the 
Chatfield Land Company, and to defeat the proj^osed division of the 
county. He was successful in securing the charter for the company 
from the legislature, then in session, but his influence there was in- 
sufiicient to prevent the passage of the act creating Winona county. 

The bill for the division of Fillmore county and forming of the 
present county of Winona was introduced and supported by Hon. 
O. M. Lord, in the house. He was strongly backed by H. D. Huff 
as a lobby member and general manager. Winona county was 
created by act of the territorial legislature February 23, 1854. 



CHAPTER XXXYII. 

THE DISTRICT SCHOOLS OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Winona county was formed by the territorial legislature of 
1854, from a part of Fillmore county, which had previously com- 
prised the southeastern portion of the state. The flrst })ermanent 
settlements were made along th# Mississippi river in the spring of 
1852. There was no school taught in what is now Winona county 
during that summer. A subscription school was opened for a term of 
three months in the autunm by Miss Ann Orton, with an attendance 
of about twenty pupils, at Minnesota City. July 9, 1853, a schopl 
district was formed by the county commissioners at Minnesota City, 
and organized under the territorial law, and Miss Hester A. Houck 
was employed to teach. The term began October 31 and continued 
thirteen weeks. The names and ages of the children that attended 
this term of school are given from the rate bill, by which the wages 
of the teacher were collected. The sum agreed upon was $48. 
There were twenty-seven pupils, eighteen of whom are now living 
(1883). The list is as follows : Mathew Foster,* age 11 years ; 

* Dead. 



THE DISTEICT SCHOOLS. 37 1 

George Foster* 6 ; Milo Campbell, 7 ; Thomas Thorpe, 8 ; Robert 
Thorpe, 6 ; John Thorpe, 13 ; William Thorpe,* 3 ; Mary E. 
Cotton, 5 ; Randolph Wright,* 12 ; Dan'l W. Wright, 9 ; John H. 
Wright ; Edith Pike,* 11 ; Emma Pike, 8 ; Charlotte Denman,* 9 ; 
Mary E. Denman, 5 ; James L. Denman, 7 ; Robert S. Denman,* 
3 ; Chas. Kellogg, 15 ;. Rollin Hotchkiss, 13 ; Robert Hotchkiss, 
13 ; Lycurgus Lnark, 11 ; Achilles Luark,* 5 ; Elbridge G. Lord,* 
4 ; David Imes, 13 ; Samuel Imes, 7 ; Herman Hopson, 6 ; Ger- 
lana McClintock, 12. This school district was designated as 
No. 1. May 1, 1854, a petition was presented and district No. 2 
was formed, comprising the town of Winona, and on June 5 
following No. 3 was formed, comprising the north part of township 
105 and the whole of 106, range 10. At a meeting of the county 
commissioners held July 3, 1854, the whole amount of tax autho- 
rized to be raised for school purposes for the current year was 
$152.05. In October district No. 4 was formed at Dakota precinct. 
Schools were opened in'Nos. 2, 3 and 4 before the districts were 
formally organized, and the wages of the teachers were paid by rate 
bill or by subscription. No. 1 was for this year the only one that 
reported a three months' term to the state department. At the 
January meeting of the county commissioners, 1855, the boundaries 
of No. 1 were designated. Yoting precincts had at first been estab- 
lished by the governor, and were afterward so established by the 
county commissioners, and the first school districts embraced the 
election precincts which were not clearly defined. At this meeting 
No. 2 was divided. July 3 the amount of school-tax voted was 
$632.34. At one of the meetingsin this year a district was organ- 
ized at Springers', or St. Charles^ and one in Lanes' Valley, New 
Hartford township, one at Geo. Wiltzies' in Saratoga, and one in 
Whitewater at John Cook's. The school districts of the county now 
numbered eight. At the January meeting of 1856 they were in- 
creased to fifteen ; at the April meeting to twenty-three ; at the 
Julj' meeting to thirty-five. 

At the January meeting of 1856 the first record was made of the 
distribution of the school money. The amount collected was 
$1,336.47, which was apportioned among thirteen districts. 

At the meetings of 1857 the number of districts increased to 
forty-eight. January 9, 1858, the county treasurer reported as 

* Dead. 



372 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

ap])orti<»ned among thirty-tive districts $3,583.50. The largest sum 
to one district was $66'-2, the smallest was $22. 

The ajiparently unequal distribution of this fund gave rise to 
much dissatisfaction. The distribution was based upon the number 
of residents of each district between the ages of five and twenty- 
one. In many cases district boundaries were not definitely recorded, 
and it was claimed that the residents were more than once reported. 
It was also claimed that some districts, instead of revising the lists 
from year to year, simply added new names each year to the reported 
list, and consequently drew more money than they were legally 
entitled to. At the last meeting of the school board for the year 
1858 the districts numbered sixty-two, an increase of fourteen for 
the year. 

The amount of money ap})ortioned among forty-seven districts 
for the year 1859 was $662. There were some complaints in regard 
to this distribution, as the organized districts nuinbered sixty -five, 
and while one district drew $90.75 another only received $3.85 ; but 
as the county business was now transacted by the chairman of the 
township supervisors, and each town in the county was represented, 
there was no cause of complaint, except as to unfair reports of resi- 
dents of districts. 

The first record of the number of persons upon which the 
apportionment was based was made at the January meeting of this 
year (1859), the number recorded being 2,392. This was the num- 
ber reported by the forty-seven districts, upon which the apportion- 
ment was made, although there were eighteen more organized at 
the time. During the year ten more were added to that number, 
making in all seventy-five, showing a remarkable growth for the 
two years. 

The school tax, as reported by the finance committee of the 
county board for the year 1859, was $5,346.37. 

In 1860 the legislature changed the law in regard to county 
boards, and the commissioner system was again adopted, and the 
county treasurer, in his report to the board, February 1, 1860, 
reported as school money on hand $2,967.72, and in March follow- 
ing an apportionment of $4,480.96 was made among the districts, 
which reported 2,724 persons of schoolable age. 

March 7, 1861, the school law was materially changed by the 
legislature in regard to forming school districts, etc. There was a 
revision of the whole code, which was framed from that of the 



THE DISTRICT SCHOOLS. 373 

State of Michigan. In unorganized townships the county commis- 
sioners were authorized to form districts, but where townships were 
organized the supervisors had authority to change boundaries, to 
form new districts, to levy taxes, to appoint a town superintendent 
and to direct the collection of taxes through the town treasurers. 

The legislature having neglected to provide for blank books, 
reports, records, etc., there was no uniformity of reports or records. 
In some towns the teachers^were licensed and the school business 
transacted without regard to any particular form or system, and if 
any records were made they have not been preserved. 

Although the law required that existing boundaries of districts 
should remain if practicable, the loose records and changes, and 
want of system, involved the district boundaries in great confusion. 
Township lines interfered with district authority, and under this law 
districts were divided and new ones created without regard to desig- 
nation by numbers as recorded in the county auditor's office. 
Owing to this condition of things it was found difficult to properly 
and legally levy school district taxes and to collect delinquencies. 
The delinquent taxes were reported by the town treasurer to the 
county auditor to collect with the county taxes, which placed a part 
of the fund in the hands oi the county treasurer. 

When districts were without funds to pay their teachers, orders 
were issued upon the district treasury, whether the particular district 
was entitled to any money from the county treasury or not. If the 
county treasurer had no fund collected for that district the orders 
were usually sold to outside parties at a discount. The collection of 
these orders gave teachers a good deal of trouble. It was said that 
the county treasurer always stood behind outside parties in buying 
them at a discount, and that the district accounts were not properly 
adjusted. This system was not satisfactory to the people. Some of 
the Ipcal boards would not levy a sufficient tax to maintain good 
schools, and, owing to delinquencies, funds could not at all times be 
made available. 

There are very few names on record of town superintendents. 
Among them are found Charles Heublin, A. T. Castle, William 
Murray and Milton Buswell. 

From the years 1861 to 1866 there was no material change in the 
school work. The attention of the people was directed almost 
wholly to the war, and little or no attention was in some places paid 
to school matters. January 4, 1866, the county board appointed to 



374 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

the county superintendency Albert Thomas, sahiry fixed at $1,200 
per year. Mr. Thomas had taught the village school at Stockton for 
several terms. He was the principal of the first high school in Win- 
ona City, and was known as a teacher of marked ability. A previous 
business engagement prevented him from acce])ting the appoint- 
ment. May 22, 1866, the county was divided into five commis- 
sioner districts, and a school examiner appointed for each district, 
in lieu of township supervision. Geo. P. Wilson was appointed 
for No. 1, V. J. Walker No. 2, M. E. Lair No. 3, Thomas P. Dixon 
No. 4, and Henry Gage No. 5. Under the operation of this plan 
the experience was found to be dearly bought. Certificates of quali- 
fication to teach were obtained by asking for them. "There was 
no definite standard of examination and no uniformity among 
examiners. They were not required to visit the schools, or to exert 
any official influence for their welfare, and they felt no responsibility 
for the work of the persons licensed." There being no-unity nor 
system, no reliable statistics could be gathered from the districts and 
no groundwork laid for improvement. The county board now con- 
sisted of J. J. Kandall (chairman), P. P. Hubbell, Collins Kice, H. 
C. Jones and S. W. Gleason. After much discussion, and owing 
mainly to the influence of Mr. Randall, it was resolved to change 
the plan of school work, and at a meeting of the board, Septem- 
ber 7, 1867, a resolution was adopted to organize the school work 
of the county under a provision of the school law of 1864", pro- 
viding for a county superintendency, in lieu of the general law as 
specified in section 28 of the same act. In this resolution was also 
embodied the appointment of Luther A. West as school superin- 
tendent, to hold his office until January, 1868, at an annual salary 
of $1,000. January 1, 1868, Mr. West was reappointed to serve 
until January, 1869. Mr. West entered upon the duties of his 
ofiice in 1867. He was a good scholar, a teacher of large experience, 
and was well qualified to perform the duties of the office. A great 
deal of the work required was of the missionary order, as the teach- 
ers and the people did not clearly understand the duties of the 
superintendent. Mr. West met with considerable opposition at first. 
Some persons supposed that the whole school authority was 
transferred from the district officers to the superintendent. Some 
were opposed on account of the large salary, and some regarded the 
office as entirely useless. Mr. West made his first special effort in 
the direction of improving the scholarship and methods of the 



THE DISTEICT SCHOOLS. 377 

teachers, in which he was very successful, and as the people became 
acquainted with his plan of work his efforts were appreciated and 
cordially seconded. 

The first teachers' institute held in Winona county was organized 
by Mr. West, assisted by Prof. Wm. F. Plielps and his corps of 
instructors of the normal school. It was held at St. Charles, in 
October, 1867, with twenty-three teachers in attendance, and was 
considered very profitable to those in attendance. 

Prom the annual report for the year 1868 it is shown that ten 
good, attractive and convenient schoolhouses have been built this 
year, at a cost of $11,000 ; also a building at St. Charles for the 
graded school, at a cost of $15,000. During this year Mr. West 
made a strong effort to secure greater regularity of attendance on 
the part of the pupils, and to awaken a deeper interest in the 
schools on the part of parents. That he succeeded in doing a good 
work in this direction will be seen from the statistical reports to the 
state superintendent. The average daily attendance for the year 
1867, winter and summer terms being 2,699, increased in 1868 to 
4,393, though the enrollment of pupils in the last year, according 
to school population, had decreased from 52 per cent in 1867 to 48 
per cent in 1868. Excellent schoolhouses were built at Pickwick, 
Saratoga and Witoka. A teachers' association was formed and 
meetings were held at four different places in the county. These 
meetings produced good results. The people became interested and 
took part in the discussions, and extended to teachers in attendance 
the hospitalities of their homes. 

In October a state teachers' institute was held at St. Charles, 
with seventy-five in attendance. The exercises were conducted by 
an able corps of instructors, and diffused among the teachers a great 
deal of enthusiasm. 

October 26, 1869, a county teachers' institute was held at the 
normal school in Winona, in charge of Prof. Wm. F. Phelps. The 
attendance numbered 118. The lessons were presented by the 
teachers of the normal school and of the public schools of Winona. 
Gymnastic exercises were introduced by Prof. McGibney. Prof. 
Carson gave instruction in penmanship. On Tuesday evening Dr. 
Guthrie, of St. Charles, gave a lecture on geology. Prof Hood, of 
the city schools, participated in the discussions. On Thursday even- 
ing the Hon. Mark H. Dunnell, state superintendent of public 
instruction, addressed a large audience upon "Education." The 
22 



378 HISTORY OF WIKONA COUNTY. 

success of tliis institute was due mainly to tlie ability, activity and 
earnest supervision of PVof. Phelps. 

In the report of Mr. West for the year ending September 80, 
1809, he regrets that he is not able to make the financial part 
accurate, owing to the errors of district clerks. He reports having 
granted certificates to eighty-four teachers — twenty-three to males 
and sixty-one to fqmales; fourteen of first grade, forty-five of second, 
and twenty-five of third, and in a comparison of the year's work 
with that of 1867 shows that great progress has been made, not 
■only in the character of the certificates, but in the increased interest 
in school matters by the parents, as shown by the increase of 
teachers' wages, and in the discipline, order and conduct of the- 
schools. This improvement he attributes to the institute work and 
to the influence of professional training of some of the teachers in 
the normal school. There were eleven new schoolhouses built, at 
an aggregate cost of $9,227. 

At the legislative session of 1869 the law was changed as to the 
term of county superintendents, and the county board appointed Mr. 
West again to serve until April, 1870. At the meeting of the county 
board in March the Rev. David Burt was appointed, and entered 
upon the duties of his office April 5, 1870. Mr. Burt had taught in 
the common schools of Massachusetts for ten years, when he entered 
upon an academic course to prepare for college. He graduated at 
Oberlin, Ohio, in 1848, and then spent three years in the theological 
seminary at Andover, Massachusetts. He removed to Winona in 
1858, and took an active part in all educational work ; he acted as 
member of the school board of Winona city, and served as superin- 
tendent of its public schools. In 1866 he assumed the duties of 
general superintendent of the colored schools of Tennessee, where 
he served for two years. Impaired health compelled him to return 
to Winona. 

His appointment to the county superintendency was considered, 
and afterward proved to be, a fortunate and wise measure for the 
public schools. In addition to his great natural ability, he was for- 
tified in the work by a useful and varied experience and untiring 
energy and faithfulness. He continued to hold the office until ap- 
pointed by Gov. Davis to the state superintendency in 1875. 

Mr. Burt's first public examination for teachers was held at 
Stockton, April 22, 1870, and before the close of the month others 
were held at Winona, Fremont, Elba and Witoka. For this year 



THE DISTRICT SCHOOLS. 379 

there were issued 114 certificates ; ninety-three schools were visited 
and lectures given on ' ' Our Common Schools " at Utica, White- 
water, Elba, New Hartford, Saratoga, Hillsdale, Lewiston, Stock- 
ton, Pickwick, Minnesota City an dfDresback ; also in districts Nos. 9 
and 74. 

From his report to the state department of November 1, 1870, 
there were ninety-nine organized districts and eight unorganized. 
The schoolable population was 5,463 ; number enrolled, 4,059. 

A teachers' institute in charge of Mr. Burt was held at St. 
Charles, October 3, 4, 5 and 6, 1871. The enrollment of actual 
teachers was sixty-five, and the institute was conducted on the 
plan of class recitations, and was pronounced by all in attendance a 
decided success. The instructors are named as L. T. Weld, J. 
E. Richards, E. Holbrook, Miss C. Harding, Miss F. Barber, C. 
Pickert, G. Olds, Miss E. Fisher, Geo. Wilson, Miss A. Bingham, 
Miss ]Sr. Taft and C. Boyd. There were three evening lectures : on 
Tuesday evening, on Reading, by Mr. Burt ; on Wednesday, Mo- 
tions of the Earth, by Mr, Richards ; and on Thursday evening, 
Our Common Schools, by Hon. Wm. H. Yale. 

At the fall examinations of 1874 sixty-one teachers were licensed. 
The schools, except ten, were visited during the winter following. 
In the spring of 1875 Mr. Burt, having accepted an appointment as 
state superintendent, was requested by the county commissioners to 
grant certificates to a sufficient number of teachers to enable the dis- 
tricts to go on with their schools for the summer terms, or until his 
successor could be appointed. The school law at this time required 
a county superintendent to hold a state certificate. Special exami- 
ners were appointed and held a meeting in Winona, at which 
there were only two or three candidates. The successful one was 
Mr. John M, Cool, of St. Charles, who was then appointed county 
superintendent by the board. Mr. Cool had received a common 
school education in Tomkins county, New York, where he had also 
taught two terms of school. He came to Minnesota in 1857, and 
taught in St. Charles seven terms of school. He was recognized as 
a very capable and efficient teacher. Mr. Cool issued two certifi- 
cates of second grade, four of third and rejected two applicants. 
He visited a few schools in the beginning of summer, and was 
taken sick, from which he was unable to do any more school- 
work. At his death the vacancy was filled, at a special meeting of 
the county commissioners on the 28th of September, 1875, by the 



380 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

appointment of O. M. Lord, who entered immediately upon the 
duties of tlie office. 

Owing to the resignation of Mr. Burt and to the sickness of Mr. 
Cool, the summer schools received very little supervision. 

The county superintendents' report to the state department was 
required to be made October 10, the school year closing September 
30. The new incumbent found in the office teachers' term reports 
lor the winter term, . but some teachers did not report the summer 
terms, and several district clerks failed to make financial reports. 
There was only ten days of time in which to report to the state 
department, and no personal knowledge could be obtained of the 
condition of tlie schools in that limited time ; the consequence was, 
that the county superintendent's report for the year 1875 was very 
imperfect, but, from observations subsequently made, there was 
probably no material growth or change in the condition or character 
of the schools from that reported for the year 1874. 

The superintendent held live examinations in the fall, and spent 
the winter in visiting the schools and in becoming acquainted with 
the teachers and school officers. Examinations were also held in 
the spring and the schools visited during the summer. In this year, 
1876, under the state supervision of Mr. Burt, a very important 
change was made in county school work by issuing a more simple 
form of blanks to school officers and to teachers, and by furnishing 
a better form of clerks' and treasurers' books, and of school registers. 
A change was also made in the law in regard to reporting persons, 
entitled to appointment of the state school fund. Only those 
reported by the teachers as enrolled in the public schools, ol school- 
ahle] age, were now entitled to the school fund, instead ol the 
resident population of the same ages. Through these changes and 
by this system the school statistics may be considered as entirely 
reliable. 

For the purpose of showing the extent of the growth of the 
schools of Winona, tlie following statistical tables, taken from the 
reports ol the county superintendents of schools to the state depart- 
ment for the years 1867 and 1882 respectively, are given. 

It may be mentioned here that the table of 1867, which was 
prepared by the then superintendent, Mr. Luther A. West, pre- 
viously mentioned, is an especially valuable one, as it is the first on 
record ol the schoolwork of the county combined as a whole. 
Attention is called to a comparison of the following items of both 



THE DISTRICT SCHOOLS. 381 

tables, whereby some idea can be formed regarding the growth of the 
schools of the county for a period of fifteen years. 

SCHOOL STATISTICS OF WINONA FOR THE YEAE 1867. 

Number of school districts 99 ; frame schoolhouses 71, brick 1, 
log 14—86; value of all schoolhouses and sites $92,194; whole 
number of scholars, male 3,248, female 3,259 ; whole number of 
scholars in winter schools, male 1,475, female 1,218 ; average daily 
attendance in winter scoools 1,721 ; length of winter schools in 
months 216 ; number of teachers in winter schools, male 42, female 
41 ; average wages per month of each teacher in winter schools, 
male $29.24, female $19.24; whole number of pupils in summer 
schools, male 789, female 720 ; average daily attendance in summer 
978 ; length of summer schools in months 229 ; number of teachers 
in summer schools, male 5, female 80 ; average wages per month of 
teachers in summer schools, male $18.66, female $16.92; whole 
number of different schools for the year 168 ; whole number of 
different persons in school for the year, male 1,833, female 1,661 ; 
per cent of aggregate attendance to the whole number of pupils in 
the county .53; whole amount of wages paid teachers for the year 
^11,608 ; for building, parchasing, hiring, repairing or furnishing 
schoolhouses and purchasing lots $6,500.12 ; amount paid as teach- 
ers' wages $17,185.53; amount paid for other school purposes 
$1,551.79; cash on hand in district treasuries $718.45 ; number of 
new schoolhouses built during past year 11, value of same $62,800 ; 
amount received from state school fund $92,194; amount received 
by taxes voted by districts $30,550.84; percent of school money 
raised by tax on taxable property in county .0101. 

1882. 
Number of school districts, common school 111, special 2 — 113 ; 

number of frame schoolhouses 91, brick 7, log 7, stone 2 107; 

value of schoolhouses and sites $58,210, of school libraries $59, of 
school apparatus $695 ; whole number of schools enrolled, summer 
4,089, winter 5,351 ; average daily attendance in winter 3,677 ; 
average length of school in months 61 ; number of teachers in 
winter schools, male 47, female 107; average monthly wages of 
teachers for the year, male $35U, female $281?-; average daily 
attendance in summer 3,082 ; number of teachers in summer 
school, male 18, female 114 ; paid for teachers' wages and board 



382 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTRY. 

$21,465.09 ; paid for building, purchasing, hiring, repairing or 
furnishing sclioolhouses, purchasing lots, etc., $10,545.53 ; cash on 
hand at end of the year $18,021.59 ; number of new schoolhouses 
built, frame 2, value of same $1,100 ; received from school fund, 
liquor licenses, fines and estrays $8,068.55, from one-mill tax 
collected $6,978.98, from special taxes collected $21,937.03, from 
bonds sold $8b0, from all other sources $914.56. 

From the report of the county superintendent for 1867 it appears 
that there were sixty-three certificates granted, eleven of them to 
males and fifty-two to females. Of these certificates, three were of 
the first grade, fifteen of the second and forty-five of the third. 

The superintendent complains of the parsimony of boards in 
hiring teachers, and in supplying the schoolhouse's with comfortable 
seats, desks and other fixtures. The average wages for the year 
was $19 per month. 

From the report of Mr. Lord, the present superintendent, for 
1882 we learn that one hundred and forty-two certificates were 
granted in the previous school year ; of these, thirty-four were 
received by males and one hundred and eight by females. 

The class of certificates issued were three only of the first grade, 
while there were ninety-four of the second and forty -five of the third 
grades. This, together with the fact that thirty-four applicants were 
rejected, goes to show that the standard of teachers' examinations 
in Winona under Mr. Lord is a high one. 

From the year 1880 until the present (1883) there have been no 
marked clianges in the condition and character of the schools, ex- 
cept such slight ones as might be expected in the natural growth of 
educational work. With the yearly development of the country, its 
increase in wealth and material prosperity, the expenditures for 
school purposes have been more liberal, tending to better school- 
houses and fixtures, and to the em])loyment of a higher gracje of 
teachers. At the close of this year, thirty years will have passed 
since the organization of the first school district in this county. As 
the present superintendent of sckools for this county was one of the 
trustees of that first organized district, and for the past eight years 
has been engaged in active schoolwork, it affords us pleasure to 
give the following brief recapitulation, furnished by him, of some 
of the important matters connected with the schools of then and now: 
"Thirty years ago our only schoolhouse was a small, roughly- 
covered log cabin, furnished with one small window and a door 



SKETCH OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 383 

creaking upon wooden hinges and fastened with a wooden latch. 
This rude structure was, after a short time, superseded by a small 
but snug frame building, which, soon proving too small for the 
accommodation of the rapidly growing district, was enlarged by 
putting an addition to it. This enlarged frame schoolhouse in turn 
gave place to a substantial brick one, which Mr. Burt has described 
as having been built at Minnesota City. The teacher of that fimt 
school received $48 for three months' work. The trustee made the 
rate-bill and collected the wages, and the text-books used by the 
scholars had been formerly used by fathers and mothers in nearly 
every state between the Atlantic seaboard and Minnesota. 

"iVbw there are in Winona county (outside of Winona and St. 
.Charles City) one hundred and eight schoolhouses, valued at over 
$50,000, while the teachers' wages for a single year aggregate 
$214,650. Besides this increase in the county schools, the school 
buildings and educational expenses of one independent district in 
the county aggregates a much larger amount than that above noted. 
Then (thirty years ago) there were about twenty children in that 
one school district of the county. Now^ including those in attend- 
ance at the normal and parochial schools, they number nearly 
7,000." 



CHAPTEK XXXYHI. 

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL OF 
MINNESOTA, AT WINONA. 

Near the close of the session of the first legislature of the state, 
August 2, 1858, an act was passed providing for the establishment 
of three state normal schools. This legislation was suggested by 
Dr. John D. Ford, of Winona, and secured by his untiring efforts 
through the legislature delegation from Winona county. Lieut. 
Gov. Wm. Holcombe, of Stillwater, gave the measure his earnest and 
cordial support, and became the first president of the state normal 
board of instruction. This board, consisting of Lieut. -Gov, Hol- 
combe, Dr. A. E. Ames, Dr. E. Bray, of Carver, and Dr. J. D. 
Ford, of Winona, held their first meeting at the Capitol at St. 
Paul, August 16, 1859. After receiving and considering an appli- 
cation from the city of Winona, accompanied by a subscription of 



384 IIISTOUY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

17^000 — $2,000 in excess of the amount required by the act — 
the following resolution was offered by Dr. Ford, and passed unani- 
mously : 

Resolved, That the first state normal school be located at Winona, provided 
the subscription from Winona of $7,000 be satisfactorily secured to the uses of 
said school, as directed by the board of directors. 

And thus was located at Winona the first state normal school of 
Minnesota, and at that time the only state normal school west of the 
Mississippi. 

The following named citizens of Winona were appointed as the 
first prudential committee : Sylvester J. Smith, Dr. J. D. Ford, 
Rev. D. Burt and Wm. S. Drew. 

The second meeting of the board was held at Winona, November 
9, 1859, at which meeting block 17, Sanborn's addition, was, after 
considerable deliberation, selected as a suitable site for the proposed 
school, the board wisely preferring a central location, in order that 
a model department miglit be maintained in connection with the 
normal school. On the evening of November 9, Lieut. -Gov. Hol- 
combe, president of the board, delivered in the Baptist church an 
address on the subject of "Education with reference to the establish- 
ment of the first normal school of Minnesota." This address, which 
appears in full in the printed report of the board for 1859, was one of 
great merit. It is said to have made a deep impression upon the young 
community, and doubtless did much to elevate, if not to create, that 
sentiment of earnest support of educational interests which has 
marked the history of this city. In the closing paragraph of this 
admirable address the governor said : "I have in my hand a paper 
which contains the origin, the source and the earnest of the first 
normal school of Minnesota. It had its cjrigin here in this city, 
and the names written on that paper are as pictures of gold, and 
should be handed down to future generations as evidence of their 
wisdom and benevolence. This paper subscribes about $7,000 to 
the establishment of the normal school here, the most of which, 
over $5,000, has been secured promptly to the state for that object. 
The duty I have discharged is every wa;y an- agreeable one ; no cir- 
cumstances could have occurred with respect to the interests of the 
state to afford me higher gratification than to meet you here on such 
an occasi(m as this. The city of Winona has distinguished herself 
in taking the lead in establishing for the benefit of the rising gene- 
ration of this state [an institution] for all who shall yet call the state 



SKETCH OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 385 

their home. I think the normal schools should precede the common 
schools of the country, for then we should have trained teachers to 
conduct them. When this school shall be in operation it may be 
regarded as an auspicious era, whence to date in future the origin 
of many blessings, and the commencement of a perpetual course of 
improvement and prosperity to the people at large." 

In the first annual report of the noniial board to the governor. 
Dr. J. D. Ford set forth in a clear and forcible manner the claims of 
the normal school to generous support, and its vital relation to the 
common schools of the state. In addition to other recommenda- 
tions to the legislature, he urged in behalf of the normal board that 
"a competent superintendent of public instruction be appointed," 
that "a general supervision of the subjects of schools, school teach- 
ing and school lands is absolutely necessary," and that "the school 
lands should be put into a condition to realize the largest possible 
annual fund for the support of schools." To the credit of this 
normal board, and its able secretary Dr. Ford, it may be said that 
the first state tax for school purposes was authorized and levied upon 
their urgent recommendation. 

An appropriation of $5,000 having been secured, it was decided 
to open the school on the first Monday in September, 1860. Prof. 
John Ogden, A.M., of Columbus, Ohio, was elected principal for 
one year at a salary of $1,400, and William Stearns, a graduate of 
Harvard University, was chosen tutor. 

The school was opened for the admission of pupils on the first 
Monday of September. A teachers' institute, the first ever held in 
this state, was convened at the commencement of the term. Teachers 
from various parts of the state were present, and a number of distin- 
guished gentlemen, including Rev. E. D. Neill, chancellor of the 
university, ex-officio superintendent of public instruction, Ex-Lieut. 
Governor Holcombe, J. W. Taylor, Esq., Eev. Mr. Strong, and 
many others. On the evening of the first day Prof. Ogden gave his 
inaugural address. On the next evening superintendent JSTeill deliv- 
ered an eloquent address on " Education," the closing paragraph of 
which we cannot forbear to quote : "Twelve years ago the Winne- 
bago nation, by a treaty stipulation, abandoned their old homes in 
Iowa and commenced their long weary march to their new home 
near Sauk Rapids, in the northern part of this state. In the charm- 
ing month of June, by mutual agreement, parties by land and water 
to the number ot 2,000 arrived on this prairie. As they viewed the 



386 IIISTOKY OF WINONA (BOUNTY. 

vast amphitheatre of h)fty bhitis, the narrow hike on one side, the 
great river in front, they felt that it was tlie spot above all others for 
an Indian's lodge, and purchasing the privilege of Wabasha, the 
chief of the Dakota band that then lived here, they drew themselves 
up in battle array, and signified to the United States troops that 
they would die before they would leave. 

Twelve years hence, if the citizens who have taken the place of 
the rude aborigines will be large-hearted and foster the normal 
school, the public schools and the churches of Christ, Winona will 
be lovelier than the ' ' Sweet Auburn " of the poet ; and educated 
men and cultivated women, as they gaze on your public edifices and 
other evidences of refinement, will be attracted, and feel that here 
is the spot for a home, and, like the Indians in 1848, they will 
desire to tarry until they die." 

The donation to the board of the use of the city building (now 
the Winona Library building) was another evidence of the friendli- 
ness of the citizens to this struggling institution. The use of this 
building was continued fbr eight years without charge to the state. 

The $7,000 subscribed by the citizens of Winona was not used 
for running expenses, but was reserved for the construction of the 
permanent building in 1867-8, at which time the subscription with 
its appreciated values amounted to $10,000. 

The first year was one of great promise throughout. Com- 
mencement exercises were held at the Baptist church on the last 
week in June, 1861, continuing the entire week. Mr. Allen, of 
Wisconsin, a distinguished educator, Mr. Ilickock, ex-superinten- 
dent of schools in Pennsylvania, Hon. Ignatius Donnelly, and Gen. 
C. C. Andrews made addresses. A part of the literary exercises 
consisted of a colloquy between Miss Charlotte Denman, Miss 
Thorne and others, in which was set forth, in an amusing and 
graphic manner, the current opinions concerning the establishment 
of normal schools, an exercise which will never be forgotten by 
those who were present. 

At the session of the legislature in 1861 a special act was passed 
creating the first board of education of Winona. This board was to 
consist of one school director elected from each of the three wards, 
the ])rincipal and such members of the normal school — at Winona 
as shall be residents of said city and qualified. The word "board" 
was left out of the law between the words "school" and "at," 
which made a very unwieldy board, or an intangible body. 



SKETCH OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 387 

The idea was to copy somewhat after the Oswego plan of uniting 
the jurisdiction of the normal and public schools of Winona, using 
the public scliools as graded and model schools. At the municipal 
election held in April, 1861, Messrs. Thomas Simpson, Richard 
Jackson and John Keyes were elected members of the board of 
education, from the first, second and third wards respectively ; and 
these, with Prof. Ogden as principal of State Normal School, consti- 
tuted the first board of education. Mr. Simpson was elected 
president, Mr. Keyes, recorder and 5'ohn Ogden first superintendent 
of schools in city of Winona, 

In the following year this law was repealed and the joint juris- 
diction ceased. 

The normal school opened in the fall of 1861, with an increase 
of students. Prof. J. G. McMynn had. been engaged as assistant 
teacher. He remained, however, but a short time, resigning early 
in October, to take a position as major in a Wisconsin regiment. It 
may be noted that many of the students of the normal, during Prof. 
Ogden's principalship, entered tlie volunteer army in defense of the 
Union. 

Prof. Ogden resigned the principalship of the school December 
14, 1861, at the close of the first term of that year. 

The following extract from his letter of resignation clearly refliects 
the spirit of those stirring times : 

Winona, Minnesota, December 14, 1861. 
To the Prudential Committee of the State Normal School. 

Gentlemen, — I hereby tender you my resignation of the principalship of 
the institution intrusted to my care, thanking you most sincerely for the 
generous support and counsel you have given me. 

In taking this step, it is proper that you and the public should understand 
the reason that impels me to it. 

1. My distracted and dishonored country calls louder for my poor service 
just now than the school does. I have, ever since our national flag was 
dishonored, cherished the desire and indulged in the determination that — 
whenever I could do so without violation of a sense of duty — I would lay aside 
the habiliments of the schoolroom and assume those of the camp, and now I 
am resolved to heed that call and rush to the breach, and with my life, if 
necessary, stay, if possible, the impious hands that are now clutching at the 
very existence of our free institutions. What are our schools worth ? What 
is our country worth without these? Our sons and our daughters must be 
slaves. Our beloved land must be a hissing and a byword among the nations 
of the earth. Shall this fair and goodly land, this glorious Northwest become a 
stench in the nostrils of the Almighty, who made it so fair and so free ? No, 



388 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

not while there is one living soul to thrust a sword at treason. I confess my 
blood boils when I think of the deep disgrace of our ciountry. 

My brethren and fellow-teachers are in the field. Some of them — the 
bravest and the best — have already fallen. Their blood will do more to 
cleanse this nation than their teaching would. So will mine. I feel ashamed 
to tarry longer. You may not urge me to stay. 

********** 
With these feelings, I am with very great respect, 

Your*jnost obedient servant, John Ogden. 

Prof. V. J. Walker, principal of the Winona high school, was 
placed in charge of the scliool temporarily, during the second term, 
which closed March 2, 1862, and remained suspended until Novem- 
ber 1, 1864. The reasons for this suspension of over two years may 
be inferred from Prof. Ogden's letter of resignation, and may be 
stated as follows : (1) The interest in the great struggle then 
pending for national life overshadowed and overwhelmed everything 
else, and, as a natural corollary of this, (2) competent teachers 
could not be found to take charge of the school. Such men were 
generally in the war. (3) The means for the support of the school 
was inadequate. The state had made no appropriations beyond the 
first $5,000. The state was too busy in the war to care for its 
educational interests. 

During the session of the legislature in the spring of 1864, at 
the earnest solicitation of the citizens of Winona, led by Dr. J. D. 
Ford, an act was passed renewing the appropriations to the school and 
re-establishing it on a permanent basis. This act provided that the 
sum of $3,000 be appropriated for the current year, $4,000 for the 
following year, and $5,000 annually thereafter. At the annual 
meeting of the normal board in the following May Prof. John G. 
McMynnwas elected principal. No movement was, however, made 
to reopen the school until the next meeting in the following Septem- 
ber, when the resignation of Prof McMynn was accepted, and 
Prof W. F. Phelps, former principal of the State Normal School of 
New Jersey was unanimously elected. The principal-elect, being 
present, accepted the position in person and immediately entered 
upon the duties of his office. Professor Phelps' rare ability as an 
organizer and disciplinarian was at once apparent in the prompt and 
efficient measures taken to re-establish the school on a })ermanent 
basis. To the wisdom of these measures and the executive ability 
of their author is largely due the high standing which the normal 



SKETCH OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 389 

school at Winona has subsequently attained, and still holds, among 
the educational institutions of this country. 

The location of the site on block 17, Sanborn's addition, was not 
favored by the citizens generally. At the meeting of the board 
held in June, 1866, the following communication was received : 

To the State Normal School Board: 

The city council of the city of Winona makes the following proposition to 
your honorable board : That if the board will erect the normal school build- 
ing upon the present site, viz : block 4, Sanborn's addition, the city will pur- 
chase and donate to the state the east half of block 3, Sanborn's addition, and 
vacate and donate to the state that part of Johnson street lying between blocks 
3 and 4 ; or, in case it can be procured, the city will purchase and donate to the 
state the whole of said block. This provided that the board will convey to 
the city block 17 in Sanborn's addition. • R. D. Cone, Mayor. 

This proposition was promptly accepted by the board. Subse- 
quently the city bought the whole of block 3, Sanborn's addition, 
and gave it outright to the state, waiving the condition stated in the 
communication of the mayor. 

During the session of the legislature of 1866 the first appropria- 
tion of $10,000 for the building was obtained mainly through the 
efforts of Hon. E. S. Youmans, then a member of the house, and 
Hon. Thos. Simpson in the state senate. 

This appropriation was designed to secure plans and to supple- 
ment the contributions of the citizens and city of Winona, and was 
entirely used in constructing a foundation, — an important measure 
which committed the state fully to the erection of a building at 
Winona. 

The plans for the building were drawn by the architect, G. P. 
Randall, Esq., of Chicago, and were adopted by the board at its 
meeting in June, 1866. 

On the 19th of October, 1866, the corner-stone was laid with 
interesting ceremonies by Gov. Marshall, in the presence of a large 
and deeply interested assembly, citizens of Winona and surrounding 
country. Hon. Thos. Wilson, chief-justice of the supreme court of 
the state, delivered the address on this memorable occasion. 

The foundation was erected under the direction of the credential 
committee, consisting of Dr. Ford, Hon. E. S. Youmans and W. S. 
Drew, Esq. Mr. Drew was appointed superintendent of the work, 
and gave it his personal and efficient supervision throughout the 
session of 1867, until the basement walls were completed and made 
ready for the superstructure. 



390 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

In the spring of 1867 an appropriation by the legislature of 
$50,000 for building purposes was secured, largely through the influ- 
ence of Plon. "Win. 11. Yale, then in the state senate. Only one half 
of this amount was ajipropriated for the first year. The citizens of 
Winona cashed the orders of the board for tlie other half, making 
the entire sum available for immediate use. 

The contract for the erection of tlie superstructure was made 
with C. Bohn, Esq., of "Winona, who had already demonstrated his 
qualifications as a builder in the construction of the high-school 
building of the city. In 1869 the sum of $34,000 additional was 
appropriated "^6> complete the building,'''' and in 1870 nearly $9,000 
more was generously grante(^ by the legislature to liquidate the 
'balance due the contractor. 

Th(? building was occupied by the school September 1, 1869, and 
completed in the following December. 

The following description of the building is taken from the 
report of the normal board for 1859 : 

The general form of the building is in the form of a cross. The 
main edifice is 63 X 78 feet ; the wings are each 50 X 75 feet. The 
basement story is 10 feet high ; the first story is 13 feet ; the second, 
16 feet ; the third, 19 feet, and the fourth story of the west wing is 
28 feet to the crown of the ceiling at the base of the skylights. The 
southeast corner of the west wing terminates in a ventilating shaft 
8x8 feet and 105 feet high ; and the northwest corner of the east 
wing terminates in the main tower, 15 X 15 feet at base and 130 feet 
high. The building is of red bricks, with facings and trimmings of 
a drab-colored calciferous limestone. Its beauty is due not to super- 
fluous ornamentation, but to the harmony of its proportions and its 
massiveness. Through the basement there is a corridor 10 feet wide 
running through the center from end to end. The first story has a 
main corridor 10x166 feet, running entirely thi-ough the building. 
This is intersected by cross-corridors extending from the front to 
the rear entrances. On the north side of the main corridor there 
are four large schoolrooms for the use of the model classes. On 
the right of the entrance of the main tower there is a reception- 
room 20 X 25 feet. On the opposite or south side of the main cor- 
ridor the rooms above described are duplicated. Opposite the 
reception-room is a gentlemen's cloakroom. In the main building, 
in the second story, is the normal school "assembly-room"; its 
dimensions are 63 X 78 feet. In the east wing, beginning with the 



392 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

main tower, we find the principars office, the library and two large 
recitation-rooms. In the west wing are two large recitation-rooms, 
one in each corner, and two large wardrobe-rooms for ladies, each 
12 X 35 feet, communicating with corridor and assemblj-room. In 
the third story of main building we have "Normal Hall," capable of 
seating 800 to 1,000 persons. In the west wing, and connecting 
with corridor and Normal Hall, are four recitation-rooms. The east 
wing is occupied by a suite of rooms connected by open arches, 
designed to be used for a museum. In fourth story of the west 
wing there are two rooms, 32 X 35 feet each, separated by a corridor, 
and with ceiling extending to the crown of the roof, 23 feet in 
height. These rooms are lighted by skylights, and are intended for 
a gallery of art. The steps at each of the five entrances of the 
building are of massive, solid masonry, and are of easy ascent. 
The corridors at each extremity are entered by spacious vestibules. 
The stairs leading to the several stories are easy of ascent, the risers 
being seven inches each, and the treads, which are very wide, being 
made of solid two-inch oak plank, finished in oil. The heating and 
ventilation of the building are upon the plan known as the Ruttan 
system. There are seven furnaces properly located in the basement. 
Underneath the furnaces the cold air from without is introduced 
through ducts having an area of section equal to from eight to ten 
square feet each. 

Space cannot b^ given to a further description of this beautiful 
structure, which is acknowledged to be, even at the date of this 
writing, in 1883, the most perfect building of the kind in the 
Northwest. The plans of this building were subsequently adopted, 
with little change, for the State Normal Schools at Buffalo, New 
York, and at Carbondale, Illinois. 

It should be stated that the admirable adaptation of this building 
to the existing and prospective wants of the school, and its nearly 
faultless construction, are largely due to the experienced judgment, 
wise forethought and energetic management of the principal. Prof 
Wm. F. Phelps, who was permitted to enjoy the fruits of his zealous 
labors, and to carry forward in this building his plans for the 
organization of a normal school of national reputation, until he 
voluntarily resigned this position in 1876. 

The following is a summary of the contributions made by the 
citizens of Winona to the school and building : 



SKETCH OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 395 

Original subscription of ^7,000 to secure site, with appreciation in values |)10,000 

Subscription for purchase of block 4, Sanborn's addition 5,000 

Donation by city of block 3, Sanborn's addition 6,000 

The vacation of street and alleys 2,500 

Cash in bonds of city 15,000 

Use of city building for eight years, and furnishing expenses 4,500 

Total contribution 43,000 

In addition to the above the citizens of Winona have paid into 
the treasury of the school for the tuition of pupils in the model 
department the average sum of $1,500 annually for twenty years, 
amounting to about $3,000. The present valuation of the site of 
the building is $25,000. 

The state appropriations for building purposes at various times 
amount to the gross sum of $115,837. 

In accordance with a plan proposed by Principal Phelps, the 
legislature, in 1871, passed an act establishing in Winona the State 
Soldiers' Orphans' Home, and providing lor the education of the 
children in the normal school. This plan proved to be a wise and 
economical one for the state, and of the greatest value to the 
children. Nearly one hundred of the soldiers' orphans received 
training for several years in the model and normal departments. A 
number completed the entire course, and are now filling important 
positions in the schools of the state. The growth of the school in 
numbers, in reputation, and in all the characteristics of an excellent 
training school for teachers, continued without marked interruption 
until the legislature in 1876, partly by design and partly by neglect, 
failed to make the usual annual appropriation for the support of the 
three normal schools of the state. 

The normal board was called in extra session. During that 
meeting several propositions to close the schools at once were voted 
down by a bare majority. The opposition to these propositions was 
led by Hon. Thos. Simpson, the resident director at Winona. 

Finally the board took action, which was intended merely to 
give the normal schools a chance for continuance if they could find 
any means of existing without involving the board or incurring a 
debt. It was really a life and death struggle with the normal 
schools of our state. Had they been closed then, they would have 
remained closed, perhaps for ever. 

The action of the board availed little ; it said, " Live if you can, 
but don't involve us." Liberal-hearted citizens of this city offered 
23 



396 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

to advance money to carry on tlie school at Winona, but this could 
not be accepted under the action of the board. Gen. Sibley, the 
president of the board, and Prof. Wm. F. Phelps, the principal at 
Winona, resigned. 

The resident director determined that the school should not go 
down. He made a temporary reduction of the teaching force, some 
abatements of salaries, and some extra charges for tuition. He 
appealed to the soldiers' orphans' board, who generously responded 
by paying tuition for the pupils under their care. By these means, 
supplemented by a cash contribution from his own pocket, the school 
was kept in vigorous operation until the following year, when the 
appropriation was not only restored, but was made permanent. The 
action at Winona had much to do with inspiring a like spirit and 
determination on the part of the local management of the schools 
at Mankato and St. Cloud. 

Prof. Charles A. Morey, a member of the faculty and a former 
graduate of the school, was elected principal. 

The following year saw the school restored to its former condition 
of efficiency. In 1878 Principal Morey inaugurated an important 
change in the organization of the school by extending the element- 
ary course, and establishing an advanced four years' course of study 
designed to prepare teachers for the principalship of high and graded 
schools. 

In May, 1879, Principal Morey resigned his position to enter 
upon the practice of law. On the 27th of June Prof. Irwin Shep- 
ard, superintendent of the city schools of Winona, was elected prin- 
cipal ; since which time the growth of the school in numbers, in 
efficiency, and in the confidence of the citizens of the state, has, we 
believe, continued without interruption. 

The following shows the increase of attendance during the past 
four years: 1878-1879, 302; 1879-1880, 342; 1880-1881, 388; 
1881-1882, 439; 1882-1883, 485. 

Hon. Thos. Simpson, the present resident director, has been a 
member of the state normal board continuously since 1868, and has 
served as president of the state board and resident director at Win- 
ona during most of that time. 

The first state teachers' institute, in 1859, the first state conven- 
tion of county superintendents, in 1866, and the first institute of 
normal instructors, in 1872, were all held at the Winona normal 
school. 



SKETCH OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 397 

The first class which finished the course of this school numbered 
sixteen members and were graduated June 28, 1866. Since that 
date to June 1, 1883, twenty-five classes numbering 480 members 
have graduated, while nearly 3,000 other students have received 
instruction for one or more terms. These students, as well as the 
graduates, have fulfilled their pledges to the state with singular 
fidelity and success. Many of the graduates have been called to 
important and lucrative positions in other states from Califoi-nia to 
Maine. Several have received appointments to leading positions in 
the normal schools of the Argentine Republic, S. A., at salaries 
ranging from $1,200 to $2,500. 

Prominent among the causes which have contributed to place 
the State JSTormal School at Winona in the foremost rank of similar 
institutions in America should be mentioned the liberal enterprise 
and singular devotion to its interests on the part of the citizens of 
Winona, as shown by their munificent donations of lands and 
money, by their loyal and unwavering championship in the trying 
times of legislative inaction and indifiference ; by their establishment 
of an extensive museum and gallery of art for the free use of the 
students ; by their continued patronage and support of the model 
school, and by their just and generous pride in the past history, the 
present prosperity and the future promise of this educational 
institution of the state. 

THE SOCIETY OF ARTS, SCIENCES AND LETTERS. 

On May 24, 1871, a preliminary meeting was held in Normal 
Hall for the purpose of organizing a society for the promotion of a 
knowledge of art, science and literature. 

At an adjourned meeting held June 12, articles of association 
were adopted. The corporate members were Wm, F. Phelps, Thos. 
Simpson, Abner Lewis, Mary Y. Lee, C. C. Curtiss, O. B. Gould, 
Sarah L. Wheeler and C. H. Berry. The plans of the society 
provided for "the fitting of rooms in the First State N'ormal 
building for a museum of natural history and physical science, and 
for a department of drawing and the arts of design ; the collection, 
classification and arrangement of specimens in natural history and 
archaeology, and of models in physics and the fine arts ; the collec- 
tion of facts and objects pertaining to local or general history ; the 
establishment and support, on the grounds of the normal school, of 
a botanical garden ; the arrangement and ornamentation of the 



398 



HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 



grounds ; the gatliering of a library of standard works iji all depart- 
ments of science, literature and art ; the collection and preservation 
of all collections, and, by lectures and other appropriate means, the 
elevation of the public taste." 

Previous to the organization of this society, citizens of Winona 
had placed in the normal school building, for the use of the students, 
private collections of minerals and other specimens. Principal 
Phelps had contributed a valuable collection, and the Hon. Thos. 
Simpson had donated his entire cabinet of mineral specimens, which 
lie had been gathering for many years in Iowa, Wisconsin and 
Minnesota. The proprietorshij) of these collections was vested in 
the new society. The collections were increased from time to time 
by additional contributions. 

In 1875 the citizens of Winona, at the advice and solicitation of 
Professor Wm. F. Phelps, contributed about $3,500 for the purchase 




of the Woodman collection of corals, shells, minerals and fossils. 
This valuable collection, and those previously belonging to the 
society, were arranged in suitable cases in the geological hall of the 
normal building in 1878, under the superintendence of Principal 
Chas. A. Morey. The following contract was subsequently made 
with the state normal board : 

1. The society agrees that its collections, apparatus, pictures, etc., shall 
remain in the rooms now occupied by them so long as the building shall be 
used for the purpose of a state normal school. 

2. That said collections, etc., shall be forever free to the use of the normal 
school in said building, its teachers and pupils, and that said collections shall 
not be removed, either in whole or in part, for any purpose whatever. 

3. That, to prevent interference with the operations of the school, the times 
of opening said rooms to the public shall be as the principal and resident 
director of the school shall from time to time direct, and not otherwise. 

4. Tliat the society shall bear all expense of classifying, arranging and 



BIRDS OF WINONA COUNTY. 399 

putting in position all specimens and objects, and of preserving the order and 
condition of the same: Provided, That the state normal board agrees: 1. To 
furnish to the society, rent free, the room now occupied by its collections ; to 
heat, light and keep the same in repair as long as the building shall be used 
for the purposes of a normal school. 2. To give to the society the use of such 
cases, platforms and fixtures as are already placed in said rooms, and to build 
others as the acquisitions of the society may demand. 3. To furnish janitor's 
services for said rooms, as their use may demand. 

This museum has become one of the most extensive and com- 
plete in the west. Three large rooms, connected by arches, are 
lined with cases which are filled with specimens of minerals, fossils, 
birds and animals. A large case in the center of the room contains 
the skeleton of a mastodon. Two spacious rooms in the fourth 
story of the building are devoted to the exhibition of art subjects. 
A curator devotes a large portion of his time to the care of the 
museum and to the collection, classification and arrangement of 
specimens in all departments of natural history. 



CHAPTEK XXXIV. 



BIRDS OF WINOXA COUNTY. 



The following are the birds known to exist in this county : duck 
hawk, pigeon hawk (common), sparrow hawk, sharp-shinned hawk. 
Cooper's hawk, marsh hawk, harrier or mouse hawk, red-tailed 
hawk (common), red-shouldered hawk (scarce), broad- winged hawk, 
bald eagle, great-horned' owl, long-eared owl, screech owl, barred 
owl (summer), short-eared owl, snowy owl, saw-whet owl, hawk 
owl, day owl, black-billed cuckoo, yellow-billed cuckoo, hairy wood- 
pecker, downy woodpecker, black-backed three-toed woodpecker, 
yellow-bellied woodpecker, pileated woodpecker, log cock, red- 
headed woodpecker, pigeon woodpecker, ruby-throated humming- 
bird, chimney swallow, night hawk, bull-bat, whippoorwill, belted 
kingfisher, kingbird, wood-pewee, olive-sided flycatcher, pewee, 
Phebe-bird, wood thrush, robin, brown thresher, catbird, red- 
breasted bluebird, titmouse, chickadee, white-bellied nut-hatch, 
American creeper, long-billed marsh wren, short-billed marsh wren, 
house wren, skylark, shorelark, black and white creeper, Maryland 
yellow-throat, black-poll warbler, scarlet tanager, barn swallow, 
blue-backed swallow, eave swallow, bank swallow, purple martin. 



400 IlISTf)RY OF VVINON'A COUNTY. 

wiix-wing, Bohemian chatterer, cedar-bird, cherry-bird, great north- 
ern shrike, red-eyed vireo, purple-finch, red-poll linnet, snow bunt- 
ing, snowbird, swamp sparrow, song sparrow, tree sparrow, field 
sparrow, chipping sparrow, fox sparrow (frequent), rose-breasted 
grossbeak, ring-rail (occasional), bobolink, ricebird, cowbird, red- 
winged blackbird, yellow-headed bird, meadow lark, orchard oriole 
(not common), Baltimore oriole (common), crow blackbird, crow 
(on the increase), bluejay, wild pigeon (never abundant), common 
dove, pinnated grouse (scarce), ruffed grouse, quail (nearly exter- 
minated), woodcock, Wilson snipe, jack snipe, bittern, stakedriver, 
least bittern (on river bottoms), marsh hen, Virginia rail, coot (in 
marshes). Besides these, there are met occasionally the sandpiper, 
the great blue heron, the green heron, the wild goose and brant, 
the blue-winged teal, the hooded merganser, the widgeon, the piii- 
tail, the mallard, the butterball duck, the wood duck, and other 
ducks. The wood duck breeds here. 

THE WINONA COUNTY PRESS. 

The pioneers of Winona evinced a thorough appreciation of the 
power of the press as an important element in promoting the welfare 
of the young city, and in the development of the promising terri- 
tory of Minnesota. The first newspaper established was the "Winona 
Argus," September 7, 1854:. It was published by Wm. Ashley 
Jones & Co., weekly, democratic in politics. Wm, Ashley Jcmes, 
Captain Sam Whiting, M. Wheeler Sargent and Eobert T. Hunter 
were among the contributors. Samuel Melvin, at the present time 
a merchant in Winona, was foreman in the Argus office. He pur- 
chased an interest in the paper in January, 1855, and continued about 
a year and a half, when he sold back to Wm. Ashley Jones, and the 
paper continued about a year and a half longer, during which Mr. 
Cozzens was for a time editor. After vicissitudes incident to a 
western town twenty years ago, it was compelled to suspend its pub- 
lication in the month of September, 1857, not however, until it had 
accomplished a good wotk for southern Minnesota. 

The "Winona Weekly Express" was the next venture in jour- 
nalism. It was established about August 1, 1855, Wilson C. Huff, 
son of H. D. Hufif, being the editor. The Express continued until 
after the election in November, when the office and material were 
purchased by a company formed to establish "The Winona Repub- 
lican." 



THE wmONA COUNTY PRESS. 401 

In the fall of 1855, some earnest republicans formed a joint- 
stock company, purchased the material of the "Winona Express," 
and on the 21st of November, 1855, issued the first number of the 
"Winona Weekly Republican." The names of these stockholders 
were Charles Eaton, E. L. King, C. F. Buck, A. P. Foster, H. C. 
Jones, A. C. Jones, E. H. Murray, J. B. Stockton, J. S. Denman, 
H. T. Wickersham, Eufus Crosby, O. S. Holbrook, St. A. D. Bal- 
combe, John L. Balcombe, Matthew Ewing, W. G. Dye, J. H. 
Jacoby, L. H. Springer. The newspaper was a seven-column 
sheet and conducted with ability. The editor was Captain Sam 
Whiting. The business manager was Walter G. Dye, who continued 
to occupy that position, with slight intervals, for about twenty-five 
years. Messrs. Foster and Dye purchased the stock of the other 
shareholders and became sole proprietors. On the 19th of June, 
1856, D. Sinclair purchased the interest of A. P. Foster in the estab- 
lishment, and it thus became the sole property of Messrs. Sinclair 
& Dye. In the fall of 1856 Mr. Dye disposed of his interest in the 
concern to Messrs. Balcombe, Murray, Buck and King, who in a 
short time sold out to W. C. Dodge. The latter continued his con- 
nection with the paper only a few months, retiring on the 3rd of 
February, 1857, and being succeeded by Mr. Dye, who repurchased 
one half of the establishment. At this time the firm name was 
changed to D. Sinclair & Co., and has so remained ever since. 

On the 2d of April, 1861, Sheldon C. Carey purchased one half 
interest in "The Republican" from Mr. Dye, who retired. Mr. Carey 
continued a member of the firm until his death on the night of De- 
cember 28 of the same year he entered it, when he was drowned in 
the Mississippi river, Wisconsin, while out with a small party on a 
sleighing excursion. His death caused the most poignant grief in 
the community. 

On the first of July, 1865, Mr. Dye resumed connection with "The 
Republican " as ioint partner with Mr. Sinclair, and November 25, 
1866, Mr. JohnDobbs, an experienced practical bookbinder, became 
one of the firm, purchasing one third interest in " The Republican" 
establishment. In 1859 the proprietors of " The Republican " de- 
termined to try the experiment of a daily paper in Winona, and on 
the 19tli of November issued the first number of the "Daily Re- 
view," a three-column paper somewhat larger than a sheet of fools- 
cap. The publication of this little paper demonstrated the readiness 
of the people of Winona to support — not a first-class journal, but 



402 IIISTOKY OF WINONA COUNTY, 

one of respectable size, considering tlie times. Accordingly the 
"Daily Review" was stopped, and] on the 19tli of December, 1859, 
the " Winona Daily Republican " was started on its career. It was a 
five-column sheet, but was enlarged to a six-column sheet on the 8th 
of April, 1861, and on the 1st of July, 1865, it was enlarged to a 
seven-column sheet, its present form. The " AVeekly Ilei)ublican" 
has the honor of being the oldest republican newspaper in the state. 

In 1S67 the "well arranged three-story brick "Republican" 
building with basement was built. It was occupied in February, 
1868. On the first of January, 1881, Mr. Dye retired, selling his 
interest to Mr. Sinclair. Mr. P. G. Hubbell, who had been con- 
nected with the office since 186i, was appointed business manager, 
and so continued until the first of January, 1883, when Mr. W. E. 
Smith bought a third interest in the establishment, and Mr. Hub- 
bell assumed the duties of managing editor of "The Republican." 
Through a long established career " The Republican, " under the 
superior editorial management of Mr. Sinclair, has wielded a potent 
influence on the aftairs of the county and state, while f(H- the city of 
its choice it has ever been the zealous advocate and faithful friend. 
It is entitled to great credit as one of the important agencies in the 
development of Winona. 

Returning to the history of other newspapers in the early years 
of the county, "The Times" was started by a man who came 
from Fountain City, Wisconsin. The proprietor purchased the ma- 
terial of the " Argus," but continued only a few months. 

"The Democrat" was started on September 9, 1858, by C. W. 
Cottom, who came here from Rochester. He published an eight- 
column paper. In the course of a year or two he sold out to the 
Democrat Printing Company. 

On the 11th of December, 1860, the "Tri-Weekly Democrat" 
was started by the Democrat Printing Company, with J. L. Thomp- 
son, printer ; C. W. Cottom, editor ; Wm. T. Hubbell, city editor. 
This was a five-column sheet. In the following summer the paper 
was closed out and was succeeded by "The State." 

"The Winona Daily State" was established by Massey & 
Wheeler, July 11, 1861. It was a six-column paper. The daily 
was a morning paper, but it existed only a few weeks. Mr. Wheeler 
retired and Mr. Massey continued the publication of the "Weekly 
State," which was first issued July 17, 1861. After an existence of 
a year or two the "State" suspended. 



THE WINONA COUNTY PRESS. 403 

"The Winona Weekl}' Democrat'' was established by A. G. 
Reed September 17, 1864. It was a seven-column paper and lived 
some two or three years. 

The "Democratic Press," which was issued by Messrs. Mes- 
ervey & Pomeroy, was another venture, which appeared in tlie fall 
of 1865, but continued only about six months. 

"The Winona Daily Democrat" was established January 8, 
1868, by Green & Gile. It was a four-page, seven-column journal. 
It was afterward owned by Green & Dresbach, and then by the 
Democrat Printing Company. It suspended after a few months. 

On the 7th of May, 1869, "The Winona Herald," a demo- 
cratic weekly newspaper, was established by Mr. W. J. Whipple, 
It is still in existence under the proprietorship of Mr. Whipple, 
though leased to Mr. T. A. Dailey in the summer of 1882. 

On February 13, 1869, an amateur paper entitled "The North 
Star" was started by some young men, with Geo. T. Griffith, editor ; 
Wm. F. Worthington, publisher ; H. G. Smith, treasurer ; John IST. 
Nind, subscription agent. The little journal subsequently passed 
into the hands of Fred. W. Flint and John N. Nind, by whom it 
was published for several months. 

In 1872 another amateur paper, "The Novelty Press," was 
started at Homer by R. F. Norton. It was afterward removed to 
Winona and conducted by Eber Norton. In 1879, November 28, it 
was bought by Geo. B. Dresbach and the name changed to "The 
Democrat." In January, 1880, it was sold to Hiler, Busdicker 
and Dresbach, and was purchased in January, 1882, by Fred. W. 
Flint. 

On the 9th of October, 1873, E. Gerstenhauer established a 
German weekly called "The Winona Adler," which still con- 
tinues under the same proprietor. 

On the 4th of July, 1873, the "St. Charles Times" was estab- 
lished by H. W. Hill. It was democratic in politics and continued 
until January 1, 1883, when it suspended. 

On May 24, 1875, "The Sunday Morning Dispatch" was 
issued by D. B. Sherwood. Only one number appeared, the pro- 
prietor returning to Michigan. 

On the 24th of April, 1876, " The Monday Morning Bulletin " 
was started by John Seigler. It continued for a few months and 
was removed to Wabasha, Minnesota. 

In 1877, August 11, "The Saturday Evening Postman '' appeared 



404 



IITSTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 



under the editorship and management .of W. A. Cliapman. It ex- 
isted for only a short time. 

On January 3, 1877, the -St. Charles Union'' was established 
by Joseph S. Whiton. It is independent republican in politics, 
and a paper of general circulation in the western part of the county. 




January 21, 1881, a German weekly news])aper, "The West- 
licher Herald," was started by Leicht & Schmid. The firm changed 
to Leicht & Hunger July 1, 1881, and again to Joseph Leicht Jan- 
uary 1, 18S;;, who is the present proprietor. 



WIlSrONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 405 

During 1881 the ^'Utica Transcript," a short-lived paper, was 
started at Utica bj O. S. Eeed. 

On the 2d of July, 1881, "The Winona Daily Tribune" was 
established by F. W. Flint as an evening independent republican 
paper. About the first of July, 1882, it was sold to Morrissey & 
Bunn and changed to a democratic paper in politics, still retaining 
the name of "The Tribune." In January following the paper was 
sold to a stock comj^any and changed to a morning paper. It con- 
tinued until April, 1882, when it suspended. 

The year 1883, therefore, finds the following newspapers in 
existence in this county: "The Winona Republican," daily and 
weekly, republican in politics, established in 1855; "The Winona 
Herald," weekly, democratic, established in 1869; "The Winona 
Adler," German weekly, democratic, established in 1873; "The 
St. Charles Union." weekly, independent republican, established in 
1877; "The Westlicher Herald," German, weekly, democratic, 
established in 1881. 



CHAPTEK XL. 



WINONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



As introductory to the history of the public schools of the city of 
Winona, as they have existed since the organization of the "board 
of education of the city of Winona," April 19, 1861, some mention 
is necessary to be made of the early educational work of the territory 
now included within the city limits. The first attempt at school 
teaching that was ever made in this region was in the summer of 
1852, by Miss Angelia Gere, a young girl of fourteen or fifteen 
years of age, who collected a few small children in the shanty of 
Mrs. Goddard (known through all this region for the past twenty- 
five years as Aunt Catharine Smith). As nearly as the memory of 
old residents can fix such matters, this school was only continued 
for a few weeks, the instruction was of the most primitive kind, and 
the number of little ones eight or ten. The following summer, 1853, 
Mrs. E. B. Hamilton opened a school in her own little house at the 
lower end of the prairie. This school had been in session about two 
or three weeks when it was abruptly closed by the death of the 
teacher, who was killed by a stroke of lightning, June 19. 



406 JIISTOKY OF WmONA COUNTY. 

In the fall of 1853 a private school was opened by Miss Willis, 
long since married and settled in Chatfield, and this was the first 
school, that really deserved the name, opened on the prairie. Miss 
Willis was followed in 1854 by Miss Hcttie Houck, now Mrs. W. H. 
Stevens, of this city, who taught a subscription school in a building 
belonging to Aunt Catharine Smith, on the corner of Front and 
Franklin streets. The number of pu})ils in this school was about 
twenty-five ; the teacher was engaged at a regular salary ; no tuition 
fee was demanded ; tlie funds were provided by voluntary subscri}> 
tion, and the school is really entitled to the name of the first public 
school of Winona. 

During the winter of 1854-5 a school was opened by Mr. Henry 
Bolcom, in a small building on Second street, afterward known 
as Wagner's saloon. This school was supported largely in the same 
manner as that of Miss Houck's, the school-tax for the district 
never having been collected. The pupils in attendance during the 
winter term numbered about thirty. 

In the summer of 1855 Miss Almeida Trutchell, subsequently 
Mrs. David Smith, taught school in the embryo city. The following 
winter, 1855-6, Geo. C. Buckman, now of Waseca, Minnesota, 
wielded the birch. Mr. H. C. Bolcom, who had been attending 
term at Oberlin College, Ohio, having returned to Winona, was 
employed as teacher during the winter of 1856-7, and his work in 
that line closed with the closing of the spring term. The original 
school district No. 2 had been divided in the spring of 1854, prior 
to which time there was but one school district on the prairie. No. 
14, the new district, comprised that part of the town plat west of 
Lafayette street ; but for particulars concerning these matters, see 
history of Winona county schools. In the fall of 1857 a union, by 
mutual agreement of the two districts, was efi'ected, and the trustees 
of the separate districts became informally the board of the qvasi 
united one. These trustees were for No. 2, Col. II. C. Johnson, 
Andrew Smith and H. C. Bolcom ; tor No. 14, Dr. J. D. Ford, 
Dr. A. S. Ferris and John lams. Rev. Geo. C. Tanner was 
employed as principal for the union or grammar school, as it was 
called ; commenced his work November 17, 1857, and before the 
close of the winter four schools were in operation. The teachers of 
these schools were : Rev. Tanner, his wife. Miss Wealth}' Tucker, 
who taught the ]irimary, in what is now ward 1 of the city, and John 
Sherman, who taught in the lower part of the city. Of the early 



WmONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 407 

"Winona schools, from 1856 to 1860, at which time his services were 
transferred to the normal schools. Dr. Ford was the mainstay, and 
pages might be written concerning the straits into which tlie 
hoard were often driven to maintain the schools. As an instance, 
we may note the concert held in the L. D. Smith building, with Dr. 
Ford and his daughter and W. S. Drew as principal fuglemen. The 
proceeds were applied to the purchase of a terrestrial globe, the 
first article of school apparatus purchased for the Winona public 
schools. This globe, which should have been preserved as a relic, 
was burned in the fire of July 5, 1862. Rev, Tanner was succeeded 
in the fall of 1858 by Mrs. A. W. Thomas, who was his assistant 
during the latter part of his schoolwork here. 

There was a constant increase in the work of the schools from 
this time forward. In the fall of 1859 Mr. Y. J. Walker was 
employed as principal, and his work continued long after the city 
schools were established upon a solid foundation. In this work his 
wife, a most excellent teacher, was associated with him, and their 
influence in the young life of the city and its schools cannot be told 
in words. For the eighteen months elapsing from the time of Mr. 
Walker's assuming charge of the schools until they were turned over 
, to the city board of education at its organization, no record survives. 
The final report of the districts to that board are lost, and all we 
know is by the memories reviving twenty-four years of eventful 
history, in which so much relating to those early times has passed 
into forgetfulness that it is impossible to reproduce it even approxi- 
mately. We only know that the schools had no permanent abiding- 
places, that accommodations were difficult to be found and good 
quarters impossible to be received, money scarce and times hard, yet 
out of all the schools emerged tried as by fire, to approve the wisdom 
of their early management. 

B(:»AliD OF EDUCATION. 

By special act of Minnesota state legislature, approved March 7, 
1861, under the title "An act for the establishment and better 
regulation of the common schools of the city of Winona," all the 
school districts and parts of school districts within the corporate 
limits of the city of Winona were consolidated to form one district, 
the regulation and management of which was committed to a ''board 
of education," for the creation and government of which the special 
act above cited made provision. By the terms of this act it was 



408 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

ordered that at the time of liolding tlie regular charter election in 
tlie city, one school director in each ward should be elected, who, in 
order to qualify, should take a prescribed oath of office, and that 
the directors thus chosen, together with the principal of the State 
Normal School at Winona, should form the city board of education. 
It was plainly the intention of the act, as indicated by its wording, 
to make all resident members of the normal school board ex officio 
members of the city board of education, but this intention was 
defeated by the omission of a material word in the engrossing of the 
act. Thus the school board of the city at its organization was con- 
stituted with but four members, one each from the three wards of the 
city, and the principal of the State Normal School at Winona. The 
special provisions of this act of March 7, 1861, it is not necessary 
to make further allusion to, as it was superseded by the act of 
legislature approved March 8, 1862, which latter act it was declared 
should be construed as of a public nature and subversive oi the act 
of the previous year. 'Q^ the terms of the new act the election 
of two school directors from each ward was provided for, the terms 
of office of such directors fixed at two years, and the directors thus 
chosen to constitute the '"city board of education," thus effectually 
severing all connection with the normal school authorities in the 
management of the public schools of the city. By the act of March, 
1862, provision was also made for the election of a superintendent 
for the city schools ; members of the board of education were 
debarred fi'om receiving compensation for their services as such ; 
annual reports were required to be made to the county auditor and 
to the state superintendent of schools, and the board of education 
was invested with such powers as were deemed necessary to their 
existence, government and effective work as a corporate body 
entrusted with the onerous duty of providing the best possible 
educational facilities for the children and youth of a growing city. 
To preserve the homogeneousness of the educational work throughout 
the state, the board of education was made amenable (as far as 
practically applicable) to the general school law of the state, and to 
the rules established by the state superintendent of public instruc- 
tion. There was one provision of this act destined in the course of 
events to become a fruitful source of contention between the common 
council of the city and the city board of education, and for this 
reason, if no other, it must be specially noted. This was the clause 
by which the city council was empowered to pass upon the annual 



WINONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 409 

estimates for school expenses presented by the board of education, 
and to accept or reject the same in whole or in part as they deemed 
best. The city treasurer was made the custodian of all school 
funds paid in under the tax levies ordered by the council or other- 
wise derived, and required under penalty to keep the same separate 
and distinct from all other funds in his hands. The act also pro- 
vided for equitable payment of all judgment liens against the board 
without issuing execution against the school property of the city. 

At the time the act of the legislature creating the "board of 
education of the city of Winona" became operative, March 7, 1861, 
the city was divided into three wards, and^ at the charter election in 
April of that year the several wards elected members of the board 
of education as follows : First ward, Thomas Simpson ; second 
ward, Richard Jackson ; third ward, John Keyes ; and these gentle- 
men, with Prof John Ogden, principal of the State Normal School at 
Winona, were the original board of education for the city of 
Winona. The "board" met April 13, 1861, for organization and 
elected Thomas Simpson president and John Keyes clerk ; Prof. 
John Ogden was made superintendent of city schools, and the 
"board of education of the city of Winona" became a fixed insti- 
tution. 

Concerning these gentlemen, who twenty-two years ago com- 
posed the first board of education of this city, it may not be amiss 
to state that Prof. Ogden left the city in December, 1861, and is now 
in charge of a private normal school at Fayette, Ohio. Thomas 
Simpson is still a resident of the city, in active professional life, 
and president of the State JSTormal School board. Richard Jackson 
was several years in business in this city and died here early in 1875. 
John Keyes, jnstly entitled to the honor so generally accorded him 
as "father of the Winona public schools," died on the old Keyes 
homestead in the eastern part of the city, December 2, 1876, at 
which time he had been a resident of Winona a little over twenty- 
three years. The informal union of the two school districts within 
the city limits, and their harmonious working for nearly four years 
prior to their legal consolidation, were very largely owing to the 
disinterestedness, good judgment and abiding interest in educa- 
tional matters displayed by Mr. Keyes. His work by no means 
ended with the formation of the school board. As clerk of that 
board during the first seven years of its existence, during which 
time the high school building was erected, he became so much an 



410 IIISTOUV OF WINONA COUNTY. 

integral part of tlie public school administration of the city during 
that early formative period, that his influence in the educational 
life of the city can scarcely be overrated. Appropriate resolu- 
tions bearing testimony to his valuable services as an ofticer and 
member of the city school board were spread upon the records of 
that body, and the memory of his labors will long survive his 
generation. 

The great fire of July 5, 1862 (to which reference is so 
frequently made in this work) destroyed the records of the board of 
education, including the records of the schools which had preceded 
the organization of the board. It is therefore impossible to give any 
authentic statement concerning the condition of the schools at the 
time they passed under the control of the board of education. A 
general statement made by Mr. Keyes, as secretary of the board, 
shortly after the tire, appears among the records. From this we 
learn that April 13, 1861, the board of education, on assuming 
charge of public school matters in Winona, found themselves in 
possession, by transfer from the old school districts numbers two 
and fourteen, of some old school furniture, one terrestrial globe, 
one set of outline maps, some rented rooms in various parts of the 
city, some indebtedness, no school buildings or sites in fee, or 
money. The sum of $28.5 was subsequently paid to settle the 
accounts of one of the old districts, and it is only a reasonable 
probability, from information obtained, that the board expended 
about $500 in settling the affairs of the old districts. The public 
schools as then existing, April 13, 1861, were one grammar school, 
or high school, as it was called, of which V. J. Walker was principal, 
and five primary schools scattered through the various wards of the 
city, occupying such buildings as could be the most cheaply rented 
for that purpose. The systematic grading of the schools was 
immediately undertaken by the board and the entire schoolwork of 
the city reorganized. The schools as thus established were one 
high school, ojie grammar school, three secondary and four primary 
schools. The estimate made for the ensuing three months' expenses, 
at the expiration of which the school year as equally established 
would close, was $1,000. This estimate was approved by the 
council and the schools opened as organized under the new arrange- 
ment. A report of the schoolwork for the fractional year ending 
August 31, 1861, gives the following figures : Number of children 
of school age in the district, 772 ; number of children enrolled in 



WINONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 413 

the schools, 382 ; average attendance, 252. The total expenditures 
for the three school months were $932.68, itemized as follows : 
Teachers' salaries $703, repairs and furniture $151.64, rents $73,04, 
fuel $5. 

The estimated expenses of the schools from September, 1861, to 
close of the spring term of 1862 were $2,175, which added to the 
amount previously levied, $1,000, gives a total of $3,157, to carry 
on the nine schools of the city from April, 1861, to the close of the 
school year, August 31, 1862. The work of grading the schools 
undertaken and partially accomplished the previous year was now 
completed. The number of schools remained as previously estab- 
lished and the several rooms occupied by them prior to the fire of 
July 5, 1862, were: primary — (1) Kenosha Ale House; (2) Hancock's 
building, upstairs ; (3) Hubbard's Hall, second story ; (4) Mrs. J. 
S. Hamilton's building, in the third ward. Secondary — (1) South 
room Hancock's building ; (2) Cooper's, then Hancock building ; 
(3) Hubbard's Hall, first floor. Grammar school was held on the 
first floor of the Hancock building, north room until April, when it 
was removed to the brick schoolroom on Front street. 

The high school was first in the Hancock building, then in the 
"brick schoolroom," and from thence removed to the city building 
when the grammar school took possession of the brick room on 
Front street. The rentals for the year were $293, exclusive of 
the Hancock building, the use of which had been generously do- 
nated to the school board by the proprietors. 

The election for members of the school board in 1862 was 
under the act of legislature, approved March 8 of that year, re- 
quiring the return of two members from each ward. The members 
of the board as thus constituted were : first ward — Thomas Simp- 
son ; W. S. Drew, who did not quality, and the board filled the 
vacancy by electing E. Worthington ; second ward — T. B. Welch, 
R. D. Cone ; third ward — F. Kroeger, John Keyes. 

On the third Monday in April, as required by law, the board 
met and organized, with Thomas Simpson president and John Keyes 
clerk. The Rev. David Burt was elected superintendent of schools 
for the city, his compensation for services fixed at $100 per annum, 
and a like amount voted the clerk as salary. The estimated ex- 
penses for carrying on the schools for the year beginning Sep- 
tember 1, 1862, are not given in full, but the tax levy submitted to 
the council for approval was for $2,945. The whole amount ex- 
24 



414 illSTOHY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

pended certainiy doubled that sum. The public moneys of 1858 for 
districts numbers two and fourteen aggregated $1,130, and at this 
time, 1862, there was not only a marked increase in the number of 
school age within the district, but also in the ratio of appropriation 
to each individual. The wages paid teachers by the board at this 
time were as follows : principal of high school, per month, $55 ; 
teacher of grammar school, per month, $35 ; secondary school, 
per month, $22.50 ; primary school, per month, $20. 

The necessity of establishing the schools in permanent quarters 
had long been apparent to the friends of education in the city, and 
the question of building schoolhouses as the state of the treasury 
would permit from time to time was freely agitated. At some 
meeting of the board prior to July 5, 1862, a resolution to build a 
schoolhouse in ward No. 3 was adopted. Lots 5 and 6 in block 
15, Hamilton's addition to the city of Winona, were purchased and 
the contract let for building a ward schoolhouse, at a cost, including 
lots, of $1,760. As we do not intend to follow the history of the 
several schools through their tem})orary quarters to their final es- 
tablishment in their present permanent homes, we state here that 
this first purchase of two lots in block 15 was subsequently followed 
by the purchase of the entire block, and upon it in 1876 the present 
Washington school building was erected, as will be more particu- 
larly noted hereafter. It was at this juncture, close of spring term 
of 1862, that the fire, before mentioned, swept away the brick 
schoolroom on Front street, and destroyed (among scores of others) 
the office of secretary John Keyes, obliterating every vestige of 
record concerning the schoolwork of the city, from the opening of 
Miss Angelia Gere's nursery school in 1852 to the latest minute of 
the board of education made in June, 1862. * * •* 

The first meeting after the fire was held June 9, 1862, in the 
office of the secretary, and vigorous efforts made to provide accom- 
modations for the schools to be opened the ensuing term. These 
efforts were eminently successful, and the work of the schools was 
systematically resumed at the opening of the school year. The 
school report for the year then ended, August 31, 1862, showed no 
change in the census returns of children of school age within the 
district from those presented for the previous year, but the enroll- 
ment had increased from 382 in 1861 to 419 in 1862. A reduction 
had in the meantime been made in the number of schools sus- 
tained by the board, one of the secondary grade having been discon- 



WINONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 415^ 

tinued. In October of this year the clerk of the board, as required 
by law, took the census of children of school age, upon which cen- 
sus returns the division of public moneys to the schools throughout 
the state was based, and reported an increase of 188 over the census 
of 1861-2. No special change is to be noted in the school work for 
the year ending August 31, 1863. The number of schools remained 
unchanged, and the old officers of the board were continued at the 
head of affairs, as was also the superintendent. Though no special 
changes occurred in the schoolwork the board itself was making 
progress. The school building in ward three was completed as per 
contract some time in December, 1862, and on January 1, 1863, this, 
the first school building erected for school purposes by the school 
authorities of Winona, was dedicated to the uses for which it was 
constructed. Thomas Simpson, as president of the board of educa- 
tion, presided at the opening exercises, and delivered an appropriate 
address, the manuscript of which lies before us as we write. Action 
was taken this year in the matter of purchasing school sites in wards 
numbers two and three; the salaries of clerk and superintendent were 
raised to $150 each per annum; the clerk was instructed to advertise 
for contracts for a school building in the first ward ; the Steam's 
schoolhouse, in the second ward, was purchased at a cost of $415, 
exclusive of ground rent, which was fixed at $10 per annum ; lots 
1 and 2 in block 119, original plat of "Winona, were purchased, 
and contract closed with Mr. Conrad Bohn to erect a scliool build- 
ing upon them at a cost, including fencing, of $2,200. This contract 
was entered into August 22, 1863, and with this action of the board 
closed the transactions of that schoo] year. The building on block 
15, Hamilton's addition (as also the one now under contract by Mr. 
Bohn), was a twostory frame, arranged for the accommodation of 
two schools, one on each floor. The building in the first ward, when 
completed, was occupied for school purposes by the board, and so 
continued until the erection of the Madison school building in 
1875 ; since then the old house known as the Jefferson school 
building has been provisionally turned over to the city council 
for the use of the fire department. 

The census returns for the new school year 1863-4 showed a 
material increase in the number of children in the city, 1,221 being 
the number reported by the clerk. The increased number of children 
demanded increased accommodations, and the school of secondary 
grade, discontinued in 1862-3, was reopened, making the whole 



41 G HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

number ot schools under the care of the board ten. January 15, 1864, 
Mr. Burt resigned his ottice as superintendent of Winona public 
schools, and Dr. F. II. Staples, a practicing physician of the city, was 
elected to till the vacancy. Dr. Staples discharged the duties of 
superintendent until September 4, 1865, when he resigned, and was 
succeeded by Prof. V. J. Walker, who taught the Union Grammar 
School of the city from the fall ot 1859 until the organization of 
tlie city school board, when he was elected principal of the high 
school, April, 1861. Mr. Walker continued to perform his double 
duties as high school principal and superintendent of city schools 
until the close of the school year in 1869, at which time he closed a 
very successful term of ten years as principal of public schools in 
Winona. 

By the charter election of 1864 a change was made in the mem- 
bership of the board of education, and upon the organization of the 
board L. B. Tefft was elected president; secretary Keyes still in office. 
The estimates for the year opening September 1, 1864, were for one 
high school, one grammar school, four secondary schools, six pri- 
mary schools, all of which were opened with the exception of one 
secondary, the total number being eleven schools. To provide for 
maintaining these during a school year of ten months the estimated 
tax required was $12,000, $5,000 of that amount to apply to a fund 
for the erection of a suitable central school building, which the 
necessities of the schools demanded and the wisdom of the board was 
forecasting. The salaries of teachers at this time had somewhat 
appreciated. Wages were per month, high school, $65 ; grammar 
school, $35 ; secondaries, $25 ; primaries, $22. 

The officers of the board were not changed in the spring of 1865, 
and the school registers bore the names of 806 pupils, the actual 
enrollment for that year. The estimated expenses for the year 
opening September 1, 1865, were $16,500. The actual tax levy was 
$9,632.78, with an item of $5,000 for central school fund. At the 
close of school year, August 31, 1865, the city owned three wooden 
buildings, the total valuation of which, including furniture, was 
$5,000, the buildings accommodating five of the eleven schools main- 
tained by the board. 

The school year 1865-66 was an eventful one. The board had 
previously selected block 37 of the original town plot, as the site of 
the proposed central building, and acquired title to several of the lots 
thereon. The work of receiving possession of the entire block was 



WINONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 417 

pushed vigorously, and on May 15, J 866, title was perfected and the 
block secured. Bids for the erection of a suitable central school 
building had been advertised for in the meantime, and contracts 
awarded to Conrad Bohn, of this city, three days prior to perfecting 
title. The contract price of structure was $36,700, the whole 
costing with furances and furniture about $52,000. Ground was 
immediately broken, walls erected and roof put on that season, and 
the building was completed and accepted by the board September 7, 
1867, named by them the High School, and the afternoon of Sep- 
tember 13th set apart for its formal dedication, which was accord- 
ingly done, Hon. Mark Dunnell, of this state, delivering the dedica- 
tory address. This building is decidedly an ornament to the city, a 
monument to the public spirit of the citizens, and a credit to the 
board of education under whose administration it was erected. The 
block on which it stands is in the very heart of the best residence 
portion of the city. The building faces north, the main entrance 
being on Broadway, with side entrances on Walnut and Market 
streets. It is a substantial, ornate structure, built of brick and stone, 
rising three full stories above the basement, in which are the fur- 
naces and fuel rooms. The extreme length from east to west is 96 
feet ; from north to south, 82 feet ; height of main walls, 32 feet ; of 
gables, 48 feet ; of main ventilating shaft, 72 feet ; of minor venti- 
lating turrets, 66 feet; with a tower rising 94 feet from the water-table 
to the finial. 

The basement is nine feet between floors, the first and second 
stories each thirteen feet and the third story, in which is the assembly 
room, fifteen feet. A hall eight feet wide running the extreme 
length of the building, with double doors at each end, affords ample 
means for entrance and exit. The staircases are four and one-half 
feet each, and the rooms are fully provided with cloak closets. 
There are four recitation rooms, each 28 X 34 feet on the main floor, 
and also on the second. The north half of the third story is the 
high school room proper, the space on the south side being 
divided into recitation rooms for high school classes. The building 
is occupied by the following schools : one high school with three reci- 
tation rooms, two grammar schools, three secondary schools lettered 
A, B, C, four primary schools. 

The city superintendent's office is in the tower on the main floor, 
a comfortable room 12x12, supplied with a small reference library 
and connected witli the city telephone exchange. 



418 HISTORY OF WIISrONA COUNTY. 

The school census, taken in tlie tall of 1S66, showed l,952cliilclren 
of school age within the city, an increase of 741 in three years. 
The census of 1867 showed a further increase 229, making a total of 
2,181 for the latter year. 

Henry Stevens became president of the board at the annual 
meeting in A])ril, 1866, secretary Keyes still retaining office. At 
this meeting the salary of clerk was raised to $250 per annum, as 
was also that of the superintendent. 

No change was made in the officers of the board at their annual 
meeting in 1867. When the schools opened in September of that 
year the salary of high school principal was fixed at $1,300, and the 
wages of fenuile teachers $40 per month. 

At the annual sjn'ing election in 1868, secretary Keyes was not 
returned and the board organized with H. D. Huff, president, and 
John Ball, secretary. The following year, 1869, Mr. Ball gave 
place to J. M. Sheardown, who held tlie office of clerk to the 
" board " until his resignation in December, 1871. At the annual 
meeting in this year, 1869, the salaries of clerk and superintendent 
were raised to $300 each per annum. At the close of this school 
year a new departure was taken and the office of superintendent of 
schools separated from the principalship of the high school. This 
position was offered to Prof. Varney, at a salary of $1,500 per 
annum, but he declined the offer, and the office was not tilled until 
October 4, 1869, when the officers of the school board were 
authorized to em])loy Prof. W. P. Hood, which was done as ordered. 
The new superintendent entered immediately upon his work and 
continued in office until the close of the spring term in 1871. 

At the annual meeting in 1870 Gen. C. H. Berry, at present 
the senior member of the Winona county bar, was elected president 
of the city school board, and held that position by successive re- 
elections until he retired from the board in 1878. During these 
years the beautiful ward schoolhouses in the east and west ends of 
the city were constructed at an aggregate cost of $60,000, and the 
educational work of the city advanced at every point. 

June 20, 1871, Prof F. M. Dodge was elected city superintend- 
ent of schools, and his salary fixed at $1,500 per annum. December 
15, 1871, Mr. M. Maverick was elected to the clerkship of the board 
of education, made vacant by the resignation of J. M. Sheardown, 
and held that office until the election of Dr. J. M. Cole, at the 
annual meeting in 1875. December 18, 1871, the board adopted 



WINONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 419 

resolutions recommending the erection of a good three-story brick 
building in the first ward, and memorializing the city council to 
procure such legislation as would authorize the issue of $15,000 of 
school bonds. 

The report of the clerk, made October 1, 1872, showed an 
increase in the number of schools, census enumeration, enrollment 
in schools, expenditures, etc., the figures being as follows: One 
high school, four grammar schools, seven secondary schools, nine 
primary ; 2,427 children of school age, an actual enrollment of 
1,414 on the school registers. The total receipts from all sources 
were shown by the financial statement in August to aggregate 
$25,336.68. The schools were maintained during a school year of 
ten months, and 22 teachers employed ; average wages of teachers, 
gentlemen, $100 per month ; ladies, $55 per month. 

The reports made in 1874 show receipts for the year ending 
August 31, $42,987; disbursements, $28,987; children of school 
age in the city, 3,098 ; children enrolled in the schools, 1,339. 

The annual election in 1875 placed Dr. Cole, as before said, at 
the clerk's desk, a position held by him for six years, during which 
he rendered valuable aid to the educational work of the city. 
During this school year the Madison school building was completed 
at a cost of about $32,000, and in the annual report of the clerk, 
made August, 1876, the following exhibit appears : 

Houses owned by the board, four (two brick and two frame); 
values of school sites, $25,000 ; values of buildings, $106,060 ; value 
of buildings erected during the year, $31,306 ; seating capacity of 
buildings, 1,478; receipts for the year, $60,891.28 ; disbursements 
for the year, $44,926.40; teachers' wages, $15,420; average wages, 
gentlemen, $120 per month ; average wages, ladies, $50 per month. 

The Washington school building a facsimile of the Madison 
building, was accepted at the hands of the contractor November 17, 
1876, and the schools in the eastern part of the city transferred to 
their new quarters January 1, 1877. The purchase of block 15, 
Hamilton's addition, upon which the Washington building was 
erected, has already been noted. This block on which the Madison 
scliool building stands is the one adjoining that on which the old 
Jefferson schoolhouse was built in 1863. This new block, No. 118, 
was purchased by the board December 21, 1869, as the site of the 
prospective school building for the first ward. A description of the 
Madison building will answer for both, as one is almost the perfect 



420 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

facsimile of the other. The building is a line three-story brick, 
stone basement and trimmings, with mansard roof. The extreme 
length from east to west is SO feet ; from north to south, 77 feet. 
The main walls rise 30 feet above the water-table, and the gables 
45 feet. The tower is 80 feet high, and height of the several stories 
as follows : Basement, containing furnaces, fuel and storage room, 
8^ feet to joists overhead ; first and second stories, each 13 feet; 
third story, 12 feet. Each floor is divided into four recitation rooms, 
each 25X30 feet, provided with cloakrooms, all the modern ajipli- 
ances for comfort and convenience, and each room seated to accom- 
modate from 40 to 56 pupils, according to grade. The several floors 
have each a main hall running the extreme length of the building 
from east to west, with a cross hall. The main halls are 8 feet wide, 
and the cross halls 6 feet 8 inches in the clear. The building fronts 
north on "Wabasha street, upon which is the main entrance, with 
side entrances on Dakota and Olmsted streets. Free exit is 
afforded from the halls on the main floor, in three directions, by 
spacious doors and stairways, and there are two staircases, each four 
feet in the clear, leading from the upper stories. The Madison 
school building is provided with four wood-furnaces, and the Wash- 
ington school with Ave. These buildings, with their twelve school- 
rooms each, and the high-school building with its nine school (and 
three recitation) rooms, make comfortable provision for thirty-three 
schools, thirty-two of them now running and, under the able man- 
agement of superintendent McNaughton, doing efficient woi'k. 
These three school buildings, each occupying a full block in well- 
chosen locations, with their ample walks, growing shade-trees, taste- 
ful architectural appearance, and thoroughly furnished rooms, are 
a just occasion of city pride, the value of sites, buildings and 
improvements falling little short of $175,000. 

Early in 1877 the board of education recorded its emphatic dis- 
approval of the attempt made in the state legislature to create a 
"state text-book committee," and dispatched one of their members, 
Dr. J. B. McGaughey, to St. Paul to express to the legislature the 
sentiments of the Winona board of education. The obnoxious 
measure became a law, but Winona schools were exempted from its 
provisions. The annual meeting in 1877 made no changes in the 
officers of the board. The reports of the clerk not only showed 
encouraging progress in school matters, but also a growing liberality 
on the part of the board in fixing teachers' wages, which were estab- 



WINONA PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 421 

lished as follows : Principal of high school per month, $130 ; 
assistant, $60 ; grammar school teachers, $60 ; secondary school 
teachers, $55 ; primary school teachers, $50. The enrollment for 
the year was 1,820, and the average attendance 1,260. The total 
receipts of the board for the year were $60,243.69, and the year 
closed with $15,968 in the treasury. 

In the spring of 1878 Dr. J. B. McGaugliey became president of 
the board ; Prof Dodge was followed by Prof. Irwin Shepard as 
city superintendent of schools ; the financial exhibit showed receipts 
in excess of $60,000, expenditures a little over $45,000. There was 
a hitch in the city council over the authorization of the tax levy 
required by law, and clerk Cole reported his ability to carry the 
schools through the school year with the aid of a temporary loan, 
which was accordingly done, no school tax being levied for that year. 
In 1879 Dr. T. A. Pierce was elected president of the board. Prof. 
Shepard was followed by Prof W. F. Phelps as city superintendent 
of schools, and the enrollment for the year showed a decrease of 
about 150 over the enrollment of 1877. This fact was due to the 
opening of several parochial schools in the city. 

Matters were in statu quo during 1880, but in 1881 Dr. Cole 
retired from the clerkship of the board, after six years' consecutive 
service, and was followed by W. J. Whipple, who held that office 
two years. Dr. Pierce continued at the head of the board, and in 
the fall Prof J. W. McNaughton, the present superintendent of 
schools, assumed educational control. 

The annual meeting in 1882 was principally noted for the pro- 
tracted contest for president, in which an adjournment was had to 
the following evening, after 130 ballots were cast. At the adjourned 
meeting Dr. J. B. McGaughey was elected president of the board 
upon the 187th ballot. 

The election held the evening of April 20, 1883, continued Dr. 
McGaughey in the chair, and elected Arthur Beyerstedt clerk of the 
board. 

A summary of the schools as now existing and controlled by city 
superintendent McNaughton is in brief as follows : 

High School Building. — One high school, of which Thomas 
L. Heaton, graduate of Michigan State University, class of 1880, is 
principal. His assistants are Mr. J. J. Helmer, Misses J. Mitchell 
and Frances Elmer. One grammar school ; three secondary schools, 
A, B, C ; four primary schools. Total schools in high school build- 



422 



HISTORY OF WINoVa COUNTY. 



ing, 9 : total enrollment, 564 ; number of regular teachers, 12. 
curriculum of the high school is appended : 



The 



1 


1 

1 
2 
3 

1 

2 
3 

1 

3 

2 
3 




Required for all 
Courses. 


Required for all 
Courses. 


M 




Third Study for 
Business Course. 


D 


4 mo. 
3 mo. 
3 mo. 


Algebra Com. 

(ieometry 

Geomctry 


En-ilish Composition 

Zdohigy 

Hctany 


Latin 
Latin 
Latin 


(ierman 
German 
German 


Com. Arithmetic 
Essentials of Eng.Gram. 
Civil Government 


C 


4 mo. 
3 mo. 
3 mo. 


Geometry j Physiology 
Physical Geography! Pliysics 
Physical Geography ' Physics 


Csesar 
Cresar 
Cii'sar 


Lessing 
Lessing 
Lessing 


Bookkeeping 
Industrial Drawing 


B 


4 mo. 

3 mo. 

mo. 


Chemistry 
Chemistry 


General History 
Gi'neral History 
Geology 


Viriiil I.Schillur 
Virgil iSchilkT 
Virgil [Schiller 




A 


4 mo. 
3 mo. 
3 mo. 


Rhetoric 

English Literature 

English Literature 


Geology 
Mental Science 
Political Economy 


Cicero Gicthe 
Cicero Giethe 
Cicero Goethe 





Madison School. — One grammar department, in charge of Miss 
Mary Youmans ; three secondary schools ; eight primary schools. 
Total enrollment, 623 ; total schools, 12. 

Washington School. — One grammar department, under care of 
Alvin Braley ; three secondary schools ; seven primary schools. 
Total schools, 11 ; total enrollment, 636. 

The entire educational force of the city comprises, for its public 
schools, 1 superintendent, 35 regular and 2 special teachers, the 
schools under their charge having a total enrollment of 1,823 
scholars. This enrollment is about the same as that of 1877, to 
which is to be added the 700 pupils enrolled in the parochial schools. 
There has, however, been a most gratifyhig improvement in the 
average daily attendance, the reports showing an increase of 300 in 
the average attendance of to-day over that of 1877, under the same 
nominal enrollment. There is no longer a school census taken, and 
the number of children between the ages ot 5 and 21 in the city 
cannot be given. The estimate is nuide of about 4,000 ; but if the 
proportion of enrollment to total number of school age was main- 
tained now as in years past, the number would be considerably in 
excess of 5,000. 

The work of the parochial school appears in connection with the 
history of the various parishes by which they are maintained. 



CHAPTER XLI. 



HISTORY OF WINONA CITY, 



When the county of Fillmore was created out of Wabasha county 
by special act of territorial legislature, approved March 5, 1853, the 
new county thus created was organized for judicial purposes and 
divided into electoral precincts. One of these precincts was called 
the Winona precinct, and included within its limits the territory 
embraced in the level bottom lands on the west side of the Missis- 
sippi river in .latitude 4:4 degrees north, longitude 14 degrees and 30 
minutes west from Wasliington, and known as Wabasha prairie. 
Tlie life of Winona precinct as thus constituted was of short dura- 
tion. By special act of territorial legislature, approved February 
23, 1854, Fillmore county was in turn divided and the present 
county of Winona formed, its boundaries fixed as now existing, and 
Winona designated as the county seat. Under the provisions ot 
this act, a special election was held April 4, 1854, within the several 
precincts as then designated by the county commissioners of Fill- 
more county, for the purpose of choosing county and precinct officers. 
These commissioners were Henry C. Gere, Myron Toms and Wm. 
T. Luark. The precinct officers to be elected were, two justices ot 
the peace, two constables and one road supervisor. Under the 
Fillmore county administration the precinct officers were appointed 
by the governor of the territory, and for Winona precinct were, 
John Burns and John M. Gere, justices of the peace ; Frank W. 
Curtis, constable ; and Geo. W. Clark, road supervisor. These 
ofiicers held their seats until the regular territorial election, on the 
second Tuesday in October, when Geo. W. Gere and Wm. H. 
Stevens were elected justices of the peace and F. W. Curtis, con- 
stable. The terms of office for which these gentlemen were elected 
expired by operation of the special act of February 23, 1854, order- 
ing a special election to be held April 4 ensuing. The judges of 
election were appointed by the Fillmore county commissioners, the 
election held as ordered, and Winona precinct, besides casting her 
vote for the regular county officers, elected for herself as justices of 
the peace Wm. II. Stevens and Geo. H. Sanborn, and for constable, 



424 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Frank W. Curtis. No official record of this election is on tile in the 
office in this county, as the returns were made to Fillmore county. 
The Winona county commissioners, elected /\.pril 4, 1854, met at 
Winona, the seat of government for the new county, April 28, of 
that same year, and the following day, April 29, 1854, redistricted 
the county. By this partition Winona county was divided into six 
electoral precincts ; one of these was named Winona and described 
as township No. 107 north, range 7, west of the tifth princij)al 
meridian. As will be noted by the description, the precinct of 
Winona, as then formed, was identical in its boundaries with the 
present township of Winona, including the corporate limits of the 
city of Winona. The offisiial term for which these offices were filled 
in April expired when the regular election for the territory was held 
the ensuing October. The official returns of this election — the very 
existence of which seemed unknown until they were unearthed for us 
by ex-county auditor Basford from among the musty archives of the 
county records — give the following as the result : justices of the 
peace, S. K. Thompson, A. C. Jones ; constables, F. W. Curtis, 
A. C. Smith ; road supervisor, Enoch Hamilton. It does not 
appear from any records in the office of register of deeds, or from 
any acknowledgment upon any instrument extant, or from the 
memory of any one familiar with those times, that A. C. Jones ever 
qualified as justice of the peace or exercised the functions of that 
office. There is abundance of parole evidence to show that G. H. 
Sanborn continued to exercise the authority of justice for months 
after the October election, and in connection with S. K. Thompson 
"preserved the peace" in Winona precinct. 

The election of 1855 returned Henry Da}^ and John Keyes, 
justices ; Harvey S. Terry and W. H. Peck, constables ; and Wm. 
Doolittle, road supervisor. 

The officers elected in 1856 were: justices of the peace, G. E. 
Tucker, I. B. Andrews ; constables, Harvey S. Terry, C. C. Bart- 
lett ; road supervisor, Asa Hedge. This was the last precinct 
election in which the residents within the city limits took part. The 
term of office for which the above election was held ex])ired with 
the charter election held Monday, April 6, 1857. 

From the formation of Fillmore county, March 5, 1853, until 
the charter election for the newly incorporated city was held, four 
years and one month later, the settlers on Wabasha ])rairie were 
subject only to such general laws and regulations as had been enacted 



WINONA CITY. 425 

by territorial authority for the government of such communities as 
were uninvested with corporate rights and privileges. This day had 
passed by for Winona and she was now to enter upon the larger and 
more responsible work of creating a city government, and adminis- 
tering its affairs, answerable only to herself within the limits of her 
corporate franchises. Before entering upon this phase of the history 
of Winona, it is necessary that some idea should be given of the 
growth in population and the material progress made by the little 
community from the date of its planting to the eve of its incorpo- 
ration, and for this purpose a brief reference to these matters will be 
all that is necessary. 

The population of Winona county at the date of its organization 
is generally placed a little below 800 — a slow growth, and one not 
destined to be much accelerated during the year and a half that fol- 
lowed. The attractions of southern Minnesota, to which Winona 
has ever been the chief gateway, seemed generally disregarded, and 
the rush of settlement was farther north along the Minnesota river ; 
the St. Paul press growing so eloquent in its descriptions of the 
beauty and fertility of that valley as to attract the attention of pro- 
spective settlers to that region. The protracted occupation of this 
section of Minnesota by the Indians, their final removal not having 
been effected until the autumn of 1853, had much to do in prevent- 
ing the early settlement of southeastern Minnesota. But when the 
vast territory lying west of Winona was opened to settlement in the 
summer of 1855, and the government land ofl&ce established here in 
November of that year, the change from the dull inactivity of the 
previous year was almost marvelous. The influx of population, the 
rapid increase in the number of business houses of all kinds, the 
activity manifest in every department of trade, the impetus given to 
all speculative movements, the number of buildings in course of 
erection, all testified to the fact that a new day and a better one had 
dawned upon the prospective metropolis of southern Minnesota. The 
condition of affairs at the close of the year 1856 may be summed up 
as follows : The population had increased from about 800 in Decem- 
ber, 1855, to 3,000 in December, 1856. There had been erected 
during the year 290 buildings of all kinds, among them three good 
churches, a large four-story warehouse, a commodious hotel (the 
Huff House, now standing), a steam flouring-mill with Ave run of 
stones, a large three-story banking building, besides scores of others 
of less note, yet decidedly creditable to the young city. An idea of 



426 JIISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

the value of real property may be had from these specimen quota- 
tions of sales of real estate, taken from the columns of the "Winona 
Republican " of that date : "A lot on Second street, between Center 
and Lafayette, 40x100 feet, $1,600 cash; two corner lots on Walnut 
street, $1,800; a lot, 80 X 140 feet, corner of Second and Center 
streets, $6,000." The manufacturing establisliments were two steam 
saw-mills, one steam planing-mill, one steam flouring-mill, one cabinet 
manufactory with steam power. The river was open to navigation 
from April 8 to November 17, and during that time there were 1,300 
arrivals and departures of boats. A tri-weekly line of steamers was 
maintained for greater part of the season between Winona and Du- 
buque, and the forwarding and commission business for that season 
aggregated $182,731.96. There were fourteen attorneys-at-law and 
nine physicians waging war against crime and death, and about 150 
business houses, stores, shops, etc., distributed as follows: Dry goods, 
14 ; groceries and provisions, 16 ; clothing. 7 ; hardware and tin, 6 ; 
drugs, 5 ; boots and shoes, 4 ; furniture, 4 ; books, 2 ; hat and fur 
store, 2 ; wholesale liquors, 2 ; hotels and taverns, 13 ; eating-houses 
and saloons, 10 ; lumber yards, 5 ; blacksmith shops, 3 ; warehouses, 
4 ; brickyards, 2 ; livery stables, 2 ; sign painters, 3 ; watchmakers, 
3 ; butchers, 2 ; wagon and carriage shop, 2 ; fanning-mill maker, 1 ; 
gunsmith shop, 2 ; bakeries, 2 ; dentists, 3 ; gaugenean artist, 1 ; 
banking-offices, 6 ; real estate and insurance, 10 ; printing-offices, 2 ; 
harness shop, 2 ; barber shop, 3. To these may be added five 
churches and two schools, and you have a fair summary of Winona 
business at the close of the year 1856. The original plat of Winona, 
surveyed June 19, 1852, by John Ball, for Erwin H. Johnson and 
Orrin Smith, was so set apart and recorded under the revised terri- 
torial statutes of 1851, in accordance with the town site act passed 
by congress May 23, 1844. This original plat was bounded on the 
north by the Mississippi river, on the east by Market street, on the 
south by Wabasha street, and on the west by Washington street. It 
comprised a square, each side of which was six full blocks. This 
plat was enlarged from time to time by " additions," until at the 
close of 1856 the platted area on Wabasha prairie covered a tract of 
ground fully two miles in extent from east to west and nearly half 
that distance from north to south. The principal of these additions 
was never recorded as such, and is generally known as Huff's survey 
of the city of Winona. This survey and dedication was made in 
1854, and extended from the oi-iginal town plat on the east to Chute's 



WEsroNA CITY. 427 

addition on the west, a total length of seven blocks and a fraction, 
and covering an area considerably larger than the original plat itself. 
This addition does not now appear on the maps as such, and for years 
has been included and its blocks numbered as a part of the original 
town plat. The more important of the subsequent additions were 
Laird's addition and subdivision, immediately east ol the original 
plat. These covered an area of about 80 acres in extent, fronting 
north on the river and extending some half-dozen blocks to the 
south. Hamilton's addition, lying east of Laird's, was the largest of 
any of the plats, original or additional. It comprised an area of 160 
acres, extending westward beyond the macadamized road leading to 
Sugar-loaf Bluff, and running backward eight or ten blocks from the 
river. Within its limits are some of the most populous sections of 
the city. These, with Taylor & Go's addition, and Sanborn's and 
Hubbard's, all on the south, and Chute's addition on the west, were 
platted and dedicated before the close of the year 1856. Beyond 
the limits of these additions but little building has been done, save 
in the Polish quarter just east of Hamilton's addition, and in the 
vicinity of the wagon-works just west of Chute's addition. The 
latter of these settlements, in what is known as Evans' addition, is 
rapidly building up, and will some day be a populous portion of the 
city, lying, as it does, in the immediate vicinity of the manufactur- 
ing establishments recently located in west ^Vinona. 

That the county seat of Winona county was destined at no 
distant day to become a city of no mean proportions was very early 
accepted as a fact by her citizens, and preparations for investing her 
with corporate rights and privileges were not long delayed. As 
early as JSTovember 11, 1856, the "Winona Kepublican," in a brief 
editorial, called attention to the matter of securing a city charter, 
and suggested the necessity of taking definite action, alleging that 
the movement would be heartily supported by all the members of 
the territorial legislature from the southern Minnesota districts. A 
meeting of the citizens was accordingly called for Saturday evening, 
January 3, 1857. The response to the call was quite general. The 
meeting was held in Central Hall, and organized with Edward Ely, 
better known as Elder Ely, in the chair. W. "0. Dodge was elected 
secretary, the business of the hour stated, the measure of incorpora- 
tion approved, and after considerable discussion as to corporate 
boundaries, etc., a committee was appointed to draft a charter, and 
report the same at an adjourned meeting to be held on the following 



428 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

Saturday oveniiii^. The members of that committee, three only of 
whom are now residents of Winona, were : G. W. Curtis, W, 
Newman, C. IJ. Berry, William Windom, M. Wheeler Sargent, 
John Keyes and Edward Ely. On Saturday evening, the 10th inst., 
the citizens met, pursuant to adjournment of previous week, to hear 
the report of their committee. Hon. C. H. Berry, on behalf of the 
committee, presented the report, which at their instance he had 
drafted, together with an abstract of charter. The only question 
upon which differences of opinion arose was as to the proper limits 
for the proposed incorporation. Some were in favor of quite 
extended corporation boundaries, others advocated a comparatively 
limited boundary. The report favored extending the boundaries of 
the city to include the causeways over the slough at the east and 
west ends of town, the following reasons being adduced : That, as 
the maintenance of good approaches to the city more nearly con- 
cerned the citizens of the corporation than those outside its limits, 
the control and repair of the roads over the sloughs, by which access 
to town was only possible, should be under the care of the city ; 
that the vote of the county outside the city limits being in excess of 
that polled within the city, it would not be wise to allow the county 
vote, which might or might not approve the expenditures for main- 
taining these causeways in good repair, to control a matter so 
essential to the interests , of the city; that as the city would certainly 
reap the most benefit, it was only just that she should incur the 
responsibility of the increased outlay ; that it was a question whether 
the county had any right to appropriate moneys for a work so nearly 
sectional in its character ; and that in any event the more liberal 
policy would be for the city to assume the burden, leaving the 
county authorities free to assist in bearing it if at any time they saw 
fit. It was also represented that by extending the corporate limits 
a larger proportion of property-holders whose lands would be 
increased in value by their nearness to a large city would be taxed 
to defray the city expenses. The reasons of which the above is a 
brief summary were approved, the report adopted, the abstract of 
charter commended and returned to the committee with instructions 
to complete the draft and submit it as a completed charter for the 
adoption of the citizens at a meeting to be held the following Saturday 
evening, January 17, 1857. This was accordingly done, and the 
accepted charter was forwarded to St. Paul, where it came before the 



WINONA CITY. 431 

territorial legislature, passed, and the act formally incorporating the 
city of Winona was approved March 6 of that same year 1857, and 
became law immediately after its adoption. 

ACT OF INCORPORATION. 

By the provisions of this act the extreme southeastern limit of 
the city was established just where the western boundary of Winona 
township touches the south shore of the Misissippi river. From 
this point the boundaiy line of the corporation was run due west 
four miles, thence north two miles, thence east to the middle of the 
Mississippi river, thence in a southeasterly direction down the 
middle of the stream to a point due north of the place of beginning. 
The ground thus inclosed within the corporate limits of the city 
formed an irregular four-sided figure ; its south boundary a right line 
four miles long, its west boundary a right line two miles long, its 
north boundary a right line running east about one and a-half miles 
to the shore of the river, from which point it followed the irregular 
shore line southeasterly to the west line of Winona township. The 
city was divided into three wards. The first ward embracing all 
that portion of the city lying west of Washington street. The 
second ward extending eastward from Washington to Lafayette 
streets, and the third ward including all between Lafayette street and 
the city limits on the east. The wards thus established were each to 
constitute an electoral precinct, the judges of election for which (at 
the ensuing charter election) were to be appointed by the county 
commissioners, as was the case in all precinct elections. The charter 
election was ordered to be held on the first Monday in April, polls 
to open at twelve o'clock and close at four o'clock, and the officers 
to be chosen were, one mayor, one recorder, one justice of the peace, 
one marshal, one assessor, one attorney, one surveyor and two 
aldermen for each ward. The mayor, aldermen and recorder to 
form the city council. 

Tuesday, April 7, 1857, the first charter election for the city of 
Winona was held, when the following vote was cast. 

OFFICE. CANDIDATE. VOTES POLLED. 

Mayor R. D. Cone 291 

M. Wheeler Sargent 405 

Recorder E. A. Gerdtzen . ". 331 

James White 323 

Treasurer J. V. Smith 401 

H. B. Upman 291 

25 



432 HISTORY OF WINONA COUNTY. 

OFFICE. ('ANDII)ATKS. VOTES POLLED. 

Marshal E. A. Batclielder 293 

G. W. Horton 213 

N. n udson 106 

P. B. Palmor 142 

Attorney H. W. Lainberton 439 

•. D. S. Norton 246 

Surveyor L. Pettibone 274 

H. B. Cozzens 417 

Justice Thomas Simpson 414 

H.Day 276 

Assessor First Ward, 0. M. Lord 97 

" " (I H. Blanchard 41 

Second Ward, A. P. Foster 107 

" '• V. Simpson 94 

Third Ward, I. Hubbard 109 

" " P. P. Hubbell 291 

Aldermen First Ward, W. H. Dill 94 

" " I. B. Andrus 81 

" " I. D.Ford, M.D 58 

" " P. V. Bell 43 

Second Ward, Tim Kerk 124 

" " G.W.Payne 113 

" " Sam Cole 88 

" " Geo. H. Sanborn 80 

Third Ward, J. Bolcom 217 

" " Jacob Mowery 205 

" " E. H. Murray 127 

" '' G. Lautenslager 1 27 

From these returns it appears that the maximum vote cast was 
for marshal, for which office 754 votes were polled ; the vote for 
recorder being the minimum, 654. The average vote was about 685 
to 690. The third wai*d vote was equal to the votes of the first and 
second ward in the ballot for aldermen, and led those wards in the 
vote for assessor, 400 votes being cast in the third ward for that 
office and only 339 in both the others. The usual proportion of 
population to voters would have given Winona at this time a census 
of 3,770 souls, so that the estimate of 3,000 population for the city 
was probably not much out of the way. 

The city limits were not long unchanged. The following year, 
1858, the act of incorporation was so amended as to change the city 
boundaries on the south and east. By this change, and an imma- 
terial one made nine years later, the southern boundary was fixed 
to conform in some degree to the south shore of lake Winona, and 
some quarter-sections were taken off the western end of the corpo- 
ration as originally bounded. By these acts about one and one-half 
square miles were taken from the area of the city as established by 
act of March, 1857. By act of Februai-y 10, 1870, a fui-ther curtail- 
ment of a quarter of a section was made, at which time the tract in 



WINONA CITY. 433 

tlie extreme west end of the city, known as the fair-ground, was set 
outside the city limits, and these are the only changes made in the 
boundaries of the city since its incorporation. The ward changes 
have not been numerous. February 15, 1865, the boundary line 
between the second and third wards was removed two streets east of 
that upon which it was originally established and Market street 
made the division line. When the whole act of incorporation was 
amended, Marcli 1, 1867, the boundary between the first and second 
wards was moved one street east and Johnson street became the 
separatmg line. February 28, 1876, a radical change was made 
The city was divided into four wards, and their boundaries respect- 
ively were, for the tirst ward, that portion of the city lying west- 
ward between the center of Washington street and the city limits ; 
second ward, that portion lying between Washington street on the 
west and Walnut street on the east ; third ward, that portion extend, 
mg from Walnut street on the west to Yine street on the east, and 
the fourth ward, that portion lying within the city limits eastward 
from the center of Vine street. These changes were aU made by 
special act of Minnesota legislature and are the only ones made in 
the several ward boundaries to date. 

Several changes, some of them quite important, have been made 
from time to time in the list of city officers, both as regards the 
nature of the office and the status of the officer. Under the original 
act of incorporation the elective officers of the city were : one 
mayor, one recorder, one treasurer, one marshal, one attorney, one 
surveyor, one justice of the peace, one assessor and six aldermen 
Some misapprehension concerning the election of assessors must 
have occurred at the first charter election, as three assessors were 
returned, one for each ward, a thing not contemplated by the act. 
The term of office for aldermen and justice was fixed at two years, 
all otlier official terms one year. By the act of March 8, 1862, the 
number of justices was increased to two, and the recorder, though 
still an elective officer, was denied any vote or voice in the proceed- 
mgs of the council, his duties being to keep a report of the council 
proceedings, to make an annual estimate in August of the current 
expenses for the year and of the revenue necessary to be raised 
therefor. A radical change in the list of elective officers was made 
by the act of March, 1865, which defined said officers to be a mayor 
two aldermen from each ward, two justices of the peace and city 
treasurer. The offices to be filled by appointment of the council 



434 



lUSTOKV OF WINONA COUNTY. 



were • recorder, marshal, assessor, attorney and surveyor, and the 
first regular meeting after tlie charter election was designated as tlie 
time and place of appointment. All terms of othce, except those 
of aldermen, which remained unchanged, were fixed at one year, the 
rule to apply to ottices filled either by election or appomtment. -By 
act of 1867 the original act was so amended as to virtually consti- 
tute a new one. By the later act the ofiicers to be chosen by the 
people were: mayo^, two aldermen for each ward, two justices of 
the peace, a treasurer and an assessor. The terms of office were as 
before established by act of March, 1865, with the exception of lus- 
tices of the peace, whose term was fixed at two years. The officers 
to be appointed by the council were : recorder, marshal, surveyor 
attorney and street' commissioner. All ]>ersons otherwise quahfied 




to vote for county and state officers were made eligible to vote at 
any city election ^in the election district, of which at time of votog 
they had been for. ten days resident, and were also qualified 
thereby to hold any city office to which they might be elected. All 
officers, elected and appointed, were required to take an oath of olhce, 
and- bonds were to be given by the marshal and treasurer. The 
city justices were given exclusive jurisdiction over all cases and 
complaints arising under the ordinances, police regulations, laws and 
by-laws of the city; the powers of the council were fully set forth 
in externa, and they were duly empowered to act in all matters per- 
taining to the peace, cleanliness and safety of the city, as also to 
the security and public conduct of the citizens. This " act ' vir- 
tually the one under which the city authorities now act, was dec ared 
to be of a public character and not contravened by any general law 
of the state confficting with its provisions, unless so expressly stated 



WINONA. CITY. 435 

in the enactment of such general law. By act of February, 1870, 
council was restrained from incurring an indebtedness in excess of 
$10,000 for any specific purpose without first submitting the same 
to the voters of the city and receiving the sanction of two-thirds of 
the votes cast, for and against the measure. By special act of April, 
1876, aldermen were prohibited from receiving any compensation for 
their services, either directly or indirectly. A new departure in 
making up the ofiicial list of the. city was taken in 1877, by 
authority of an act passed that spring. Under this amendment the 
officers to be elected were : a mayor, treasurer, recorder, assessor, 
attorney, marshal, street commissioner, surveyor, physician, two 
aldermen for each ward and two justices of the peace ; the council, 
as heretofore, having authority to appoint such additional officers as 
in their judgment the interests of the city required. The term of 
all officers elected by the people was fixed at two years, and of those 
ajjpointed by the council one year. The experiment did not prove 
satisfactory, and in 1879 this act was repealed by an amendment, 
making the officers chosen by the people to consist of mayo*r, treas- 
urer, assessor, whose terms of office were for one year ; and two 
aldermen for each ward, and two justices, whose terms, as before, 
remained fixed at two years. By this amendment city justices were 
clothed with all the rights pertaining to justices elected under the 
general laws of the state, as well as the exclusive jurisdiction before 
given them, over all actions and complaints arising under the laws, 
ordinances, by-laws and police regulations of the city. 



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JOSEPH BUISSON, 



HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 



ABORIGINAL. 



Minnesota was settled by the French in 16^0, and in 1763 they 
ceded the territory to Great Britain. 

In 1766 it was explored by Capt. Jonathan Carver, of Connecti- 
cut, and in 1783, about one hundred years from the present time, it 
became a part of the United States and was included in the ISTorth- 
western Territory. 

Minnesota contains the summit of the central tablelafids of the 
North American continent, where, within a few miles of each other, 
are the sources of rivers which find their outlets in Hudson's Bay, the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico ; and it has more than 
fifteen hundred miles of navigable rivers, the sources of which are 
one thousand six hundred and eighty feet above the level of the sea. 

The first human inhabitants who occupied this land were the 
Mound Builders. Who and what they were, whence they came, or 
their ultimate fate, is wrapped in an impenetrable mystery that 
bafiies the most industrious scrutiny of antiquarians. Many plausi- 
ble theories are advocated by writers, yet by what means they dis- 
appeared will never be known, for, beyond a doubt, they disappeared 
centuries ago. 

Following their era, comes the Aboriginal period, or the period 
when the red race were in possession of this region, and probably 
all the American continent, when it was discovered in the eleventh 
century. The nation which occupied this spot and the region round 
about, from the period concerning which any tradition exists, was 
the Dahcotah, or Sioux, one of the most powerful of the Indian 
nations of North America. 

In 1834 they consisted of seven distinct bands, known as the 
"M'day-wakentons," or People of the Lakes, whose summer resi- 
33 



562 HISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

deuce was in villages, the lodges being built of elm bark laid upon 
a framework of poles. 

The authority of the chiefs in olden times was very great, but 
from the date of the first treaties negotiated with government it 
began to decline, until finally the chief was merely considered to be 
the mouthpiece of the soldiers' lodge, the members of which consti- 
tuted the onl}^ real power of the bands. 

Old Wapashaw, long since dead, was the leading hereditary 
chief of the People of the Lakes, and in all intertribal afftiirs of 
importance his word was law, not only with his own particular 
band, but with all those belonging to the same division. 

But it is not necessary to speak at length of the red race in this 
work, as their character, history and customs are too well known. 

They seem doomed to disappear before the settlement of the 
white man, and there is something very sad in the way they have 
been dispossessed of their ancestral heritage by the palefaced 
intruder, however lightly they may be regarded by those who have 
mingled with them on the frontier. 

The first settlement of this part of Minnesota is due entirely to 
the French. In the year 1654 two adventurous young men connected 
with the fur trade followed a party of Indians in their hunting excur- 
sions for two years, and were probably the first white men that ever 
penetrated the country of the Dahcotahs ; and upon their return 
to Quebec they gave such rapturous accounts of the lands they had 
seen and the nations they had become acquainted with, that both 
trader and ecclesiastic burned with desire to "go up and possess the 
land." 

The discoverers of the Northwest were the very opposite of those 
who settled on the shores of Massachusetts bay and Connecticut 
river. The latter were men of calm, even temperament and stern 
faith ; the former were men of excitable temperament, stimulated 
by their nation and their creed to explore new lands. The latter, 
looking up to heaven, acknowledged no superior but the ever-blessed 
Redeemer, and looked for no other conquest than that of their own 
evil desires, content to till the land around their immediate settle- 
ments, to study the divine word, and to train up their children in 
the admonition of the Lord. The former were taught that the con- 
verting the heathen to the religion of Rome, and to conquest in 
behalf of the sovereign of France were particularly meritorious. 
Hence the colonists of Acadia, accompanied by their priests and 



ABORIGINAL. 563 

bound by no social ties, were ever ready to desert their families and 
homes to seek for Lands where wealth might be obtained for their 
employers, or the glory of their church. 

Either accompanying the missionary, devoted to a life of pov- 
erty, or in his immediate rear, came the trader, devoted to, a life of 
gain, so that a chapel was hardly surmounted by a cross before 
a trading-house stood by its side. It was not until 1683 that a 
trading-post was established on this side of the Mississippi river. 

Nicholas Perrot, a native of Canada, who had been familiar 
from childhood with the dialect and customs of the Northwestern 
savage, together with all the excitement of border life, in company 
with twenty other bold, brave spirits, in that year visited the vari- 
ous nations, and with great enterprise opened trade with them. 

There is a tradition that the aged Mesnard started to carry tl^e 
religion of Rome to the far west, and, after residing several months 
on the southern shore of Lake Superior, he started on a journev, 
accompanied by one person only, for the bay of Che-goi-me-gon, and, 
becoming separated from his companion, he was lost in the forest. 
Tradition has it that he was killed by the Dahkotahs, and that his 
cassock and prayerbook were kept as amulets by them for many 
years. This, however, did not deter others from making the same 
venture, and Claude Allouez, also a Jesuit, visited the shores of 
Lake Superior in 1665. At that early day there were rumors of a 
large mass of copper on the northern shore, but he did not succeed 
in finding it. He pushed on his explorations until he reached the 
island of La Pointe, the ancient residence of the Ojibways, and he 
has been regarded as the first white man who trod the soil of Minne- 
sota. While he was preaching to the Ojibways on Lake Superior 
he heard accounts of Jean Nicollet, who in 1639 had advanced on 
a mission to the Winnebagos so far that he discovered the Ouiscon- 
sin river, and, floating down it, he heard from the Indians of a 
"great water," and also accounts of a powerful nation, called by 
the tribe Naudowessioux, meaning "enemies" in the Ojibway. and 
the mighty stream was called the "MeseSeepi," signifying "great 
river. " 

De Soto discovered the Mississippi in 1541, but the discovery 
was well-nigh forgotten until over a century had passed, when it 
was again discovered from the north by Joliet. 

The Sioux, or rather the Dahkotahs — the term Sioux being a 
nickname given them by the early voyageurs for the sake of con- 



564 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

venience — are the aborigines of this part of Minnesota, and Perrot 
being commissioned by De La Barre, then commander of Canada, 
"Commandant of all the West," pushed on his enterprise, until 
coming to or near the mouth of the Ouisconsin (Wisconsin) river 
he established a post which was known as Fort St. Nicliolas. 
He was also commissioned to establish alliances with the loways 
and Dahkotahs on the west side of the Mississippi river. Proceed- 
ing up the river from Fort St. Nicholas in fultillment of his commis- 
sion, he landed near the site of the present city of Wabasha, and 
erected a rude log fort, it being the first European structure in all tliis 
vast region, and a generation before New Orleans was founded 
two thousand miles lower down the great river. 

This primitive establishment within the limits ot the state, upon 
some of the old maps is appropriately marked as Fort Perrot, so 
called from its founder. During the winter of 1683-4 Perrot and 
his party proceeded up the river to visit tribes above the lake, and 
were met by a large delegation coming down on the ice to meet him. 
Upon meeting his party they returned, and escorted the Frenchmen 
to their villages. Perrot opened trade and negotiations with them, 
and seemed to accomplish all things required according to his instruc- 
tions, yet it appears that for some reason he abandoned the port for 
several years, returning to it in 1868. With a party of forty men 
he returned and resumed trade with the Dahkotahs, and in 1689 
formally claimed the country for France. The first official docu- 
ment pertaining to Minnesota was given by Perrott, and is worthy 
of preservation. I insert it in this work for that purpose. It reads : 
" Nicholas Perrot, Commandant for the King at the post of the Nadoues- 
sioux, commissioned by the Marquis Governor and Lieut. Governor of all New 
France, to manage the interests of commerce among all the Indian tribes and 
people of the Bay des Prcants, Nadoucessioux, Mascoutines, and other western 
nations of the Upper Mississippi, and to take possession in the Kings name 
of all the places where he has heretofore been, and whither he will go. AVe, 
this day, one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine, do in the presence of the 
Kev. Father Marest, of the Society of Jesus, Missionary among the Nadeous- 
sioux ; of Monsieur de Boueguillot, commanding the French in the neighbor- 
hood of the Ouisconche on the Mississippi ; Augustine Legardeur, esquire ; 
Sieur de Caumant; and of Messieurs de Seur, Herbert, Lemire and Blein! 
Declare to all whom it may concern that being come from the Bay des 
Preants and to the Lake of the Ouiskonches, and to the river Mississippi, we 
did transport to the country of the Nadouissioux on the border of the river 
St. Croix, and at the mouth of the river St. Pierre, on the bank of which were 
the Mantanwans, and farther up the interior to the northeast of the Mississippi 
as far as the Menchokatoux, with whom dwell the majority of the Songes- 



ABOEIGmAL. 565 

ketous and the Nadouessioux, who are to the northeast of the Mississippi, to 
to take possession for, and in the name of the king, of the countries and river 
inhabited by the said tribes, and of which they are the proprietors. 

The present act done in our presence, signed with our hand and sub- 
scribed." 

Then are given the names of those ah-eady mentioned. This 
record was drawn up at Green Bay, Wisconsin. 

During the year that Perrot returned to Minnesota, Frontenac, 
who was then governor of Canada, issued an edict that all French- 
men in the upper Mississippi country should return to Mackinaw, and 
Perrott, with others, was obliged to leave his post and return. 

From these accounts we learn that the first French establishment 
in Minnesota was on the shore of Lake Pepin, and just at the foot 
of the same, quite near to the present city of Wabasha, This lake, 
called by Hennepin "The Lake of Tears," was afterward named 
"Pepin," after the Dauphin of France and son of Louis XI Y. 

The fort was built upon the ground now occupied by the residence 
of Judge Yan Dyke. It was identified by Capt. F, W. Seely, of 
Lake City, as agreeing with statistics from the "United States Army 
and Navy Magazine," which he holds in his possession, Capt, 
Seely has very kindly furnished me with these investigations which 
I here subjoin. He says : "My first knowledge of it was acquired 
• twenty-seven years ago, when pheasant hunting in the chaparral 
near the present site of the Yan Dyke residence. While coursing 
through the dense growth of young oaks, I stumbled upon a ridge 
some eighteen inches in height, running in a straight line and 
parallel to the crest of the slope overlooking the river. My curiosity 
being excited, I followed it for some ten rods, until the dense growth 
of young timber obliged me to abandon the investigation. Of one 
thing, however, I was satisfied, namely, that the ridge was the 
work of men's hands, and, as I then believed, of the Indians, The 
work, commencing at the crest of the slope before mentioned, and 
ten rods south of the Yan Dyke residence, bent westward for about 
eight rods, when it makes an obtuse angle and runs parallel to the 
crest and directly through the location of the house, for a distance of 
ten rods or more. (Some of the work within the yard inclosing the 
house has since become obliterated by the grading of the premises, 
but at the time I first discovered it, was distinctly traceable through 
its whole length.) In 1864 I became possessed of a copy of the 
'Army and Kavy Magazine' — April number — which contained a 
complete history, amplified from French sources, of the early 



566 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

occupation of this country by adventurous Frenchmen from Canada, 
and inchided a precise history of old Fort Perrot, established in 
1683 'near the modern village of Wabashaw.' My thoughts 
reverted at once to the old fortification which I had discovered, and 
I am convinced that it would prove to be the remains of the old fort. 

"Some few years since, in company witli Mr. AYalton, editor of 
Wabasha " Herald" (without having in the meantime been near 
the ground since my first exploration, and having since that time 
added to my knowledge of military engineering by ten j^ears' service 
in the United States army, as an ofhcer of artillery), I visited the 
locality, which I found without any difficulty or delay, and found a 
portion of the old work (outside of Mr. Van Dyke's enclosure) as 
perfect as when I first saw it, twenty-five years before. Applying 
my knowledge of engineering to the location, I was then more than 
ever convinced of the correctness of my conclusions. 

'•Let any person with the least knowledge of defensive works 
stand on the veranda of the Van Dyke numsion, and look over the 
surroundings, and he must be convinced that it is the natural location 
for such a work as Fort Perrot, and the only one between that 
point and the lake. Westward from the fort was a gently sloping 
prairie, at that time probably clear of chaparral, which is of later 
growth, and which did not afford any cover or lurking-place for 
•attacking parties. Every foot of the ground within range, covered 
by the small arms in the loopholes of the palisades, the flanks of 
the inclosure similarly covered and protected, and facing the river, 
where the bateaux were moored, an abrupt slope to the watei-, easily 
guarded and defended. 

"The first separated from the semi-hostile village of Wabashaw 
by the broad arm of water, the modern 'slough,' which prevented a 
too intimate contact with the savages. The ground occupied by the 
work, much li ujher than the surrounding country, naturally commanded 
every approach, even the Indian village itself Here a few words 
as to the construction of the early frontier forts may not be inappro- 
priate : First, the bank was outlined, then a ditch was excavated, the 
earth therefrom thrown up on the inside^ forming a parapet, in 
which were planted palisades (split trunks of trees), set close together 
and loopholed for small arms. Inside the wall thus formed were 
banquettes — shelf-like places, whereon the defenders could stand 
while discharging their small arms through the loopholes. Inside 
the inclosure were quarters, store and trading-house, and sometimes 



ABORIGINAL. 56T 

a chapel^ all constructed of logs. Siicli works, when located in good 
comfnanding positions, afforded ample protection against marauding 
savages of those earl j days. In course of time, after being abandoned, 
the timbers of the old forts would rot away, but the excavations, if 
unmolested, would endure for generations. And so today, two 
hundred years since the construction of old Fort Perrot, portions of 
the works can be distinctly traced." 

One of the most picturesque scenes in North America is the 
approach to Lake Pepin. For miles, as the steamboat ascends the 
Mississippi, it glides through an extended vista, crowned in the 
distance by an amphitheater of hills which define the basin of the 
lake ; and in summer the islands in the river are covered with 
luxuriant vegetation, while tall cedar-trees, standing like sentinels 
along the bluffs, make an impression upon the mind of the traveler 
which a lifetime cannot erase. Again these steep walls of stone, 
with their fanciful outline of castles and ruined battlements, recede, 
and beyond are lovely prairies sufficiently elevated to be secure from 
all inundation, and these must have been entrancing spots to the 
ancient voyageur after a long and wearisome paddle in his frail canoe. 
From the magazine to which Capt. Seely alludes we learn that "just 
heloio Lake Pepin, on the west shore, is one of those beautiful 
plateaus," which so captivated Nicholas Perrot that he "landed" 
there in the year 1683 and "erected a rude log fort." Now it is 
evident that Capt. Seely cannot be mistaken in his conclusions in 
regard to the situation of this fort, from the fact that the plateau 
spoken of is the only one from the grand encampment to Point du 
Sable, and it being just at the foot of Lake Pepin, and nearly opposite 
the mouth of the Chippewa river, was just the place for an edifice of 
that kind. There is no other point of land sufficiently large to erect 
a fortification this side the lake either ; consequently our conclusions 
cannot be erroneous. The "slough" to which Capt. Seely alludes, 
at the time the fort was built, undoubtedly formed the main channel 
of the Zumbro river, which, from various causes, has been turned in 
its course, and now empties its waters in the Mississippi three miles 
lower down. 

In 1685 it became necessary for Perrot to visit the Miamis to 
engage them as allies against the English and Iroquois of New 
York, and it was for that reason undoubtedly that the fort was 
abandoned. It appears that the Foxes, Kickapoos, Maskoutens 
and other tribes, had formed a plan to surround and surprise the 



668 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

fort (luring Perrofs absence, and then use the munitions of war 
against their enemies the Sioux. A friendly Indian informed Perrot 
of this and he returned with all possible speed. On the very day 
of his arrival, three spies had preceded him and obtained admission 
under the pretext of selling beaver-skins, and they had left, report- 
ing that Perrot was absent and the fort was only guarded by six 
Frenchmen. The next day two other spies came ; but Perrot, in 
view of his danger, devised an ingenious stratagem. In front of the 
doors of the buildings, on the open square within the enclosure, he 
ordered all the guns to be loaded and stacked, and then the Frenchmen 
were made to change their dress after certain intervals and stand 
near the guns ; thus he conveyed the impression that he had many 
more men than the spies had seen. After this display the spies were 
permitted to depart, on condition that they would send from their 
camp a chief from each tribe represented. Six responded to the 
demand, and as they entered the gates their bows and arrows were 
taken away. Looking at the loaded guns, the chiefs asked "if he 
was afraid of his children." Perrot replied "that he did not trouble 
himself about them, and that he was a man who knew how to kill." 
" It seems, "they continued, "that you are displeased." " I am not,'' 
answered Perrot, ' ' aUJiough I have good reason to be. The Good Spirit 
has warned me of your evil designs. You wish to steal my things, 
murder me, and then go to war with the ISTadouaissioux. He told 
me to be on my guard and that he would help me if you gave any 
insult." Astonished at his knowledge of their perfidy they con- 
fessed the whole plot and sued for pardon. That night they slept 
within the fort, and the next morning their friends began to ap- 
proach with their war-whoop. Perrot, with the fifteen men under 
his command, instantly seized the chiefs and declared they would 
kill them if they did not make the Indians retire. Accordingly one 
of the chiefs climbed on top of the gate and cried out, "Do not 
advance, young men, or you will be dead men. The Spirit has told 
Metamineus [the name which they gave Perrot] our designs. The 
Indians quickly fell back after this announcement and the chiefs 
were allowed to leave the fort. The fort was afterward abandoned 
until 1688, when he again reached Fort Perrot. In 1690 Perrot 
visited Montreal, and after a brief stay again returned to the west, 
establishing posts at various times as occasion required. 

From these accounts it is evident that Fort Perrot was the first 
one erected west of the Mississippi, and that we cannot be mistaken 



ABOEIGINAL. 569 

in regard to the position of tlie fort. In 1695 a second post was 
built by Le Sueur on one of the islands near the mouth of the St, 
Croix, and a few miles below the modern town of Hastings. This 
fort was erected as a barrier to hostile tribes,, and the Indians were 
so strongly impressed by the power of France that the fort became 
a center of commerce for the western parts ; but in 1696 the 
authorities at Quebec decided to abandon all their posts west of 
Mackinaw, and the French were withdrawn from Wisconsin and 
Minnesota, Le Sueur, however, nothing daunted by this edict, 
applied to the king and obtained permission to return to Minne- 
sota in search of mines which he believed would prove rich and 
productive ; but upon his return to America the ship in which he 
sailed was captured and carried to an English port. After his release 
he again proceeded to France, and in 1698 he obtained a new license 
to take fifty men to the supposed mines. He arrived at a post not 
far from Mobile, on the Gulf of Mexico, in December, 1699, and 
the next summer with a felucca, two canoes and nineteen men he 
ascended the Mississippi, On September 14 he sailed through Lake 
Pepin, and on the 19th entered the river St, Pierre, now called 
Minnesota. Ascending that stream he reached the mouth of the 
Blue Earth, and there, near the present site of the modern town of 
St, Peter, established the third post of the French, This post was 
completed on October 14, 1700, and called Fort L'Huiller, after the 
farmer- general in Paris, who had aided the project. 

When forts are spoken of in connection with these explorations, 
the reader must not imagine them built with walls of masonry and 
buttresses and angles with ordnance protruding therefrom. In those 
days there was neither time nor facilities for such work, but picture 
to himself a rude log cabin surrounded by a few pickets of logs and 
sticks, which would seem but slight protection from the arrows of 
the savage. 

Le Sueur spent the winter of 1700 in the Blue Earth valley, and 
in April following commenced work at the mines, which were about 
a mile above the fort. In less than a month he obtained thirty 
thousand pounds of the substance found, four thousand of which he 
sent home to the king of France. In February, 1702, Le Sueur 
returned to the post on the Gulf of Mexico, and in the summer 
following sailed for France in company with the governor of 
Louisiana, who was a cousin of his by marriage. The next year the 
workmen he had left at Fort L'Huiller also came down to Mobile, 



570 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

being forced to retire by the hostility of Indians and lack of supplies. 
For twenty years the posts in Minnesota were abandoned by the 
Canadian government, and the only white men seen were soldiers 
who had desertedund vagabond voyageurs, who, in both taste and 
principles, were lower than the savages. 

It was at length perceived that the eye of England was on the 
j^orthwest. A dispatch from Canada says: "It is more and more 
obvious that the English are endeavoring to interlope among all 
the Indian nations and attach them to themselves. They entertain 
the idea of becoming masters of North America, being persuaded 
that the European nation which becomes the possessor of that section 
will in course of time be also master of all America." 

To thwart these schemes, which in time were accomplished, the 
French proposed to reopen trade and license traders for the North- 
west. On June 7, 1726, peace was concluded by De Signery with 
the Sauks, Foxes and Winnebagoes, at Green Bay, and two French- 
men were sent to dwell in tlie Sioux villages, and to promise that, if 
they would cease to fight the Ojibways, trade should once more be 
resumed, and a "black robe" come and teach them. In the follow- 
ing spring preparations were made to carry out these pledges, and 
both traders and ecclesiastic made arrangements to accompany the 
convoy. The Fox nation at that time were giving the French a deal 
of trouble, and in order to hem them in and prevent further diffi- 
culty it was decided to build another fort in the valley of the Upper 
Mississippi, which was the fourth and last post erected by the French. 



CHAPTER L. 



TRADITIONAL. 



Ox the Wisconsin shore, half way between Fort Perrot and the 
head of Lake Pepin, there stands a prominent bluff, four hundred 
feet high, the last two hundred of which is a perpendicular limestone 
escari)ment. Opposite the Maiden's Kock, as this bluff is called, on 
the Minnesota side, there juts into the lake a peninsula, called by the 
French Point du Sable. It has always been a stopping-place for 
the voyageur, and here the party landed and proceeded to build 
the post. The stockade was one hundred feet square, within which 



TRADITIONAL. 571 

were three buildings, probably serving the uses of store, chapel and ' 
quarters. One of the log huts was 38x16, one 30X16, and the last 
25x16 feet in dimensions. There were two bastions, with pickets 
all around twenty-live feet high. The fort was named in honor of 
the governor of Canada, Beauharnais, and the fathers called their 
mission-house St. Michael the Archangel. 

Maiden Rock derives its name from a beautiful legend connected 
therewith. These legends are peculiar to the Indians, owing, no 
doubt, to their having no way of transmitting tlieir lore other than 
tradition. I introduce sevel'al in this work, not so much for their 
intrinsic fitness, as from a hope that such promulgation may tend in 
some slight degree to perpetuate among us sentiments of respect for 
the once powerful and still interesting nations, whose traditionary 
legends are among the most curious and interesting to be found in 
the history of any people. The legend of Maiden Rock, or 
Lovers' Leap, as I shall call it, is romantic and beautiful. I present 
it here in juxtaposition with the fort because of its proximity and 
the fact of its being told perhaps for generations before the fort was 
built. 

THE LOVEES' LEAP. 

Unchanging hearts which idols make 
Of hearts as true though frail as they, 
Are ever doomed to bleed and break, 
And learn their gods are but of clay ! 
But though thrice shattered to the dust, 
And all deformed the image lies, 
The true heart in its boundless trust, 
Will deem it kindred to the skies ; 
For love though tarnished by the fall 
Survives to every age the same, 
And wigwam, cot and lordly hall 
' Lights with its sanctifying flame. 
And, like its great Original, 
Is prompt to shield and slow to blame. 

Let us recall this legend hoar 
Of old Lake Pepin's sylvan shore 
Which floats adown tradition's stream 
Not as a vague and shadowy dream, 
But, as a high heroic theme, 
A stern reality of yore, 
Which hallowed once can die no more 
Than the fixed star's eternal beam. 



572 HISTORY OF AVABASIIA COUNTY. 

Eecord may fade and i)ile decay, 
And town and rampart waste to dust, 
And nations rise and pass away, 
And time blot out their names with rust, 
While deed and sacrifice sublime 
Live freshly in the memory then, 
Defying all the assaults of time, 
While live and beat the hearts of men. 

Ah ! Indian maid, thy heart was tried 
Long, long ago, as legends tell ; 
When in its fresh and virgin pride 
Love oped its gushing founts all wide, 
And sealed thee as the martyr bride 
Too rashly loving, and too well. 

Oh ! she Avas graceful as the fawn. 
The young, the peerless Weenonay, 
And lovelier than the dappled dawn 
On the blue skies of flowering May. 
Of all the tribe, she was the flower, 
The sweetest of the wildwood bower, 
And hers the star which ruled the hour. 
And braves of fame and chiefs of power 
On her enchanting beauty hung. 

But only one of all the band 
Had touched her heart with love sublime. 
Though few in years, his deeds of fame 
At war dance and at feast were sung. 
And cowering fear came with his name, 
When whispered by a hostile tongue. 

She used, when pensive twilight brought 
Sweet moments of romantic thought. 
To hear him wake the warbling flute. 
And to her mood the measure suit. 
Warmed by her smiles, with vigorous start 
First love upgrew within his heart ; 
And the wild i)assion of his soul 
Did brook no barrier nor control. 

But brothers ten of stern decree 

Did promise her, in revelry. 

To chieftain old with ample fame, 

Who wore the proudest war-bird jilume, 

And terror ruled where'er his name 

Did tales of great achievement prove. 

And chronicled with former wars. 

On brow and breast were glorious scars. 



TRADITIONAL. 573 

A beautiful lake is the Lake of Tears, 

And wild fowl dream on its breast unscared ; 

The golden brooch of costly price 

Is dim with its radiant wave compared. 

And tribesmen dwelt on its banks of yore, 

But a hundred years have vanished thrice 

Since hearthstones smoked upon its shore. 

Edged by a broad and silvery belt 

Of pebbles bright, and glittering sand 

The waters into music melt, 

When breaking o'er the pebbly strand. 

Victors in many a forest fight, 

The bird of peace has taken flight ! 

The tree on which she framed her nest. 

Smoothed the bright feathers of her breast, 

Is shorn of its broad, leafy shield. 

Profaning hands the bark has pealed ! 

Encamped the predatory horde ; their only cheer, 

Parched maize and smoked-dried flesh of deer. 

Oft, brothers, have the paths of war, 

From home and country led us far, 

And council on this shore had met, 

And ominous of coming strife, 

Clashed tomahawk and scalping-knife. 

And Wapashaw, with eye of skill. 

Took measurement of slope and' hill, 

And tents were pitched by his command, 

On swells of undulating land 

Well guarded on the weaker flank 

By water and opposing bank. 

The sentinel was shown the bounds, 

Wherein to pace his lonely rounds. 

A signal by the chief was made 

To close the council, and obeyed, 

Yet promptly with one voice decreed, 

That Weenonay, the chieftain's daughter. 

Should wed the brave, whose brow with might 

Came decked and armed for the fight. 

And she with savory nourishment, 

And gourds of cooling water, 

Was bade to cheer and grace the feast. 

While her light form of forest tone 

Breathed a low and whispered moan. 

The chieftain urged his suit again. 

And Sire again renewed the strain, 

And bade her bridal robes prepare, 

Nor dare to look on Neemooshe, 

Whose bride of moons she ne'er should be. 



574 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

A thing of beauty is the slender vine 

That wreaths its verdant arm around the oak, 

As if it there could safely intertwine, 

Shielded from axe or lightning stroke, — 

Thus the maiden clung unto her love. 

While scalding tears and sobs outbroke 

From her o'er-labored bosom, while her ears 

Were filled with tones that did not soothe her fears. 

She sought her warrior firm and true, 
And then resolved, come weal, come woe. 
With him to flee, and free to go 
Where they might roam from day to day, 
Till life should peaceful pass away. 
Love hath more devices far. 
When instant need to rescue calls, 
Than all the strategy of war 
Investing long beleaguered walls ; 
With stealthy step and agile limb 
The unconscious sentinel is passed. 
And now she stands alone by him 
On whom her soul's great stake is cast. 

Comely to look on was the youthful pair : 

One, like the pine, erect and tall. 

Was of imposing presence; his dark hair 

Had caught its hue from night's descending pall ; 

Light was his tread, his port majestical. 

And well his chieftain brow became a form 

Of matchless beauty. And Weenonay, 

Ah, what of her? Bright shapes beyond 

This darkened earth wore looks like those she wore. 

Graceful her mien as lily of the pond 

That nods to every wind that passes o'er, 

Softer than ripple breaking on the shore 

By moonlight was her voice, and in her breast 

Pure thought a dwelling found — the bird of love a nest. 

Safely the guarded door is passed, 

The outer picket gained at last ; 

And now the uncovered way they take 

With the soft speed of startled deer. 

When bounding hoofs are winged with fear, 

To gain the skiff upon the lake. 

Gained is the lake and light canoe. 
But as they (piickly push from shore, 
With whoop and yell and wild halloo, 
Louder than battle's stormiest roar, 



TRADITIONAL. 575 



A hundred dusky forms are seen 
Rushing along on either hand, 
Now plunging through the tangled green, 
Now madly leaping on the strand. 

Now, lovers, every sinew strain, 
Let no false stroke your speed delay, 
Your fierce pursuers on you gain ! 
Row for your lives, away ! away ! 

The eastern beach is gained at last, 
But scarcely have they sprung to land 
And vanished in the forest vast. 
Ere their pursurers gain the strand ; 
They leap like wolves, a howling band, 
Up the steep bank and follow fast. 
The maiden speeds her lover past, 
And fleetly leads upon the trail; 
Yet higher, nearer swells the roar. 
She turns — a rocky steep is near. 
Which lifts its flinty summit high — 
A landmark, desolate and drear, 
Piercing the blue encircling sky — 
And leads her fearless lover there. 
Not to surrender, but to die. 
Far, far below, a depth profound, 
The lake sends up a murmuring sound, 
Meet place beneath the cloudless skies. 
For love's last solemn sacrifice. 
Far down from crag to crag swift leaping. 
With eagle plume and eye of fire, 
Weenonay sees her wrathful sire ; 
Above, one lightning glance he threw, 
Then notched an arrow to the string. 
And firm his trusty bow he drew ; 
The maiden sprang before her lover. 
His form with her light form to cover, 
That when the whizzing shaft should fly, 
She, she alone, or both might die. 
Still came the sire, his bow on higli, 
Nor shook his hand nor quailed his eye ; 
And well the desperate lovers knew 
His arm was strong, his aim was true. 

All bootless now the daughter's prayer. 
The parent heart is dark and stern. 
No throb of mercy softens there. 
But fiercest fires of vengeance burn. 



576 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

In vain she warns her maddened sire, 
That sooner than give up her brave, 
The}'^ both would seek a fearful grave. 
And slumber in the embrace of death, 
Far down the shelving gorge beneath. 
He heard, but deigned her no reply, 
And bade her brothers quickly fly ; 
They come ! and from that beetling hill 
In close embrace the lovers leap ! 
Two forms are flying down the steep — 
A sullen sound, and all is still. 

The warriors stand like wolves at bay, 

When baulked all sudden of their prey ; 

But as that sound greets the quick ear 

From the steep brow, they blanch and start, 

And a strange awe of chilling fear 

Creeps through the chief's bold heart. 

Little dreamed he, relentless brave. 

That this, his soft and timid dove, 

By the transforming power of love. 

Would the bold, tameless eagle prove. 

One hurried glance he gives below. 

Then calmly readjusts his bow, 

And on his awe-struck warriors calls. 

Far down that steep, by the sylvan lake, 

Two hollow graves they quickly make. 

And there they laid them side by side 

In their fearful wedlock, bridegroom and bride. 

And ever yet, in the leafy June, 

When full on the lake shines the round, bright moon, 

And the winds are hushed and the waves are still. 

And the echoes sleep on the sacred hill, 

Two forms steal out from the covert shore. 

With shadowy bark and spectral oar ; 

And with never a wake or ripjjle, glide 

Slow and serene o'er the silvery tide ; 

But the whoop and the yell, and the wild uproar 

Of fierce pursuers, are heard no more. 



A LEGEND. 

The following legend,' translated from the Sionx bj Baptiste 
Eocque, and written by Miss Cora Clark, of Toledo, Ohio, is given 
as a sample of the traditions that have been handed down from 
ancient generations : 

In the old Indian days of the North Red River country, when an eagle's 
feather was worth a pony, and one feather might be added to the warrior's 



TRADITIONAL. 577 

head-dress for each scalp taken, many were the young braves who made 
solitary and dangerous trips to the Rocky mountains to seek along appalling 
abysses for the aerie of that noble bird, the eagle. When once a warrior had 
sighted a nest, he most jealously guarded the spot against intrusion, and, with 
Indian obstinacy, clung to his right of discovery. 

Een-moo (the Panther), a young and brave Sioux, left the camp of his 

people and took his course with the sun toward the land of its setting. Young 

Een-moo's heart and limbs were strong ; he knew no fear, either of the deadly 

enemies in his way, or of the heights and depths of the mountains. He was 

alone but for his pony, his bow and arrows and a knife ; he carried also one 

buffalo-skin and a blanket. Een-moo rea(,-hed the mountain country in peace ; 

the enemy had not crossed his path, and he had turned not, save to send an 

arrow in search of game. He placed his horse and blanket where none mio-ht 

discover them, and with his arrows, his buffalo-skin and his knife at his 

back, he went on further up the mountains. He stood at length midway 'tween 

earth and sky, and in rigid silence surveyed the scene before him. As he stood 

thus, the cliff spirit touched his eyes, his feet, his limbs; his eyes received the 

fire of an eagle's gaze, his feet and limbs the strength and swiftness of its 

pinions. Then came the climbing of dizzy heights, from which he peered into 

the cloudy chasms, searching the perpendicular sides for a chance shelf on 

which might be the rude angular works of an eagle's nest. This, the object of 

his strenuous efforts, was finally before him. His quick eye had cau<^ht si<^ht 

of a projection upon the face of a huge wall beyond the black depth^that lay 

at his feet. Indistinct at first, it had slowly assumed bolder outlines, and as if 

to confirm at that moment his almost assured hope, there was a movement a 

majestic rising and falling, and the huge bird had left her nest. Een-moo's 

frame was on fire ; his eye flashed along the upper edge of the cliff and then with 

equal speed marked out a course by which it might be attained He must 

traverse miles and miles of rock; but, nothing daunted, he commenced with a 

bound the perilous expedition. He- rose and fell ; he went under and over 

down, down, up, up, up, and he stood above and a little over the nest With 

folded arms, compressed lips and heaving breast he looked down, a long long 

distance down, and counted six eggs ; he looked further to the black rock' floor 

below. At this moment, from another position among those upper rocks 

another dark form appeared. A Cree warrior knelt with one hand pressed 

against a jutting stone, the other on the ground, and with eyes whose fire could 

be equaled only by that of the brave above him, he counted the same six 

eagle eggs. 

Neither saw the other, and day after day they crept stealthilv to their 
respective places watching closely the nest, and afterward still more' zealously 
the growth of the young birds. That the larger feathers might attain their 
full value, the birds were left unmolested until just ready to leave the nest 
The momentous day for action set by Een-moo came at length, and with the 
earliest eastern light he began his preparation. He cut his buffalo-skin into 
long, slim strips, from which he twisted a light rope. When he reached the 
spot the old bird had not yet gone for morning food. He had not Ion- to wait 
however, for her to rise from her nest, when he sent an arrow to the noble 
mother s heart. Attaching the rope to the rock above, he cautiously descended 
by it toward the nest. 



578 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 

With all his previous preparation and present caution he could not save 
himself, for there was a flaw in the rope, and when within a few feet of the 
landing, the cord, which alone connected him to all living thinjjs, snapped, and 
he was precipitated among the afl'righted birds. For a moment his strong 
Indian heart was daunted. He looked above, below, and saw no way of escape. 
It was but a moment ; with his inborn tact he soon set upon the only i)ossible 
means of escape. He saw in the movements of the frightened eaglets a strength 
that might be put to use. AN'ith his natural alacrity and fortitude he immedi- 
ately put into action liis desiierate thought. With a stick from the nest he killed 
one of the six birds and dropped it l)elow, nor did he for an instant watch its 
dizzy fall, for he knew he nuist follow. He then, with strands from the rope 
left in his hands, tied an eagle to the back of each ankle, to the back of his 
neck and one to each wrist, in such a way that their wings were free to move and 
in a natural condition. He raised his arms, made his body and limbs perfectly 
rigid, closed his eyes and let himself go from the rock. The birds, conscious of 
falling, tried with the greatest efforts to keep up, so that Een-moo not only did 
reach the ground in safety, although dizzy and half-unconscious, but found 
himself borne a considerable distance from the base of the cliff. He returned 
to find the old bird and one young one, and liaving secured the desii-ed feathers 
from the seven birds, proceeded to his liorse, and thereupon took his home- 
W'ard way, anxious, after so long an absence, to receive from his family the 
honor of his success. At night he was loth to stop, but much wearied he crept 
into a bear's cave to take a rest, having a knife and arrow ready, expecting the 
return of the animal. 

Meanwhile with the early-rising sun the Cree Indian appeared, having 
made his preparations also to secure the birds that morning; but what was his 
consternation to find the nest empty, and not only that, but to see hanging 
from above a broken Indian rope. Filled with anger and mortification at this 
seeming robbery, he hastened to the summit of the cliff and made close exami- 
nation of all the tracks, which soon told the whole story; but of the manner 
of escape he knew not, but knew that the enemy warrior was then on his w&y 
to the Eed River country, the land of the Sioux. He determined to be re- 
venged, and to yet secure the eagle feathers. Late that night Een-moo roused 
from slumber to find a dark object bending over him; before he could move 
one wrist was seized and a knife was descending, when with his free hand he 
caught the descending wrist of his foe. Neither Indian would release the 
other, so that they kept their rigid positions until daylight. In the gray dawn 
the fierce eyes of the foes met, — one a Sioux, the other a Cree, both young, 
brave, and of equal strength. The Cree claimed a right to the eagle feathers 
now in the possession of the Sioux, but Een-moo told him that he also had the 
right to them. They therefore agreed to settle the quarrel by gambling for the 
feathers. They came forth into the day, took ten arrows, and after arranging 
the mark, proceeded with the shots. Een-moo lost in succession each set of 
feathers, his pony, his blanket. He then in desperation put at stake his side 
scalp for one set of feathers, and thereupon won in succession each set of 
feathers, his pony, blanket and knife, and those of the Cree ; then the Cree 
put up his side scalp for a set of feathers. This Een-moo would not accept, in 
admiration of his enemy, but offered to give him half the feathers. This was 



• VERY EARLY TEVIES. 579 

done, and not only this, but the two exchanged friendship. As it was neces- 
sary, however, that there be a conflict because representatives of contending 
tribes had met, they agreed that at the full of the next moon they would each 
bring to that spot thirty warriors who should by a battle avenge the quarrel ; 
but as to themselves, one would rpide a white horse and the other a black one, 
and although they must appear as foes, one would not injure the other, as in 
reality they were eternal friends. 



CHAPTER LI. 



VERY EARLY TIMES. 



In writing the history of any nation, county or town, it is de- 
sirable that it should be done before all traces of the facts related or 
the eye-witnesses of the events recorded should have passed away, 
in order that their accuracy may not be disputed. These records of 
the early history of Wabasha and this part of Minnesota, are all the 
more useful since the times which they chronicle have become already 
historic ; and, as we take into consideration the manner in which 
these bordermen held themselves amenable to the laws, being men 
of education and intelligence, we wonder not that they held the 
respect and fear of the savage tribes with whom they trafficked, or 
at their success among them. Men of brave, bold hearts themselves, 
the savage, so long as his rights were not infringed upon, could 
imitate, admire and respect the white man. The Indians have no 
heralds, no colleges, in which the lineage of their great men can be 
traced ; they have no parish register of marriages and births, by 
which to ascertain their ancestry ; no monuments of their own art, to 
commend to future ages the events of the past ; no Indian pen re- 
cords the deeds of their warriors, their chiefs, and their prowess, or 
their wrongs. Their spoilers have been their historians ! And 
although reluctant assent has been awarded to some of the noble 
traits of their nature, yet, without yielding a due allowance for the 
peculiarities of their situation, the Indian character has been pre- 
sented, with a singular uniformity, as being cold, morose and 
revengeful, unrelieved by any of those varying lights and shades 
which are admitted in respect to other peoples no less wild and un- 
civilized than they. Forgetting that in the annals of the Hebrews 
their second monarch did not scruple to "saw his prisoners with 



580 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. , 

saws," and to "harrow them with harrows of iron'- ; forgetful, like- 
wise, of the scenes at Smithfield under the direction of our own 
British ancestors, and later, of the persecutions of the Quaker and 
the terrors of witchcraft ! But the poor untutored Indian has been, 
and is still, denounced with one accord as a monster of unapproacha- 
ble barbarity ! As though the summary tomahawk were worse than 
the iron tortures of the harrow, and the torch of the savage were 
hotter than the faggots of Queen Mary ! Tliere has been none to 
weep for the poor Indian, while his wrongs have been wholly ignored 
and unrecorded. The Indians have no writer, no scribe, to relate 
their own side of the story ; and yet the annals of men probably do 
not attest to a more kindly reception of foreigners than was given to 
the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth by the faithful Massasoit and the 
tribes under his jurisdiction; nor did the "forest kings" take up 
arms until they too clearly saw that either their visitors or them- 
selves must be driven from the soil which was their own, derived, as 
they believed, from the Great Spirit himself; and that nation is yet 
to be discovered that will not light for their homes, the graves of 
their fathers, and their family altars. No ! and until it be forgotten 
that by some christians in inftmt Massachusetts it was held to be 
righteous to kill Indian'^ as the familiars of Agazel, or until the 
early records of even tolerant Connecticut, which disclose the facts 
that the Indians there were seized and sold as slaves in British West 
Indies, or until the rivers Amazon and La Plata shall have washed 
away the bloody history of the Spanish-American conquest, and 
until the fact that Cortez stretched the unhappy Gautimozin naked 
upon a bed of burning coals is proved to be a fiction, let not the 
American Indian be pronounced the most cruel of men ! 

The fort established by Perrot was still in existence in the time 
of the French and Indian war, and was occupied as a military 
post at different times, until these lands were ceded to the English 
in 17G0. After the peace of 1763 between France and England was 
declared, Jonathan Carver, of Connecticut, conceived the project of 
exploring the northwest, and leaving Boston in June, 1766, he 
arrived at Mackinaw, then the most distant post of the British, in 
August, and from that point pursued the usual route to Green Bay, 
where he arrived on the 18th of the same month. The French post 
at that point was then standing, although much decayed. In com- 
pany with several traders, he left Green Bay and proceeded to "a 
town on the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Ouisconsin, called 



VERY EARLY TIMES. 581 

bj the French, La Prairie du Chien. It was a large town, con- 
taining about three hundred families. At a small stream called 
Yellow river, and just opposite Prairie du Chien, the traders, who 
had thus far accompanied him, took up their residence for the win- 
ter, and from that point Carver, with a Canadian voyageur and a 
Mohawk Indian for companions, proceeded in a canoe up the Mis- 
sissippi. They reached Lake Pepin on the first of November, land- 
ing a few miles below. Carver was very much struck with the 
appearance of the surrounding land at this halting-place, and he 
says, while his companions were preparing dinner, he " took a walk 
on land," and the surface of the country struck him as very peculiar. 
He thought "it must be the site of some vast artificial earthwork." 
This was undoubtedly below Wabasha, at what is now called Sand 
Prairie, also a part of the "Grand Encampment," where mounds 
and relics of the prehistoric age have been found, many of which 
are traceable and easily seen. It is worthy of remembrance, that 
Carver was the first to call the attention of the civilized world to the 
existence of ancient monuments in the Mississippi valley. In liis 
account of this ground, he says : '*0n the first of November I 
reached Lake Pepin, a few miles below which I landed, and while 
the servants were preparing dinner I ascended the bank to view the 
country. I had not proceeded far before I came to a fine level, open 
plain, on which, at a little distance, I perceived a partial elevation, 
that had the appearance of an entrenchment. On a nearer inspection 
I had greater reason to suppose that it had been intended for this 
many centuries ago. Notwithstanding it was now covered with 
grass, I could plainly see that it had once been a breastwork of 
about four feet in height, extending the best part of a mile, and 
sufiiciently capacious to cover five thousand men. Its form was 
somewhat circular, and its flank reached to the river. Though much 
defaced by time, every angle was distinguishable, and appeared as 
regular, and fashioned with as much military skill, as if planned by 
Vauban himself. 

"The ditch was not visible, but I thought, on examining more 
curiously, that I could perceive there certainly had been one. From 
its situation, also, I am convinced that it must have been designed 
for that purpose. It fronted the country and the rear was covered 
by the river, nor was there any rising ground for a considerable way 
that commanded it ; a few straggling lakes were alone to be seen 
near it. In many places small tracks were worn across it by the 



5S2 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

elks or deer, and from the depth of the bed of earth by which it was 
covered I was {ible to draw certain conclusions in regard to its great 
antiquity. I examined all the angles and every part with great 
attention, and have often blamed myself since for not encamping on 
the spot and drawing an exact ])lan of it. To show that this descrip- 
tion is not the effect of a heated imagination or the chimerical tale 
of a mistaken traveler, I find, on iiupiiry, since my return, that 
Monsieur St. Pierre and several traders have at different times taken 
notice of similar appearances, upon which they have formed the 
same conjectures, but without examining them so minutely as I did. 
How a work of this kind could exist in a country that has hitherto 
(according to the general received opinion) been the seat of war to 
untutored Indians alone, whose whole stock of military knowledge 
has only within two centuries amounted to drawing the bow, and 
whose only breastwork, even at present, is the thicket, I know not. 
I have given as exact an account as possible of the singular appear- 
ance, and leave to future explorers of those distant regions to dis- 
cover whether it is a production of nature or art. 

"Perhaps the hints I have here given might lead to a more 
perfect investigation of it, and give us very different ideas of the 
ancient state of realms that we at present believe to have been, from 
the earliest period, only the habitation of savages."* 

In Louisiana, layers of pottery six inches thick, with remnants of 
matting and baskets, have been found twelve feet helow the surface, 
and underneath what is believed to be strata of the Drift. Pages of 
similar testimony might be quoted to establish these truths, but 
this work does not call for any argument or discussion in relation to 

* Science and research are daily establishing the truth of Carver's supposi- 
tions in regard to investigations, also that man existed in this region as far back 
in geological time as on the European continent ; and it may be shown that 
America is really the birthplace of the earliest race of man. One of the late 
important discoveries is that of Mr. E. L. Berthoud, which is given to the 
Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. He reports the discovery of ancient fire- 
places, rude stone monuments, and implements of stone in great variety, in 
several places along Crow creek in Colorado, and also on several other rivers 
in that vicinity. These fireplaces indicate several ancient sites of an unknown 
race, differing entirely from the mound-builders and the present Indians, while 
the fossils and shells found with the remains make it quite certain that the 
deposit in which these ancient sites are found is as old as the Middle Tertiary 
period, and Mr. Berthoud thinks the evidence strongly in favor of these loca- 
tions having been near some fresh-water lake, whose vestiges the present to- 
pography of region favors. — Scientific American. 



VERY EAKLY TIMES. 5bc> 

the existence of man before the Di-ift, or whether pi-eglacial man was 
civiHzed or not. 

It will be seen at once that, without doubt, these earthworks 
were thrown up and entrenched even centuries before Fort Perrot 
was erected a few miles farther up the river, and it is still a mooted 
question whether they are the production of nature or art. It seems 
a great pity, too, that scientists have not pushed these investigations 
before all traces of the works should be effaced. Many of these 
mounds are still traceable and easily seen, and if thej are the pro- 
duction of art, they but correspond to accounts we have of mounds 
and mound builders in other states, especially in Florida ; and these 
remains, in connection with a general estimate of aboriginal civiliza- 
tion, are to be found in each division of the western continent. 
That portion of the United States which lies between the Appalachian 
and the Rock}'' mountains presents three groups, at once the 
oldest and rudest monuments of bygone times. In Florida the 
natives always endeavored to build on high ground, or at least to 
erect the houses of the cacique or chief upon an eminence. As the 
country was very level and high places seldom found, they con- 
structed artificial mounds of earth, the top of each being capable of 
containing from ten to twenty houses. Here resided the cacique, 
his family and attendants. At the foot of this mound was a square 
according to the size of the village, around which were the houses 
of the leaders and most distinguished inhabitants. The rest of the 
people erected their wigwams as near to the dwelling of their chief 
as possible. An ascent in a straight line, from fifteen to twenty 
feet wide, led to the top of the hillock and was flanked on each side 
by trunks of trees, joined one to another and thrust deep into the 
earth, other trunks of trees forming a kind of stairway ; the other 
^ sides of the mounds were steep and inaccessible. 

Many of the artificial mounds noticed by travelers of the present 
day, and about which there has been so much learned speculation, 
were doubtless artificial structures thrown up by the natives for the 
purposes here given. Tliese mounds of earth seem to be for similar 
purposes with those of stone on which are erected the ancient 
edifices found in Central America. 

The first group of the United States extends from the sources of 
the Allegheny to the waters of the Mississippi ; the second group 
occupying the Mississippi valley, and the third stretches from South 
Carolina to Texas. These groups consist wholly of mounds and 



584 HISTORY OF wabasiia county. 

circumlocutions of earth and stone varying from each other very 
little. Whether these structures were intended for worship or 
defense, it is impossible to decide ; more probably, however, they 
were of a military character. But, whatever their origin, they derive 
great interest from the analogous fact that within the same limits 
vases of earthenware and copper have been dug up, and pipe-bowls 
decorated with human heads of the type of existing aborigines, 
together with domestic utensils, personal ornaments, hatchets of 
stone, and weapons of copper, mica and shell. 

While attempting to appreciate aboriginal civilization, we cannot 
fail, in the light of these remains, to be struck with their magnitude 
rather than with their beauty, and the only safe conclusion is that in 
the new world, as in the old, there were different degrees of civiliza- 
tion, — some of them much higher than we could have expected 
in the utter absence of useful metals, and also beasts of burden. 
And again, stray visitors of a higher type might have produced all 
the phenomena — visitors such as appear to have figured in the 
traditions of Mexico and Peru ; or again, as Mr. Donnelly in his 
"Atlantis" would have, visitors from the submerged continent from 
whom both Europe and America derive their similarity of archi- 
tecture, manners, traditions, religion and customs. 

From facts and circumstances equally conclusive we surely may 
deduce an age for most of tlie mounds of the Mississippi valley of not 
less than two thousand years, but by whom built, or whether their 
authors migrated to remote lands, under the attraction of more 
fertile soil or genial climate, or whether they disappeared beneath 
the victorious arms of an alien race, or were swept out of existence 
by some climatic change or terrible epidemic, are questions probably 
bej'ond the power of human investigation. History is silent con- 
cerning them, and their very name is lost to tradition itself. The 
tenacity witli which the minds of the credulous cling to the mar- 
velous is wonderful ; yet the facts connected with the Mississippi 
valley indicate that the ancient population was numerous and widely 
spread, as the features common to all identify. 

Cartier in Canada, Smith in Virginia, as well as the Pilgrims, 
and the French in New York, all found the Indians con- 
structing defenses, consisting of palisades, ditches, embank- 
ments and other works, the remains of which are still numerous. 
Again, it is noteworthy that while the existence of minerals 
was known to the savages who lived near Lake Superior, 



VERY EARLY TIMES. 585 

and it was made known to the first explorers of that lake and 
its vicinity, the working of the deposit was not commenced till 
nearly two centuries later. Stranger still, that a race far older than 
the savages with whom the Jesuit fathers conversed, a race of 
which but little more is known than that it existed, must have been 
extracting copper from the mines of Lake Superior long before Co- 
lumbus set forth to discover the new world. These people are sup- 
posed to be mound-builders ; and in the mounds, which are their 
only memorials, copper utensils A,nd ornaments have been found. 
The Indians inhabiting the country had no knowledge of mining 
nor skill in working metals. 

In the winter of 1847-8 a most curious discovery was made on 
the south shore of Lake Superior, near the Ontonagon river, where 
the Minnesota Coppermine is situated.* Mr. Knap discovered the 
remains of an old working, and found a mass of native copper ten 
feet long, three feet wide and nearly three feet thick, and weighing 
six tons. In the vicinity of the same were found stone hammers, 
copper knives and chisels, and wooden bowls for bailing out water. 
Though very rude, yet they were most ingenious, and must have 
been made by a people which had made greater progress in civiliza- 
tion than the Indians who succeeded and supplanted them. 

As Minnesota, and this part of it so near our city, was the first 
place in the new world where the attention was called to the exist- 
ence of earthworks, I have given some space to the consideration 
of the same and the opinion of others. 

Lake Pepin excited Carver's admiration greatly, as it has that of 
every traveler since his time, and he says of it, "I observed the ruins 
of a French factory, where it is said Capt. St. Pierre resided and 
carried on a great trade with the Nadoussioux before the reduction 
of Canada." Undoubtedly this "factory," as he calls it, was old 
Fort Beauharnais. Carver was the first English traveler who visited the 
Falls of St. Anthony, and this Capt. St. Pierre is supposed to be the 
same to whom "Washington bore despatches from Gov. Dinwiddle in 
1753. At that time the aged St. Pierre was in command of a rude 
post in Erie county, Pennsylvania. 

During the war existing between France and England in America, 
the ofiicers of the northwestern posts were called into action and 
stationed near the enemy, so that several posts were left unprotected. 

* Ray's " From New Foundland to Manitoba." 



586 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

It appears that the erection of trading-posts on the Mississippi had 
enticed the Dakotalis from their old residence on the Rum river to 
come to these posts, whieli gave them the name of River Bands. 
Carver, in speaking of the Nadoussioux, says there were originally 
twelve bands, but one band revolted and left, which, at the tim.e he 
made their acquaintance, left eleven ; and they were called "River 
Bands, because they chiefly dwell near the banks of this river," 
meaning the Mississippi. Carver's theory in regard to the Indians 
is not unlike that of many others who have given much time to 
research and the study of mounds and their builders. He supposed 
the Dahkotahs came from Asia, but says "this might have been at 
different times, and from various parts, as Tartary, China, Japan, 
for the inhabitants of those countries greatly resemble each other." 
Others have observed the resemblance between the American 
Indian and those of Tartary, and theologians have generally believed 
that they could trace an affinity with the Hebrew, others again, with 
the Gaelic or Erse, particularly at the Sandwich islands. In his 
book of travels Carver says nothing in relation to a grant made to 
him from the Dahkotahs, but after his death it was asserted that there 
was a deed in existence belonging to him of valuable lands, and that 
it was executed at the cave in the eastern suburbs of St. Paul. In this 
deed is the first known mention of "brother Jonathan," and it is 
presumed the term arose from this transaction. The deed claims to 
have been executed "at the Great Cave, May 1, 1767," and signed 
by Hawnopawjatin and Olohtongoomlisheau. 

After Jonathan Carver's death a claim was urged for the land 
upon which St. Paul now stands, and many miles adjacent ; and in 
1840 a corps of engineers came on to look up the lands for the 
English heirs, he having had two wives, the second one being an 
English lady. No good title, however, has ever been acknowledged, 
neither was the original deed presented by the heirs' assignees, and 
in 1823 the committee of public lands made a report to the United 
States, stating that, owing to tlie want of proof as to those facts, in 
their opinion "the claim was not such as the United States were 
under any obligation to allow" ; and the territory has remained the 
property of the United States. 

In May, 1800, the Northwestern Territory was divided. The 
portion now distinguished as Ohio was organized as the territory of 
Indiana, and in December following the Province of Louisiana, of 
which Minnesota was a part, was officially delivered to the United 



VERY EARLY TIMES. 587 

States by the French. President Jefferson, thinking it highly 
important to explore the country acquired, took measures for an 
expedition to the upper Mississippi. The first American who visited 
Minnesota, on business of a public character, was Lieut. M. Pike ; 
and in September, 1805, he arrived at Prairie du Chien, where he 
was politely entertained by the traders there at that time. These 
traders were Fisher, Frazer and Woods. Fisher traded there until 
1815, when he went to the Ked Eiver of the North in service of the 
Hudson Bay Company, where he remained several years. From 1824 
until 1826 he was at Lake Traverse. One of his daughters was the 
mother of Joseph Rolette, of Pembinaw, by J. Rolette, trader at 
Prairie du Chien. Mr. Rolette had two wives ; his first wife had 
two daughters, one of whom is still living, Mrs. Maj. Hooe, of 
Washington. His second wife married Mr. H. L. Dousman, a 
partner in the American Fur Company, of New York, and trader at 
Prairie du Chien, where they continued to reside until Mr. Dous- 
man's death, which occurred in September, 1868. They had one 
son, who now resides in one of the palatial residences of St. Paul. 
Mr. Dousman was a man of sound and cultivated judgment, and 
great executive ability, and was successful in all his efforts to bring 
to proper working system the operations of traffic of the wide field 
in which he was engaged. Frazer has a son living at Mendota. 
Jean Baptiste Faribault was the last survivor of the old traders. He 
and his sons resided at Faribault for many years. Mr. Faribault 
entered the service of the Northwest Fur Company when a very young 
man, in spite of great opposition from his family, and the station or 
post to which he was assigned was that of Kankakee, on the river of 
that name, and not very far from the present city of Chicago, license 
having been granted them to trade within the jurisdiction of the 
United States by the proper authorities. Mr. Faribault, displaying 
so much business tact, was assigned the charge of a more important 
post on the Des Moines river, about two hundred miles above its 
mouth. The post was named Redwood, and the Indians with 
whom he traded, the Yankton Sioux. He continued in charge of 
that post four years, during which time he saw no white man except 
his own assistants. The region abounded with beaver, otter, deer, 
bear, and other wild animals, and it was the favorite resort of the 
Sacs and Foxes, the lowas and Sioux. 

The wages of a good clerk at that time was two hundred dollars 
per annum, an interpreter one hundred and fifty dollars, and a com- 



588 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

mon voyageur one hundred dollars ; rations allowed them being of 
the simplest kind. 

Having served his time, Mr. Faribault returned to Mackinaw with 
the intention of going back to Canada, but hearing there of the sudden 
death of both his parents within iifteen days of each other, he again 
entered the service of his former employers and was dispatched to 
the river St. Peters (now Minnesota) and took charge of a post at 
Little Rapids, about forty miles above its mouth. The band of 
Sioux with whom he traded were called Wah-pay-ton, or People of 
the Leaf, and during the third year of his residence there he was 
married to a daughter of a Mr. Hause, a previous superintendent of 
Indian affairs. The groom was in his thirty-iirst year and his bride 
in her twenty-second. He was thenceforth a permanent denizen of 
the northwest. His eldest son, Mr. Alexander Faribault, was born 
at Prairie du Cliien, and this son was the founder and a highly 
respected citizen of Faribault, in this state. The Northwest Fur Com- 
pany, not being permitted to continue their business upon American 
territory, sold out their interests to the American Fur Company, of 
which John Jacob Astor, of New York, was the head. Joseph 
Rolette was constituted the agent of the newly formed association 
in the northwest, and Mr. Faribault made arrangements with him 
for the supply of merchandise requisite for his trade, and afterward 
removed his trading station to Pike's island, near the present site 
of Fort Snelling. Mr. Faribault had four sons and several daughters, 
but one of whom is still living. He died August 20, 1860, at the 
ripe age of eighty-seven years. His memory deserves to be 
respected and perpetuated among the pioneers of Minnesota. 

After Lieut. Pike's stay of some days at Prairie du Chien he 
resumed his ascent of the Mississippi, and at Point du Sable, on 
Lake Pepin, he found a trader by the name of Cameron, and his 
son, who accompanied Pike to the Cannon river, where he found 
Red Wing, the second war-chief of the Dahkotahs. Continuing his 
ascent, he finally reached the encampment of J. B. Faribault, which 
was three miles below Mendota, where he made a short stay. 
Thence he ascended the river and continued his explorations as far 
as Red Cedar lake, and at Lake La-Sang-Sue hoisted the American 
flag, effecting at both these points peace with the Sioux and 
Chippewas. 

Upon this trip he fixed the source of the Mississippi to be Leech 
lake, that being the highest point he reached, owing to the inclem- 



TREATIES WITH THE NATIVES. 589 

ency of the weather, which prevented his pushing his discoveries 
still farther. 

. Upon his return he passed through Lake Pepin with barges, and 
stopped at a prairie about nine miles below the lake, on the right 
bank going down, and there went out to view some grounds which 
he thought had the appearance of an old fortification. These fortifi- 
cations, no doubt, were the same described by Jonathan Carver. 
Upon reaching Prairie du Chien, Pike was again entertained by the 
traders. Lieut. Pike was a bold, enterprising man of great tenacity 
of purpose, and will ever be entitled to the distinction of having been 
the first to extend researclies to regions so wild and repulsive, at a 
time, too, when there existed no fort on the Mississippi above 
Prairie du Chien, the old French forts having been abandoned for 
years. 



CHAPTER LII. 



TREATIES WITH THE NATIVES. 



In 1830 steps were taken for a congress of tribes at Prairie 
du Chien, and at this council the M'dewakantonwan Dahkotahs 
made a treaty, and conveyed to their relatives of mixed blood that 
tract of land about Lake Pepin known as the " half breed tract." 
The tract of said treaty is described as follows : "Beginning at a 
place called the Barn, below and near the village of the Red Wing 
chief, and running back fifteen miles, thence in a parallel line with 
Lake Pepin and the Mississippi about thirty-two miles to a point oppo- 
site Au Boeuf river, thence fifteen miles to the Grand Encampment 
opposite the river aforesaid. " This is the tract upon which our annals 
are laid, and with which the history of the city of "Wabasha is so 
closely connected. Oliver Cratte, of this place, asserts that he was 
present at that treaty, and that the above is a true rendition of it ; also 
that these lands were intended for the half-breeds of that generation 
only, and that no " scrip " should ever have been placed upon them. 
The chiefs present upon that occasion, according to Mr. Cratte, were 
Red Wing, Black Dog, Little Crow (the father of the great Crow of 
Sioux massacre notoriety), Waconta and Wapashaw. In 1831, dur- 
ing the month of April, the authorities at Washington instructed the 
Indian agent at Sault Ste. Marie, H. R. Schoolcraft, to proceed to 
the upper Mississippi, and use his influence to make peace between 



590 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the contending tribes, Dakotahs and Ojibways, in which he partly 
succeeded, and in 1832 he was again instructed to visit the tribes 
toward the sources of the Mississippi. In June of that year he 
arrived, in company of a military escort commanded by Lieut. 
James Allen, at the Fond du Lac trading-house on the St. Louis 
river, and, slowly making their way, in July they arrived at Elk 
Lake, which Mr. Schoolcraft named Itasca. The party were 
sure they had reached the true source of the great river at last, and 
geographers still mark Lake Itasca as the head and source of the 
Mississippi. The lake is about seven miles long, and varies from 
one to three miles broad, is of irregular shape, with no rock in place 
but some boulders on the shores. 

The Indian trade of the northwest was found to be so completely 
in the hands of British subjects, that trade could not be carried on 
by the Americans without their assistance. The secretary of the 
treasury in consequence issued a circular allowing the agents to 
license interpreters and voyageurs, who might be employed by the 
American traders. Mr. Taliaferro was the first Indian agent in 
Minnesota, and he held the office twenty-one years, licensing traders 
at different points as occasion demanded at different times. In 
1833 the licensed traders of Minnesota were : Alexis Bailly, Men- 
dota ; J. R. Browne, mouth of the St. Croix ; J. B. Faribault, 
Little Rapids ; Joseph Renville, Lac qui Parle ; Louis Provencalle, 
Traverse des Sioux ; Hazen Moores, Lac Traverse, and B. F. Baker 
at Fort Snelling. In 1835 we find Joseph R. Brown at Lac Traverse, 
near the head of the Minnesota river, and Joseph Laframboise on 
the Coteau de Prairie, at the Lake of the Two Woods, and Alex- 
ander Faribault, son of J. B. Faribault, on the Cannon river. There 
were other prominent traders who came into the country in 1 837, 
among whom were N. W. Kittson, Philander Prescott and Fran- 
cois Labathe. Franklin Steele and Wm. H. Forbes also came to 
Minnesota in 1837, and H. M. Rice, who was at the head of an 
•extensive trade with the Winnebagos and Chippewas, in 1839. 
In 1837 about twenty chiefs and traders, by direction of Gov. 
Dodge, proceeded to Washington to make a treaty ceding to the 
United States their lands east of the Mississippi. They were 
accompanied by Maj. Taliaferro, agent, and Scott Campbell as 
interpreter. The fur company was represented by H. H. Sibley,' 
Alexis Bailly, Joseph La Framboise, Augustin Rocque, Labathe, 
the Faribaults, and others. Joel R. Poinsette, a special commis- 
sioner, represented the United States. 



CHAPTEK LIII. 



BUSINESS BEGINS. 



The first white man to resume trade in these parts after the old 
forts were abandoned, was Augustin Rocque, grandfather of the 
family by that name in Wabashaw. His first post was built about 
1800, where Reed's Landing now stands. Lieut. Pike makes no 
mention of him in his account of his explorations, and it is probable 
that Rocque had left the post before Pike passed up the river, as it 
appears that for some reason he abandoned this post and returned to 
Prairie du Chien. Mr. Rocque was a French Canadian, coming to 
these wilds when a very young man. He married a Dahkotah 
woman, by whom he had a large family, his son Augustin being 
the father of the family now at this place. About the year 1830 
Augustin, who followed the business of his father as Indian trader, 
moved back to this point on the "half-breed" land and erected a 
dwelling and trading-post on the site of old Fort Perrot. Being con- 
nected by marriage with the Sioux and Fox Indians, he traded 
through different parts of Minnesota and Iowa, one of his outposts 
being on the site of the present town of Cedar Rapids. Mr. 
Rocque's influence among the tribes with whom he traded was 
almost unbounded, and several outbreaks at different times were 
quelled by his sagacity and influence. So great was the respect of 
the Indians for him, they looked upon him almost as a father, and 
hence his influence. The portrait of Mr. Rocque hangs in the capi- 
tol at Washington, together with several of the Sioux chiefs. At 
the time of his return to this point, the present site of Wabashaw 
was covered with underbrush and trees. His place, when steam- 
boats ran, was called Rocque's Landing. At that time Wapashaw 
Red Leaf) was living with his band where Winona now stands, the 
prairie being called Wapasliaw prairie— by the old voyageurs, "La 
Prairie Oseilles " — that is, ' ' Flag-root Prairie. " The city of Winona 
was named for Wapashaw's sister Weenonah. 

The first steamboat uj^on these waters was the Virginia, which 
ascended the Mississippi as far as Fort Snelling in 1823. Fort 
Snelling was first named Fort St. Anthony, but in 1821, at the sug- 
gestion of Gen. Scott, it was changed to Fort Snelling. As Col. 



592 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Leavenworth and troops, en route for Fort St. Anthony in 1819, 
stopped at Prairie dii Ciiien, a child was born to Lieut. N. Clark, 
whose first baptismal name was Charlotte, after its mother, and the 
second was Ouisconsin, given it by the officers in view of the fact 
that she was born at the junction of that stream with the Mississippi. 
In course of time Miss Clark married a graduate of West Point, 
who afterward became Gen. H. P. Yan Cleve, U. S. A., and this 
very worthy couple still reside in Minneapolis, Mrs. Van Cleve 
being the oldest resident of Minnesota. In 1820 Mrs. Col. Snelling 
gave birth to a daughter, which was the first white child born in 
Minnesota. 

Before the advent of steamboats upon these rivers commerce 
and navigation had been carried on by means of keel-boats and 
canoes, and for a long time after it was found that steamboats could 
ascend the upper Mississippi, commerce being unequal to the sup- 
port of steamboat navigation, the keel and canoe were used as 
before. The British and American fur companies always used the 
canoe for shallow waters and rapids, and the keel-boat for transpor- 
tation, until the volume of business warranted their supersedure by 
the steamer. The keel was built much like an ordinarj^ barge, but 
shallower, and provided with running-boards on each side, their 
carrying capacity varying from seven to twenty tons. The largest 
were usually manned by fourteen men, six on a side with poles for 
propelling the boat, and a cook, with sometimes a trader or agent on 
board. These men were Canadian-French half-breeds, called 
voyageurs, under the supervision of some active trader or agent. 

The earliest manuscript written in Minnesota is written by Col. 
Snelling, dated August 4, 1820, and reads as follows : 

In justice to Lawrence Taliaferro, Esq., Indian agent at this post,* we, the 

undersigned, officers of the Fifth Regiment here stationed, have presented him 

this paper as a token not only of our individual respect and esteem, but as an 

entire approval of his conduct and deportment as a public agent in this quarter. 

Given at St. Peter, this 4th day of August, 1820. 

T. Snelling, Col. 5th Inf , N. Clark, Lieut., 
S. BuRBANK, Br. Major, Jos. Hare, Lieut., 

David Perry, Capt., Ed. Purcell, Surgeon, 

D. Gooding, Br. Capt., P. R. Green, Lt. and Adjt., 

J. Plympton, Lieut., W. G. Camp, Lt. and Q. M., 

R. A. McCaue, Lieut., H. Wilkins, Lieut. 

(St. Peter was afterward called Mendota.) 

*Neiirs "History of Minnesota." 



BUSINESS BEGINS. 593 

The iirst white man wlio built on the present site of Wabasha 
was Oliver Cratte,* who came here from Fort Snelling in 1838. 
About the same time came Joseph Buisson, who, for some time, car- 
ried the mails on foot from Fort Snelling to Prairie clu Chien, a dis- 
tance of two hundred and four miles, accomplishing the round trip 
in fourteen days. Mr. Cratte was sent to this place by the govern- 
ment and located as blacksmith for the Wapashaw band. He was 
born in Liverpool, England, in 1801. He was early left an orphan, 
and he and his sister came to Canada when he was a mere boy. He 
learned the blacksmith's trade at Montreal, and after completing it 
he came west as far as Mackinaw, where he remained about a year. 
He then went to Prairie du Chien in company with some traders, 
and was there employed by the United States government. In 1828 
he was sent to Fort Snelling, where he remained until he came to 
Wabasha in 1838. Mr. Cratte has been married three times. His 
first wife was a daughter of Alexander Graham, by whom he had five 
children, and his present wife is a daughter of Scott Campbell, who 
acted as interpreter for the chiefs and braves who visited Washing- 
ton in 1837 for the purpose of ceding their lands east of the Missis- 
sippi to the United States. Mr. Cratte is still living and is the 
< dest living white man of his time. He is entirely blind, yet his 
memory is good, and it is like reading history to hear him recount 
the scenes of his long and varied experience. The old man is poor, 
which renders his blindness still more pitiable. He has, in his day, 
been far beyond want ; but loaning gold and, in his own honesty of 
purpose and heart, trusting the word of those who came to him in 
need, taking no proper security, he has thus, in his old age, become 
reduced to poverty and sorrow. Coming here in the fall of 1838, 
he built a shop of logs on the levee, chinking it with mud and sand, 
and occupying it that winter for shop and dwelling. In the spring 
following he added a "lean-to" and sent for his family, they having 
remained at Fort Snelling during the winter. This dwelling was 
the first ever built by white man at this place. Mr. Joseph Buisson 
built a small house the same season and brought his family here 
also, which house was the second one erected on the site of Waba- 
sha. 

Mr. Cratte's eldest son, David Cratte, who resides in Wabasha, 
has been a man of great activity and swiftness of foot, figuring 

* Cratte's Landing was the original name of the site of the present city of 
Wabasha. 

35 



594 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

largely in the early annals of the place. In 1854 he was sent by II. 
S. Allen's agent at this place with dispatches to Chippewa Falls, 
where Mr. Allen resided. Young Cratte carried them on foot, 
and upon his return, just after leaving Eau Claire, he noticed a party 
of Chippewas lurking around in ambush for a party of Sioux, who 
were on their way to St. Paul. The Chippewas, knowing the 
surroundings far better than the Sioux, waited for and surrounded 
them, capturing and killing every one of them. Cratte, learning 
what was going on, and fearing for his own life, took to his heels 
and ran all the way to Wabasha, arriving at nine o'clock in the 
evening, a distance of fifty miles in nine hours. 

The enmity existing between the Ojibways (Chippewas) and 
Dahkotahs (Sioux), owing to their frequent encroachments upon each 
other's hunting-grounds, was very bitter, and was the cause of 
constant feuds among them. 

Mr. J. Buisson was a trader of some ability, remaining at this 
place until his death, in 1857. He had quite a family of sons and 
daughters, most of them still residents of Wabasha. 

On the island just opposite the present city of Wabasha stood a 
trading-post in 1849, erected by one Eobar. Mr. La Bathe, a French 
trader, built and, in 1841, occupied the log house on the levee, just 
below the residence of W. T. Duganne, as a trading-post. In 1844 
be sold this post to Alexis Bailly, who occupied it for store and 
dwelling for many years. A part of said house is still standing, and 
in good repair, being occupied as a dwelling. * Mr. Bailly added to 
the building, living in it until after his second marriage, in 1857, 
when he built the substantial residence which, since his death, has 
been known as "Riverside" to all travelers. 

In 1841 another post was built upon the same island, about mid- 
way between Wabasha and Read's Landing, by a Mr. Nelson, which 
point is familiarly known as Nelson's Landing. These posts were 
built expressly for trade with the Chippewas. 

The history of the early days of our western homes has been so 
obliterated by the march of improvement in a quarter of a century, 
and traces of first beginnings so lost that a comparison of the present 
times with those of the past is hardly possible, and young people of 
the })resent day emigrating from their luxurious eastern homes 

/ 
* Since the above was written the building has been consumed by fire, 
April 23, and thus destroying the last landmark of the old traders. 



BUSINESS BEGINS. 595 

should bear in patience the slight ills to which they may be subjected, 
being, as they are, so small in comparison with the trials, privations 
and hardships of the early settlers. It is, no doubt, difficult for 
them to realize how very primitive were all these beginnings, and 
history itself cannot portray them as they really were. Again, the 
settler on any of our western prairies, and the ax man who enters 
upon the primeval forest, must often be the subject of strange 
reflections as he follows his plough, throwing the rich alluvial soil 
that through all the ages has remained undisturbed, or hews down 
the lofty pine that for thousands of years has flourished and grown 
unnoticed and uncared for, and the majestic oak in all its strength ; 
he must wonder how it should occur that he, of all the people that 
have lived, and still live on the earth, should be the first to appro- 
priate to his own comfort these blessings so long held in nature's 
vast storehouse ; and wonder, too, why his race should require all 
the resources of earth, the productions of forests, mines, rivers, lakes* 
oceans and seas, — of the soil planted, cultured and garnered; the 
flocks and herds feeding and gamboling in undisturbed freedom upon 
a thousand hills, for his subsistence and convenience, while other 
races have remained from generation to generation in all the 
untamed wildness of the deer and elk upon which they subsist. 
"Wliat of the race that but yesterday was here ? Have these rivers, 
plains and forests, now so peaceful, always been so calm and still ? 
Or have they been the scene of sanguinary savage conflict? We 
speculate in vain upon the long-ago dwellers upon the banks of 
these lovely streams. Then savage yells may have been the only 
sound that ever waked the stillness of these hills ; or a race long since 
gone may have builded and worshiped, and cultivated all the 
amenities of civilized life, and the records of their virtues and deeds 
have become obliterated by time's relentless fingers. 

Until 1849 the territory now comprising Minnesota was included 
in six counties, namely, Ramsey, Washington, Benton, Dakota, 
Wabasha, Pembinaw ; total population in 1849 being four thousand 
nine hundred and forty. The first white man who built within the 
precincts of the county was Augustin Rocque ; upon his return to 
his post, at or near the site of old Fort Ferrot, in 1830, and when 
steamboats began to navigate these waters, his place was called 
Rocque's Landing. Gov. Sibley makes mention of his place in his 
memoranda of first coming to Minnesota, and says: "Some idea 
can be formed of the great changes which have occurred since 1834 



596 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 

wheu I state that when I performed the journey from Prairie du 
Chien to St. Peters, now Mendota, in the antumn of that year, a 
distance of nearly three hundred miles, there was but one liouse 
between these points, and that was a log cabin, occupied by a 
trader named llocque, situated below Lake Pepin, near the present 
town of Wabasha." Mr. Cratte, as has been stated, was the first 
white man who built upon the present site. 

The city of Wabasha was not named until 1843, when it was 
called Wabashaw, after the old chief. The ceremony of christen- 
ing was performed in the following manner : A hole was dug in the 
ground on the levee, and a bottle containing a paper giving an account 
of the event was placed in the hole ; then a post was set up over it 
with a board nailed thereon, upon which was printed or written the 
name "Wabashaw" in large letters. A bottle of whisky was 
broken to celebrate the christening, and everyone became jubilant. 
In 1S53, ten years later, the old sign-post was still standing. It is 
difficult now to locate just the place where the post stood ; but Mr. 
Cratte informs us that it was on the levee between Alleghany and 
Pembroke streets. Mr. Francis Talbot saw it when he landed here 
in 1853 from the steamer Nominee. At the time of this christen- 
ing, Wabasha was nothing more than a trading-post and stopping- 
place for traders and voyageurs. It had been a stopping-place for 
the American traders for a long time as they passed up and down 
the river, trafficking with the different bands of Indians on both 
sides of the river and around the lakes, their headquarters being at 
Prairie du Chien, so that "the Prairie " seemed like home to them, 
particularly so to the pioneer Frenchman. After the town was 
organized Mr. Bailly was appointed justice of the peace by the 
governor, and was thereby made the first civil officer of the county. 
Before that time the manner of living had been quite patriarchal in 
its way, and no better illustration can be given of it than to quote 
Mr. Rocque's advice to his sons, which gives his opinion of the law. 
It says: "Mes fils, ce faut que vous engardfez bien, a ce moment 
parceque la loi c'est venue en ville. La loi c'est le diable, et Mon- 
sieur Bailly il est la loi." Interpreted: "My sons, it is necessary 
that you be very careful now, because the law has come to town. 
The law is the devil, and Mr. Bailly is the law." 



CHAPTER LIY. 

ORGANIZATION. 

The Territory of Minnesota was divided into counties by enact- 
ment of first territorial legislature. The county of Wabasha, 
according to this division, comprised all that portion of territory 
lying east of a line running due south from a point on the Mississippi 
known as Medicine Bottle village, at Pine Bend, to the Iowa line ; 
being the entire territory belonging to the present counties of 
Wabasha, Goodhue, Dodge, Olmsted, Winona, Mower, Houston, 
Fillmore and nearly one-half the territory belonging to Dahkota. 
Wabasha county was not organized under that act, but the division 
was declared to be for the purpose of the appointment of justices of 
the peace, constables and such other judicials as might be specially 
provided for. Wabasha was attached to Washington county for 
judicial purposes by provision of said act. By an act of March 5, 
1853, the county was somewhat reduced in size, that portion north 
of a line extending from a point twenty-five miles south of the north 
branch of the Cannon river to Lake Pepin, at a point on the lake 
seven miles below Sand Point, being set off into the counties of 
Goodhue and Dacotah. By the provisions of this act, Wabasha 
county was attached to Goodhue county for judicial purposes. Fill- 
more county was also set off and organized under the same act, and 
comprised all the territory south of the White Water river, and ex- 
tended west to a line running due southeast from a point on the north 
branch of the Cannon river, as above described, to the Iowa line. 
The remaining portion of land situated between Goodhue and 
Fillmore counties comprised the territory of Wabasha county as 
organized during the same session. By an act of February 23, 
1851:, the counties of Winona and Houston were organized, hence 
the limits and boundaries of Wabasha were again changed. By 
this act the boundaries were as follows: "Commencing at the 
soiitheast corner of township 107 north, of range 11 west ; thence 
west thirty miles to the southwest corner of Kalmar, in Olmsted 
county ; thence north twelve miles to the northwest corner of what 
is now the town of New Haven ; thence east six miles to the south- 



598 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

west corner of the present town of Mazeppa ; thence north twelve 
miles to the northwest corner of town 110, range 14 (being the 
present town of Chester) ; thence east six miles to the northeast 
corner of the same town ; thence north six miles to the northwest 
corner of the town of Mount Pleasant ; tlience east to Lake 
Pepin ; tlienee down the lake and Mississippi river to the present 
boundary line between Winona and Wabasha counties ; thence west 
to the northwest corner of Winona county ; thence south twenty-four 
miles to the place of beginning." By an act of February 20, 1855, 
Olmsted county was organized, with its boundary lines as at the 
present time ; eight of the southern towns of Wabasha were set off 
as a portion of the territory of Olmsted county, leaving the boun- 
daries of Wabasha county as at present described on the state maps. 

The first election in the county was held at the house of Augus- 
tin Rocque, in what is now the city of Wabasha, October 11, 1853. 
At that election the following gentlemen were elected to the county 
offices : Christian Shively, Oliver Cratte and Peter Larrivierre, 
county commissioners ; Alexis P. Bailly, register of deeds ; C. 
Shively, treasurer and coroner, and Levi Murphy, sheriff. 

The board of commissioners met March 6, 1854, in accordance 
with an act passed by the territorial legislature, February 9 of the 
same year, and presented their certificates of election, properly certi- 
fied to and endorsed, which were oi-clered to be deposited in the files 
of the office. Mr. Alexis P. Bailly acted as clerk of the meeting. 
The board then proceeded to business. A temporary seal was 
adopted, consisting of a circular piece of paper containing a red 
wafer, upon which was inscribed : " Temporary Seal of the County 
Court of Wabashaw County." Mr. Shively was elected chairman of 
the board. Adjourned to meet again on the 11th, at ten o'clock. 
Pursuant to adjournment they met again the lltli, and divided the 
county into three assessment districts, by denominating all that 
portion north of a line running from an old ferry-house, which stood 
a little above Read's Landing, to the western extremity of the 
county, as the first district ; Wm, Campbell was appointed assessor. 
The second district comprised the territory north of a line extending 
west from the house of Oliver Cratte on the levee, to the county 
line, not included in the first district ; and the third district com- 
prised the residue of the county. Mr. Whitmarsh was appointed 
assessor for the second district, and Mr, J. McKenzie for the third. 
At this meeting it was discovered that Mr. Murphy was not eligible 



ORGANIZATION. 599 

to the office of sheriff, as he was not a resident of the county, and 
Dr. Francis Milligin was appointed by the board to fill the vacancy. 
They also at that time located the county-seat at Wabasha. They 
met again on the 13th, pursuant to adjournment, to receive the bond 
given by F. H. Milligin, given as security for the faithful perform- 
ance of his duties as sheriff. On the 20th of same month the board 
ao-ain met, and appointed Francis La Point road supervisor. Messrs. 
Campbell and Whitmarsh never having qualified, they held another 
meeting on the 24th and appointed Amos Wheeler assessor for the 
first district, investing him with power to assess the second also. 
At theii- next meeting, which was held July 3, they found they had 
acted contrary to law, or to the statutes regarding the assessment- 
roll, and the whole matter was dropped. They then proceeded to 
divide into election precincts. The first precinct comprised towns 
108 and 109, of ranges M and 15 ; the place for holding elections 
was fixed at the house of Leonard B. Hodges, in Orinoco. Messrs.. 
E. Chilson, J. Clark and G. Gordon were appointed judges of 
election. The second precinct comprised the rest of the county, 
the place for holding elections being the house of Augustine Rocque, 
in Wabasha. The board also appointed Messrs. Wheeler, I. O. 
Seely and J. McKenzie for judges of election. A portion of the 
northern part of the county was set off in November as the Monte- 
zuma precinct, elections to be held at the house of Mr. John Lyons. 
For judges of election the board appointed Messrs. Thomas Allen, 
R. S. Philips and J. Hanson. At the same meeting they appointed 
Joseph Pingrey county surveyor. 

The first representative in the territorial legislature from the 
county was James Kirkman, of Wabasha, in 1855, who was suc- 
ceeded by A. P. Foster, of Plainview, in 1856. Messrs. S. H. 
Kemp and B. C. Baldwin were delegates to the constitutional con- 
vention in 1857. James Redpath, from Tepeeotah, was the first 
senator. In 1858 J. T. Averill was elected senator, and W. J. 
Arnold, J. H. Burnham and F. E. Skillman, representatives. Owing 
to the delay in the admission of the state to the Union, Gov.- 
elect H. H.'Sibly was not inaugurated until May 24, 1858, and it 
became optional with him to call or not to call the legislature 
together the next winter. As the republican party was successful 
that fall, and the election of United States senator the question of 
interest, no session was called. Politics had before that time been 
prominently democratic, and it was hoped the next election might 



600 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

secure af^^ain democratic majority and tlius elect a democratic senator. 
The next autumn the result was the same, liowever, and the same 
parties from Wabasha county were re-elected with Hon. Alex. Ram- 
sey as governor. W. S. Wilkinson was elected by that legislature 
to the United States senate. 

Commissioners Shively, Cratte and Larrivierre, under the terri- 
torial government, were elected in 1853. Mr. Shively was elected 
chairman, and was the only member of the board who could read 
and write. They held several meetings during the spring of 1854, 
but Messrs. Shively and Larrivierre refusing to present themselves 
at the regular meetings, Alexis P. Bailly and John McKee, Esq., 
who, by the way, was the first lawyer in the county, were appointed 
to their places, and Oliver Cratte made chairman of the board. 
This new board, consisting of Oliver Cratte, Alexis P. Bailly and 
John McKee, held their offices until the close of 1855. The mem- 
bers composing the board in 1856 were : C. R. Read, chairman, 
Levi Cook and A. A. Weston ; they were elected in the fall of 1855. 
Mr. Read was chosen for three years, Mr. Cook for two years and 
Mr. Weston for one. Mr. Weston being re-elected, the board, in 
1857, comprised the same members with no change except that the 
chair was filled by Mr. Weston instead of Read. Before the close 
of the term, however, Mr. Read was again made chairman, owing 
to an injury inflicted on Mr. Weston by the shot of an outlaw, ren- 
dering him unable to attend the meetings of the board. The mem- 
bers composing the board in 1858 were: C. R. Read, chairman, 
Henry Amerland and G. Maxwell. 

Before the termination of the year, the commissioner system was 
abolished and a supervisor elected from each town. Previous to this 
time the towns had not been organized, and during the supervisor sys- 
tem, which was in use from the adoption of the state constitution until 
its repeal in February, 1860, the towns represented, were : Wabasha, 
Pepin, Plainview, Zumbro (now Zumbro and Hyde Park), Mazeppa, 
Mt. Pleasant, Elgin, Pall, Smithtield (now Highland), West Albany, 
Watopa, Gillford, Minneiska, Lake City, Bear Valley (now Chester), 
Glasgow and Greenfield. 

In February, 1860, the supervisor system was abolished, and the 
legislature passed an act authorizing the division of counties into 
commissioner districts, from which one should be elected for a term 
of three years. In pursuance of that act the county was divided 
into five districts, as follows: First district — Minneiska, Watopa, 



ORGANIZATION. 601 

Highland and Plain view ; second district — Elgin, Pell, Zumbro, 
West Albany and Glasgow ; third district — Mazeppa, Chester, Gill- 
ford and Mt. Pleasant; fourth district — Pepin, Wabashaw and 
Greenfield ; fifth district — Lake City. This division was an act of 
the commissioners, June 5, 1860. 

G. W. Marsh was the first county auditor, holding the office in 1858 
by provision of the statute making the register of deeds also auditor. 
This law was changed at a special meeting of the legislature in the 
fall of the same year, when W. W. McDougall was appointed by 
the board of commissioners, and held the office during the years 
1859 and 1860. 

E. W. Foster was elected in the fiill of 1860, and held the office 
until November, 1861, when he entered the army, thus leaving the 
office vacant. Again it devolved upon the commissioners to supply 
the vacancy. They found their task a hard one, as it was with the 
greatest difficulty that a sufficient number of members could agree to 
make a majority. Several names were proposed, and each felt 
anxious for the position. Finally the one hundred and third ballot 
resulted in the election of A. G. Foster, who held the office the 
remainder of the term, and was elected in 1862, and again in 1864. 
W. W. Case was elected in 1866 and held the office until 1871, when 
he was succeeded by F. E. Staulf, who in turn was succeeded in 1875 
by William Campbell, and Mr. Campbell by the present incumbent, 
Mr. G. A. Perkins. 

Mr. C. Shively was elected treasurer in 1853, but never qualified, 
and Dr. F. H. Milligin was appointed by the board to fill the 
vacancy. He held the office until January 1, 1856. Mr. William 
Bonnell was elected in the fall of 1856, but leaving the country soon 
after, the board appointed Joseph Peak, who held the office until 
the spring of 1857^ when he left the country, and L. M. Gregg was 
appointed foj- the remainder of the term. Mr. Gregg was elected in 
the fall of 1857, and held the office during the years 1858-9. 
William W. Prindle was elected in the fall of 1S59, and held the 
office four years. Mr. J. F. Rose succeeded him, holding the office 
until January 1, 1868. Mr. A. Y. Felton was elected in the fall of 
1867, and re-elected in 1869. He was succeeded by Anson Pierce, 
who held the office two terms ; he in turn succeeded by A. J. Fowler, 
and Mr. Fowler in January, 1882, by R. A. Johnson. 

Alexis P. Bailly was elected to the office of register of deeds in 
1853, and held the office until July, 1855, when Dr. Milligin was 



602 HISTORY OF AVABASHA COUNTY. 

appointed by the county board for the remainder of tlie term. Mr. 
Abner Tibbetts held the othce in 1856-7; G. W. Marsh in 1858-9, 
and was succeeded by C. W. Hackett, of Lake City, who lield the 
office until January 1, 1864. He was succeeded by Mr. D. H. 
Eldridgc, who occupied the position until January 1, 1868. In the 
fall of 1867 Messrs. O. D. Ford and N. S. Wright were competitors 
for the office, and both claimed the election. This election was at 
the time of the vote for the county-seat, when exceeding heavy 
returns were received from some towns ; and the consequence was 
great difficulty in determining who had the majority. Mr. Wright 
received his certificate of election, and held the office during the year 
1868, when a decision was given by the supreme court that Mr. 
Ford was entitled to the election. Mr. Ford held the office during 
the remainder of the term, and was re-elected for another term of 
two years. Mr. Ford was succeeded by James G. Lawrence, who 
held the office four years, being succeeded by H. H. Dickman, one 
term, and he by J. C. Bartlett, the present incumbent. 

Mr. IL P. Wilson held the office of judge of probate in 1856, 
Mr. G. F. Childs in 1857, Mr. B. C. Baldwin in 1858-9. ,Mr. A. Z. 
Putnam was elected in the fall of 1859, and held the office four years. 
He was succeeded by Mr. G. C. Dawley in 1864-5, who in turn was 
succeeded by Mr. E. Lathrop in 1866-7. He was succeeded by Mr. 
A. Fuller in 1868-9, who was re-elected in 1869 for 1870-1. Judge 
A. Z. Putnam followed, two terms, then J. T. Pope, one term, 
succeeded by F. J. Collier, one term. In the fall of 1882 Judge 
Putnam was again elected. 

The first clerk of the court, elected under the state constitution, 
was Mr.- S. A. Kemp, who held the office from 1858 to 1861 ; 
previous to that time the office was held by S. L. Campbell, Esq., 
by appointment of the territorial district court. Mr. N. F. Webb 
succeeded Mr. Kemp to the office, and held the position eight years. 
Mr, C. J. Stauff was elected in 1869, and still retains the ]>osition. 

Levi Murphy was elected sheriff in 1853, but did not qualify, and 
the county commissioners appointed Dr. F. H. Milligan to fill 
the vacancy. Mr. Amos Wheeler held the office in 1854-5 ; B. S. 
Hurd in 1856. He resigned the office, and K. M. Finer was 
appointed in his place, holding the office during the year. In the 
fall of that year he was duly elected, and held the office until January, 
1860, when he was succeeded by H. H. Butts, who held the office 
until January, 1862, being succeeded by William B. Lutz. Mr. 



ORGANIZATION. 603 

Liitz was succeeded b}^ H. H. Slayton, who held the office four 
years. Id the fall of 1867 William Box was elected, who filled the 
office three terms ; succeeded by Sydney Smith, two terms ; and he 
in turn succeeded by Lyman H. Gregg, two terms. In the autumn 
of 1881 Mr. H. Brukhardt was elected, and is the present incumbent. 
The first judge of probate in the county was H. P. Wilson. 

The first district attorney of the county was Judge John Tyson, 
succeeded by Hon. S. L. Campbell, and he in turn by John B. Davis. 
J. D. Jaqueth was elected in 1863, and in 1865 was re-elected and 
resigned. John B. Davis was again elected and held the office 
until January 1, 1867, when W. W. Scott qualified. Mr. Scott was 
succeeded by J. B. Davis, and Mr. Davis by J. Halm, Esq., who 
held the office two terms, being succeeded by W. Matcham. Mr. 
Matcham held the office one term, and was succeeded by J. K. Bene- 
dict, one term, who was succeeded, January 1, 1883, by J. McGovern, 
the present attorney. 

The educational interests of Wabasha county have not been 
neglected. The first school district was organized on November 20, 
1855, and comprised a territory of some thirty square miles. The 
first school was taught by H. B. Potter, although a private school 
had been taught for a shoit time in Wabasha by Thomas F. Flynn. 
These interests have now assumed a prominent position in the 
history of the progress and prosperity of the county. The first 
superintendent of the schools was Mr. E. Hogle, who held the 
office in 1866 ; Wm. H. Kobinson, in 1867, and he was succeeded 
by T. A. Thompson, who held the office until 1873. Mr. Thomp- 
son was an earnest, faithful worker, and to him is due, in a great 
measure, our present high standard of schools in the county. Mr. 
Thompson was succeeded by A. G. Hudson ; Mr. Hudson, by J. 
H. Hays, and Mr. Hays by A. J. Greer, the present official. 



CHAPTER LY. 



WHERE THEY CAME FROM. 



The first settlers of the county were from the Ccastern states, from 
New England to Illinois, with some Irish and German immigration, 
who, with very few exceptions, were poor, bringing with them barely 
enough to feed and clothe themselves until the first cabin could be 
built and the first crop gathered. Industry and economy have 
repaid the most of these old pioneers with comfortable, commodious 
homes, surrounded with nearly all the comforts of the east. They 
were possessed with determination, believing that others had thus 
prospered before them, and what others could do they could also, 
and would ; yet the way to opulence and comfort has been through 
continued hardships and untiring perseverance. 

In later years nearly all nationalities have contributed to help 
increase the population of the county, and nearly two-thirds of 
these people constitute the population at the present time. 

In 1857 the county began to fill up with farmers, and towns and 
villages grew almost like magic. The soil of the county is 
varied. Along the banks of the streams it is somewhat sandy, but 
the prairies have a deep, rich, dark loam, with a gravelly subsoil, 
producing all kinds of grain and vegetables in abundance. The 
surface of the country along the Mississippi is hilly, while back from 
the river is rolling prairie. That known as Greenwood Prairie, 
is celebrated for its immense wheatfields, some seasons there being 
one continuous wlieatfield for twenty to twenty-five miles. 

The town of Plainview was first settled by Messrs. A. T. Sharp, 
E. B. Eddy, Thomas Todd, AVm. Boatman and David Campbell. 
They arrived there in the spring of 1855, on May 21, and with 
one accord agreed that this was the land they long had sought, and 
at once decided to remain. They at once began the construction of 
domiciles for their families, and having provided those, commenced 
operations for agricultural improvement. A Norwegian by the 
name of Nels Oleson had arrived before them, and settled in the 
northeast corner of the town, and he was probably the first to break 
the sod in the town. Before the close of the month the number of 



WHERE -SHEY CAME FROM. 605 

families increased to seven, by the arrival of David Acklej and 
Edwin Chapman. In June the colony was swollen by the arrival 
of A. P. Foster and Benjamin Lawrence, from Vermont, together 
with several ftirailies from Wisconsin. They went to work with a 
determination that the settlement should be permanent. Before fall 
their settlement contained thirty families. The first thing to be 
considered was education, and they proceeded to erect a school- 
house, the boards of which were sawed out with a handsaw by Mr. 
Boatman, and the shingles were made by Mr. Eddy. This was in 
the spring of 1856. Before June their schoolhouse was completed, 
and Miss Annie M. White employed to preside over twenty scholars; 
hence to her is due the honor of teaching the first school in Plain- 
view. The same zeal in regard to educational advancement* has 
existed ever since, and there is probably no town in Minnesota, 
containing no greater population, that has expended more in the 
cause of education than Plainview. At the time the first school- 
house was built no village existed in town, although a portion of 
the same section upon which the town was built was laid out into 
lots the same spring, and a good deal of eftbrt was made to build up 
a town. Those most instrumental in this eftbrt were Messrs. Boat- 
man, Sharpe and Burchard. They succeeded in getting a postofiice, 
and Mr. A. P. Foster received the appointment of postmaster. 

The name of this ofiice was Greenville, that being the name by 
which the settlement was known. A branch store had been opened 
during the winter previous by Messrs. Kichards, of Read's Landing. 
Mr. Burchard became a partner in the spring, and had special charge 
of the Greenville branch. This was the first store opened on "the 
Prairie." 

During the summer of 1856 Messrs. O. Wilcox, Dr. F. C. Gibbs, 
T. A. Thompson, J. Y. Blackwell, David Ackley, E. Chapman and 
T. A. Tomlinson laid out a village site on sections 17 and 8. They 
gave the name of Centreville to the new town. This transaction was 
much to the disadvantage of Greenville, and gave rise to a jealousy 
between the two villages. Greenville retained the postoffice, but 
Centreville made the more rapid strides in growth and commercial 
prosperity. Yery few buildings were built in Greenville after the new 
town was laid out, and a few of the buildings erected there were 
afterward moved to Centreville. In 1858 the postofiice was discon- 
tinued and a new one opened at Centreville. This event changed 
the name of the town. There was a postoffice in Winona county by 



606 HISTORY OF WABAS4IA COUNTY. 

the name of Centreville. In view of the location, which was the 
watershed of the Zuinbro and Wliite Water rivers, and in plain 
view of a large tract of surrounding country, they changed the 
name to Plain view. Since that time the town has made rapid 
advancement in wealth and general prosperity. They have now a fine 
school-building erected at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars, and 
the school is in a very flourishing condition. The Methodists were the 
fii-st to erect a church edifice. The first church service was held in 
1856 by the Kev. J. Cochrane, a Congregational clergyman. There 
are at present two churches and four organizations : Methodists, Con- 
gregationalists. Baptists and Disciples. The first fiouring-mill was 
erected by C. T. Allaire during the summer of 1869. The southern 
sections are traversed by the north branch of the Whitewater, 
and along the banks of this stream the wooded portion of Plain- 
view is situated ; the remaining portion is prairie land of vast rich- 
ness of soil. The amount of territory constituting the farming lands 
is twenty-one thousand eight hundred and sixteen acres. 

HIGHLAND. 

Patrick McDonough and John Canfield were the first settlers of 
this town. They came in the summer of 1855 and built small homes 
for themselves, installed their families therein, and went to work. 
The next year other settlers moved in, among whom were W. L. 
Cleveland, James S. Felton, the brothers Doane and E. G. Smith. 
In 185Y C. G. Dawley and Thomas Smith located. Mr. Smith built 
a store and stocked it with general merchandise in 1858 ; it was 
destroyed by fire in 1859, and Mr. E. J. Duganne built another in 
its place the same year and filled it with a general assortment of 
goods for the accommodation of the settlement ; but Plain view and 
Wabasha drew so largely on the trade that Mr. Duganne closed the 
store, and it has never been reopened. In 1857 D. J. Watkins built 
a mill near the center of the town, which furnished a large amount of 
hard lumber for fencing and building purposes ; he also, in 1860, built 
a gristmill, but finding the water-power insufficient to propel the 
machinery of both, the sawmill was allowed to go into disuse. 
This stream is called Indian creek. In 1864 Mr. Henry Hampe 
built a fiouring-mill upon the same stream. Both of these mills add 
greatly to the business interests of the town. A schoolliouse was 
built in 1859, in what is now district No. 40, in which religious 
services were first held by a Methodist minister the same year. 



WHERE THEY CAME FROM. 607 

There is but one church edifice in the town, which was built in 1866 
by the Roman Catholics. A postoffice called Smithfield was estab- 
lished on the road from Wabasha to Plain view in 1858, and Janies 
S. Felton was appointed postmaster. Another office was established 
near the center of the town in 1864, called Lyons; W. L. Cleveland, 
postmaster. The town was christened Smitlifield in honor of one 
of the settlers, but when organized under the state law it was changed 
to that of Highland. The surface of the land is quite rolling, and in 
some places even hilly, particularly along the banks of the streams. 
Much of the surface is covered with scattering oaks, which furnish a 
good supply of fuel. The soil is very productive. Highland contains 
an even township of thirty-six sections, most of which is now 
under cultivation. 

HYDE PARK. 

This town includes all that portion of government township 109, 
range 13 west, lying north of the Zumbro river. At the time of tlie 
government survey the township was known as Concord, that being 
the name of the election precinct in which it was situated. At a 
town meeting in May, 1858, it was given the name of Troy, but the 
legislature not indorsing the action, a new christening resulted in 
Zumbro, to correspond with the river which runs tlirough the town. 
The first settlement dates back to May, 1855, when quite a num- 
ber sought homes and selected claims. The town settled up 
rapidly, and in 1856 a schoolhouse was built, and a school taught 
therein the next winter by Miss Mary J. Shaw. In consequence of 
the inconvenience of the settlers on different sides of the river 
getting together for elections and public meetings, the town was 
divided, upon application, by the county commissioners in 1862, 
the Zumbro river being the dividing line ; the part north of the river 
was set ofi' as another town and named Hyde Park. A postoffice 
was also established, Mr. Wm. Parker being postmaster. In 1866 
the county purchased of John T. Rose one hundred and sixty acres 
of land on section 11 of this town, and located the county farm for 
the benefit of the poor. This was afterward changed, and a farm 
of eighty acres was purchased about one mile from the city proper 
of "Wabasha and business part of the same. 

MiNNEiSKA claims next to Wabasha to be the oldest town in the 
county. One Michael Agnes came up from St. Louis and settled in 
the southeast corner in 1851, and Louis Krutely arrived about 
a month later. Some time during the same year Charles Read, of 



'608 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Read's Landing, purchased a claim four miles farther up the river, 
but nothing was done at either of these points except to cut wood for 
the boats until 1852, when Abner Tibbetts and B. C. Baldwin 
purchased property at the upper yard and one Joseph Schurb settled 
in the vicinity of the other. In 1853 several settlers arrived at each 
place. Messrs. Read, Baldwin, Tibbetts and Rcppe laid out a 
portion of their claim into a town site the same year and called their 
place West Newton ; it was so named from the fact that the wreck of 
a steamboat was lying at that time in the river, but a few yards from 
the site, by the name of Newton. The boat had sunk in shallow 
water, and the name in large letters remained on her pilot-house 
above the water. A postoffice was established in 1853, and West 
Newton might have become an important point, but the land 
was low, and the river kept wearing the banks away, which finally 
compelled the town to surrender. The village site now lies mostly 
in the waters of the Mississippi, and all there is left of West 
Newton is the name. It is now considered the finest hunting-grounds 
for ducks and other feathered game on the river. Mr. Agnes, 
however, succeeded better with his settlement, and he laid out the 
village of Minneiska in 1854. It was named after the river which 
runs through the township and enters the Mississippi near the upper 
part of the village. "Minneska" is the Indian name for white 
water. Minne is water and ska means white ; the name of the river 
was changed to Whitewater, and the town is called Minneiska. But 
little improvement was made until 1856, when Mr. Putnam went 
there. He built a hotel in the autumn of that year, which is still 
standing as the back part of the Minneiska House. A large grain 
warehouse was built there in 1859 by Timmerman & Swart, and Mr. 
A. P. Foster, of Plainview, drew the first load of wheat to that 
warehouse that was ship])ed from Wabasha county. Another large 
grain warehouse was built in 1S61 by Messrs. Bentley & Yale. A 
steam sawmill was erected in 1856 by Biglow & Son, which was in 
operation about four years, when the machinery was removed to 
some other point. Minneiska has great note as a wheat market, 
although it has suffered somewhat since the advent of railroads. The 
first school taught in Minneiska was in the summer of 1858, by a Miss 
Adams, but no schoolhouse was erected there until 1866. The 
Roman Catholics built a fine church there in 1867, and the Lutherans 
built one in 1871. The Methodists, also, have a small house of 
worship. Minneiska is a fractional town, and is the only town 



DESCRIPTION. 609 

in the county where a greater number of acres are made use of for 
the production of hay than of wheat, about four hundred acres being 
meadow-land, whole number for farming purposes under cultivation 
being nine hundred and twentv-five. 



CHAPTER LVI. 



DESCEIPTIOK 



Among the many beautiful lakes which dot the soil of Minnesota 
Lake Pepin is the most conspicuous. The scenery is very fine, and 
it has given the lake a wide reputation for its varied beauties, which 
are said to be unsurpassed by any in this country so noted for 
scenic loveliness. When viewed from almost any direction its 
natural beauty' is perfectly enchanting; and there are standpoints 
where the panorama, as you turn the gaze, is at once grand and 
beautiful, in fact more than beautiful, even sublime. The pen can- 
not do it justice, and it must be seen in order to be appreciated. 
Surely Lake Pepin has no rival on the continent, and from the sum- 
mit of the bluffs back of Lake City is obtained the most enchanting 
view of the ever-graceful outline of its sparkling waters and its 
surrounding scenery. Between us and the lake as we gaze lies a 
beautiful prairie covered with business blocks and many neat 
cottages, together with a sprinkle of more imposing dwellings. The 
busy hum of energetic, active life comes borne upon the air, while 
out upon the lake are steamboats ' freighted with merchandise and 
human life. To the pleasure-seeker Lake City has many attractions, 
and it has become noted as the resort of invalids, and its hotels are 
filled with pleasure-seekers and guests every season. In the fall of 
1853 Mr. Jacob Boody made a claim on this prairie, and he was the 
only resident until the next June, when a brother of his and 
Mr. Abner Dwelle arrived and staked out claims. Mr. Dwelle 
made his on what is now the lower part of the town, and built 
his house near where he now resides. These were the only locations 
made until the spring of 1855, when quite a number settled upon the 
place. Among them were Messrs. Samuel Doughty, Abner Tibbetts, 
William Barry and Seth Skinner. Mr. Skinner brought with him a 
stock of goods, and retailed them from a board shanty belonging to 
36 



610 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Mr. Tibbetts. Messrs. Tibbetts, Dwelle and Baldwin built a store 
in 1856, and Mr. H. F. Williamson tilled it with a stock of general 
merchandise. A town was plotted and surveyed that year, Messrs. 
■ Tibbetts, Dwelle and Doughty being the proprietors. The City Hotle 
was the first one in the place, and business increased, as did also the 
population. A school was opened the same year, and Eev. Silas 
Ilaslett employed as teacher. He also commenced holding religious 
services about the same time. The country around was still unset- 
tled, and the Indians often encamped near the mouth of the creek 
just below the city, where they stopped to fish and hunt. Wolves 
were common, and were frequently seen in the winter on the lake. 
Mr. Doughty brought with him a set of blacksmith's tools and estab- 
lished a shop in order to sharpen his plows while breaking, as well as 
to care for his horses. He built the first frame house in the place in 
June, 1855. In 1856 Mr. Tibbetts built a grain warehouse, which 
was occupied by Mr. J. L. Armstrong and J. H. Maples, who started 
the forwarding and commission business. The C6ngregationalists 
built a small church in 1857, which was partly finished when it was 
blown down by a severe windstorm. It was, however, immediately^ 
rebuilt. The Baptists and Presbyterians each built churches in 1860. 
The Catholics also built a small church, which has been superseded 
by a magnificent brick structure. In 1866 the Episcopalians erected 
a handsome little church, and in 1870 the Methodists erected a brick 
edifice which adds much to the place. In 1862 a large, commodious 
schoolhouse was erected, in which is taught a graded school. A 
postoffice was established in 1856, Mr. H. F. Williamson being post- 
master. The first town meeting was held in May, 1858. 



Mazeppa was settled by pioneers I. O. Seely, Joseph Fuller, 
Enoch Young and C. C. Sleeper. These gentlemen made claims on 
sections -1 and 5. This was in the month of February, 1855. In 
April Mr. Joseph Ford and his son, O. D. Ford, and Mr. G. Max- 
well arrived, and they were soon followed by others, among whom 
were two other sons of Mr. Ford. The same year came John E. 
Hvde, Francis A. Stowell and Elijah Lout, thus making quite a 
colony. The west half of section 6 was laid out in a village plot by 
Mr. Joseph Ford and his son, O. D. Ford. The site included a 
splendid water-power on the Zumbro, where the mills now stand. 
Arrangements were made -to build up a village, and a saw and grist 



DESCEIPTION. Qll 

mill were erected that winter. Another mill has since been erected 
some two and one-half miles east of the village, and the millino- 
interest of Mazeppa today is a power in the coimty. John E. Hyde 
bnilt the first stoi-e in Mazeppa in the fall of 1855, Mr. G. W. 
Judd a blacksmith-shop, and in 1856 Mr. O. D. Foi-d erected a 
small, hotel. 

When Mr. Seeley and his friends first arrived at Mazeppa they 
found a cave near the center of the town, where Trout brook empties 
tion the Zumbro river, which was some fifteen feet high and twelve 
wide at its entrance, but diminished in height as they advanced. It 
was about seventy feet deep. On one side of this cave were found 
many curious pictures of birds and animals, some hieroglyphics also. 
These were rudely carved upon the rocks. They put their horses in 
the back part of this cave and then made themselves comfortable in 
the front, until they could build themselves homes to live in. The 
cave was considered a great blessing, and made them comfortable 
quarters for some time. The north branch of the Zumbro enters 
Mazeppa in the northwest corner, and runs down near the center of 
the town, and empties into the main Zumbro, which flows on 
through the town of Chester, entering it on its southeast quarter 
section. In addition to the water-power just in the village, another 
just below which is improved. Trout brook affords several fine 
powers. A flouring mill and sawmill are built upon it about two 
and one-half miles from Mazeppa. About one-fourth of the surface 
of the town is covered with timber, and the rest is rolling prairie. 
The first school taught in the place was in the claim shanty of J. E. 
Hyde, and the first church service was also held in it by Elder Jacob 
McManus, a Methodist minister. The first school-teacher was Mrs. 
Sidney Munson. In 1869 the Congregationalists built a handsome 
church, and the schoolhouse was built in 1858. A graded school of 
high standing is sustained, and the building is a commodious one. 
The Catholics have also a very pretentious church completed. 
Mazeppa had a postoflice established in 1856, and J. E. Hyde was 
the first postmaster. The farming lands of this town are' twenty 
thousand one hundred and fifty-two acres. The average yield of 
wheat is about twenty bushels to the acre. 

MOUNT PLEASANT 

Is situated in southwest corner of the county, bounded on the east 
by Lake City, on the south by Gilford, and north and west by Good- 



612 HISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

hue coll]lt3^ It is called Mount Pleasant, the lieight of ground 
affording a commanding view of the country around. These 
views are among the most interesting in the interior country. It 
was settled by white men in 1854. A small colony of men made 
claims in the northeast part of the town and only a short distance 
from Lake Pepin and the village of Lake City. The southwestern 
portion of the town was settled in the spring of 1855, by a company 
of gentlemen, who staked out their claims and made preparations to 
put up houses and establish themselves in their future homes. Thus 
the settlement grew, and soon here and there could be seen the 
claim shanty of the pioneer, and the people began to think them- 
selves neighbors when the}^ were within one or two miles of each 
other. Many were the privations that these new settlers were called 
upon to endure, jet they willingly took u]) the burden, looking to 
the future for the fulfillment of the promise of an abundant return 
for the labor bestowed. Golden harvests crowned their efforts, and 
all looked prosperous and encouraging. The first school in the town 
was taught in the summer of 1857, by Mrs. Alex. Graham, and 
Rev. Silas Haslett held the* first religious services in the house of 
Mr. E. P. C. Fowler. After the schoolhouse was erected the meetings 
were held in that. There is a public house about five miles from 
Lake City, but no stores have ever been erected, owing to its close 
proximity to Lake City. There is a blacksmith-shop in the town, 
and the Methodists and Presbyterians each had small churches 
erected in 1858, in which regular services are held. The surface of 
the land is generally rolling prairie, with occasional groves of oak, 
and it is watered by s])rings and small streams not large enough for 
any extensive water-power. In 1866 Mr, N. F. Randolph rej^re- 
sented AVabaslia county in the state senate. 

The first mark of civilization in the town of Watopa, was made 
by Mr. John Gage in 1855, who made a claim to a section of land 
in the valley of the Whitewater in the northeastern part of the 
town. Mr. Gage reached the town in August, and in September 
sent for his family, and for a time they were the only white inhabit- 
ants. The Indians were quite numerous, and would often give 
trouble by stealing their loose property. Mr. Gage was the only 
settler until l.s56, when his brother joined him and soon Mr. Garret 
Fitzgerald, C. Abbott, Ole Poleson and others arrived in the 
neighborhood. Mr. Charles Simpson taught the first school in the 
neighborhood, in the winter of 1857-8, in a small house belonging to 



DESCRIPTION. 613 

Mr. Gage. There are now several schoolhoiises in tlie town, in 
which schools are taught during the school terms of the year. 

Watopa is somewhat hilly in some parts, as the Mississippi 
bluft's run through a portion of the town, which makes the soil better 
adapted to stock-raising and grazing than the'production of cereals ; 
although the land in the valleys is, to a great extent, productive, 
and yiekls large quantities of hay:'and grain. Eeligious services 
were first held in Watopa by a Baptist clergyman, Eev. William 
Weld, in August, 1858. 

The history of Zumbro has been given in that of Hyde Park, of 
which it was a part until 1861, when it was thought best to divide 
the town and make two. The ford of the Zumbro at these places has 
been spanned by a bridge three times, the last one costing the 
county four thousand dollars. . On the night of the 15th of April, 
1883, it was destroyed by the wind, or cyclone, which traversed that 
part of the county. 

Oakwood was first settled by white men in 1856, by William 
Tope, David and James Toley, Lawrence and Patrick Tracy, 
and Mathew Kinsley and son. These men arrived in the spring, 
and in the following autumn several other families came. Mrs. J. 
H. Bernard taught the first school in 1859-60, and a comfortable 
schoolhouse was built in 1861. The Koman Catholics built a small 
church edifice in 1865, which is the only one in town. 

At the time of the organization of this town it was called Pell, 
but in accordance with the wishes of its inhabitants it was changed, 
and has since been known as Oakwood. A postoffice, called Mill- 
ville, was established in 1867, and Patrick Fleming was appointed 
postmaster. Since the building of the Minnesota Midland railroad, 
Millville has grown to be a place of some pretension, and there is 
now a store, a blacksmith-shop, hotel, and a number of good dwell- 
ings in the place. A fine grain elevator has been erected, and 
there is also a watering and wood station for tlie Minnesota Midland 
railroad. 

In the winter of 1858-9 a portion north of the Zumbro was joined 
to West Albany, but as it did not give satisfaction, in 1867 it was 
set back again by legislation. 

WEST AI-BANY. 

A man by the name of S. Brink took the first claim in this 
township in 1855. He erected a two-story log house and opened it 
as a hotel. He then made a move to get a road laid out from 



614 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Eead's Landing to Oronoco, which opened np a highway between 
the two towns, giving his hotel some custom, as most of the hauling 
of lumber and provisions from Kead's Landing had to pass through 
to the interior. In the spring of 1856 there was quite a large emi- 
gration to the place, and in the spring of 1857 Messrs. L. B., E. 
B. and C. A. McCollum bought the west half of tlie northwest quar- 
ter of section 28, and laid it out into blocks and lots for a village, 
which was called West Albany. Mr. William Applegarth built 
and stocked a store. A postoffice was established and Mr. E. B. 
McCollum was the first postmaster. The plat was sent to the regis- 
ter's office, but remained unrecorded, and was at length withdrawn, 
but in 1859 the present village of Albany was platted by Mr. D. 
Applegarth, and a hotel was built by Mr. Dawson. A gristmill was 
erected by Mr. Ap]jlegarth, and a store and a blacksmith-shop were 
built. Another mill has been erected about a mile below the town, 
and it has become quite a thriving little village. The first school 
taught in the township was by Augustus Applegarth in the summer 
of 1858, and the first religious services were held in Mr. William 
Applegarth's house. In 1857 the Roman Catholics bought a build- 
ing and fitted it u]) foi- a church, and the Methodists, Lutherans and 
Presbyterians each have places of worship and regular services. 
Presbyterians built in 1859. The aggregate of farming lands com- 
prise 10,102 acres. 

The first settlement in the town of Chester was made in the 
spring of 1855 by J. M. Kimball, and about the same time Mr. R. 
F. Maxwell made a claim in the vicinity, in the southwestern part 
of the town, which comprises an even government township of 
thirty-six sections. Chester is bounded west and north by Goodhue 
county, east by Gilford and south by Mazeppa. A fine and fertile 
valley extends through the entire town from the southwest to the 
northeast. It was first named Bear Valley, and the postoflice was 
established under that name; but at the time of its organization 
under state law in 1858, by common consent it was changed to 
Chester. A schoolhouse was erected in 1857, and religious services 
were first held in the same. In 1866 a fine flouring-mill was erected 
by Mr. Benjamin Clark in the southeast quarter of the southeast 
section of the township on the Zumbro river. The town is watered 
by the Zumbro river and Trout brook, a small, clear stream flowing 
from springs. There is some timber along the Zumbro river, but 



DESCRIPTION. 615 

the surface is mostly rolling prairie, of dark, ricli loam, with clay 
subsoil. In 1859-60 Mr. F. M. Skillman represented the county in 
the state legislature. 

ELGIN. 

In the southern part of Wabasha county, and bounded north by 
Pell, or Oakwood, east by Plainview, and Olmsted county on the 
south and west, lies the town of Elgin. The north branch of the White- 
water traverses the town from east to west and drains the southern 
part, while the small streams in the southern part are tributaiy to 
the Zumbro. There is a grove of oak timber in the central part 
which covers about six hundred acres.* The soil is productive, and 
its agricultural advantages are second to none in the county. It was 
first settled in the spring of 1855, by Messrs. George and Curtis 
Bryant, H. H. Atliurton and George Farrar, who took claims adja- 
cent to each other on sections 27, 28 and 34. A schoolhouse was 
built and a school kept in it in the summer of 1858, by Miss Gould. 
This schoolhouse was situated on the present site of the village of 
Elgin. The first church was organized in the spring of 185T, at the 
house of Mr. John Bryant, by Eev. J. Cochran, a congregational 
clergyman. Elgin postofiice was established in 1857 ; Mr. George 
Bryant, postmaster. Since the advent of the Eyota branch of the 
Northwestern railroad in Elgin, the place has improved rapidly. 
There are now several stores and a large grain elevator, which 
makes Elgin a formidable rival of Plainview ; a commodious church 
also, in which regular services are held ; a first-class school and 
school-building and several stores. Mr. Bi-yant held the office of 
postmaster ten years, when he resigned. In the northern part of the 
town of Elgin is another postoffice, called Forest Mound. The first 
colony of Elgin were all sturdy, highminded, intelligent Vermont- 
ers, and the town to this day bears the impress of the energy and 
ambition of its first settlers. 

GILFORD. 

Gilford was settled in 1855, by persons from Illinois. This town 
is also an even government townshi]?, and contains twenty-three 
thousand and forty acres. It is well watered 15y small brooks run- 
ning through it in various directions. The surface is mostly prairie, 
although there are groves of oak which supply a reasonable amount 
of timber for fuel and fencing. The organization of the town took 
place in 1858, and a postoffice was established called Lincoln. 

•^ This grove is the only timber in the township. 



616 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 



Glasgow was settled by white people in 1855, Mr. Wm. Mc- 
Cracken being the first to break the soil for a crop. This was in 
June 1855. It was too late for wheat, and Mr. McCracken put in 
corn, and in the autumn harvested a good crop ; this was the start- 
ing ot all agricultural pursuits in the township. These settlers were 
mostly Scotch, and the town was named after old Glasgow, in 
Scotland. A schoolhouse was built in 1858, and Miss Mary Cosgrove 
taught the first school in it the same summer. Religious services 
were held in the spring of 1858, by Rev. B. F. Wharton, a Baptist 
clergyman, at the house of Robert Cochran. A postoihce was 
established in 1867. Although the early settlers were mostly of the 
Scotch element, quite a large portion of the present population is 
composed of Germans. There are relics in various parts of the town 
of the former occupants of the town, which remind one forcibly of 
the mutability of all things, and that we, too, must pass away and yield 
to others the labor of our hands, and the homes we love. Glasgow 
is also an even government township, and contains eighteen thousand 
and ninety-eight acres of farming lands. 

The first settlement in Pepin township was made in 18-11 by 
Edward Hudson, a soldier under command of Col. Snelling at Fort 
Snelling. Shortly after coming to Pepin he married the daughter 
of Duncan Campbell, and settled down among the Sioux, cultivating 
a small piece of ground, the property of his wife. Pie erected upon 
that ground the first building in the town, and occupied it as a store- 
house, storing therein the supplies shipped up the Mississippi for the 
Chippewa lumber trade. Hudson died in 1843, and was buried not 
far from the present steamboat landing. John Campbell arrived 
here in 18-13, being sent out by the English government for the pur- 
pose of operating among the Indians against the French. Until 
18-17 there was not a white resident in this part of Minnesota, except 
those connected with the Indians, either by blood or marriage. Mr. 
Charles R. Read canie here during the month of April of that year, 
and to him is due, to a great extent, the honor of inaugurating 
civilization in southern Minnesota. He came over from Nelson's 
Landing, where he had lived for three j-ears. He occupied, after 
his arrival, the land owned by Edward Hudson's widow, by lease, 
for a time, but finally purchased the ])roperty and became sole owner. 
The landing had been called Hudson's Landing. He built a house the 
same year, and lived under rather adverse circumstances until the 



DESCRIPTION. 617 

Indian titles to the lands were settled. In 1851, just before the 
treaty was ratified which extinguished their title, some of ,the mixed 
bloods tried to get Mr. Read removed from the place, but, struggling 
on to overcome the boisterous discord, he remained, and soon other 
members of the white race clustered arouiid the fold. In the fall of 
1851 Mr. F. S. Richards bought in and became a partner with Mr. 
Read in business. They established a trading house, and shipped 
goods and did commission business for the Chippewa lumber trade. 
The first steamboat that navigated the waters of the Chippewa was 
the Roller — Smith Harris, master — in 1852. Gov. William R. 
Marshall came here in the fall of 1852, and purchased an interest in 
the claim of and also an adjoining claim of John Campbell, upon 
which he erected a steam sawmill. This claim and the one occu- 
pied by Messrs. Read and Richards, is the present village site of 
Read's, which was laid out by the proprietors in 1856. Mr. T. B. 
Wilson, one of the present firm of Knapp, Stout & Co., came to the 
place about this time, and he and Mr. Richards built a block large 
enough for two stores, which were occupied by themselves for that 
purpose. Mr. F. A. Seavy put up a blacksmith-shop in 1854, and 
also a hotel, called the American House. A postofiice was estab- 
lished as'early as 1850, Mr. Read being the first postmaster. 

The village in earlier days was the scene of many battles between 
the Sioux and Chippewas, and bones and implements of war, and 
domestic utensils have been often found while plowing gardens and 
grading the streets. The location is a pleasant one, extending along 
under the bluifs for some distance, giving it the appearance of a 
village of one street. The road to Lake City winds up the bluff, 
just above the village, and, as the summit is reached, the gaze turns 
upon one of the finest landscapes of the Mississippi, and admiration 
is lost in wonder at the magnificent scene. The village of Read's is 
situated in the eastern part of the town. In 1856 it was recorded 
as the village of Pepin, being just at the foot of Lake Pepin, but it 
is known all over the state as Read's Landing. A charter was 
framed during the winter of 1867-8, and approved by the legislature 
March 5, when the site was detached from the town of Pepin and 
set off as the village of Read's. The first election was held April 
2, 1868. 

In 1856 the county began to fill up rapidly with farmers from 
all parts east of the Mississippi ; and when we look at the location of 
Wabasha county and its beautiful situation for scenery, and adapta- 



618 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTi'. 

tion to agricultural pursuits, it is not hard to comprehend why this 
was one of the first settled counties of the state. Lying on the 
western shore of Lake Pepin, with bold bluffs rising in majestic 
grandeur over its waters, with moderate climate, exhilarating 
atmosphere, and a soil whose productions are almost boundless, with 
its natural beauty of scenery, it is certainly one of the most favored 
localities in the state. The county was named in lionor of the 
celebrated chief by that name, of the Dakotah nation. 

The town of Greenfield remained an unbroken wild until the 
spring of 1854, when Messrs. Aaron and Levi Cook, Henry Amerl- 
land, Isaac Cole, Madison Wilds, J. W. Murphy, C. C. Stauff* and 
others took claims along the valley of the Zumbro. This valley 
extends from the Mississippi river, up the south side of the Znmbro 
about twelve miles, and is of fertile soil. It is commonly known as 
Cook's Yalle}', taking that name from the brothers Cook, who were 
among its first settlers. Cook's Valley postoffice was established in 
1858, a schoolhouse built in 1857, and Miss Aurora Albertson 
taught the first four months' school during the winter of 1857-S. A 
church was built in 1861 by the Methodist society ; this church is 
in the upper part of the valley. During the fall of 1856 Hon. 
Thomas H. Ford, ex-governor of Ohio, and Judge Casey, of Penn- 
sylvania, visited this valley, and, being charmed by the prepossessing 
features of a claim owned by Timothy Enright, they purchased it 
at once, and laid out upon it a village-site, believing that it would 
develop itself in the building of a commercial city. This quarter 
section was situated upon the Mississippi, four miles below Waba- 
shaw. The location was indeed beautiful, it being an island in the 
delta of the Zumbro. The bluffs of the Mississippi are about four 
miles back of this point, and the surrounding country was level. 
This island for many years had been the general encampment of 
Wapashaw's band, and the proprietors of the village determined to 
name their city Tepeeotah, from the Indian tongue "teepee," mean- 
ing house, and "otah," many. They fully expected to see their 
city possess far greater dimensions than AVabashaw, which was 
then im.proving rapidly. A steam-sawmill was erected, in 1857, by 
D. Sinclaire & Co., and o])erations began in the spring of 1858. 
Mr. Theodore Adams became a joint proprietor of the town in 1857, 
and the company was known as Ford, Casey & Adams. Hancock 
Brothers built a store, and a goodly number of dwellings were erected, 
together with a hotel. But these business transactions came to a 



DESCRIPTION. 619 

sudden close. It was found that boats could not land there except 
in high water, in consequence of the bar in the river, called Beef 
Slough bar, and which they thought would prove beneficial to them, 
to the detriment of Wabashaw, it being difficult for boats to pass it 
in low water. Then the hard times of 1857-8 came on, the pro- 
prietors became deeply involved, and the business of Tepecotah, 
laboring under these combined disadvantages, sank to nothing, and 
in March, 1859, a fire occurred which obliterated the young city 
and not a remnant of its greatness can now be traced. As the town 
site was laid out, the lands adjacent to it were considered very 
valuable, which excited envy in the minds of many. A person 
owning a claim at the north of the town died in the fall of 1856, 
and many endeavored to possess themselves of the claim. This led 
to much disturbance, a quarrel ensued which was called the "Tepee- 
otah war." Parties in Wabashaw claiming. to be creditors of the 
deceased tried to hold the claim, and, of course, met with strong 
opposition from the residents of Tepeeotah. A general combat 
ensued which resulted in hostilities that lasted for a year. In those 
early days law was of little avail, and several shots were fired, a 
man by the name of Polehemis being killed. The incendiarism 
before mentioned probably arose from this trouble. The fine site 
still remains, but the soil is sandy, and is not suflSciently fertile to 
be of value for farms. The business transactions of Greenfield at 
the present time are carried on at Kellog. A village called Pawse- 
lin was laid out in 1863 by Messrs. Johnson & Morgan, who thought 
they had discovered a clay from which the pottery by that name 
was manufactured. Like many other discoveries, it proved to be a 
myth, and their town did not increase in population until 1871, when 
the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Chicago road was built through here, 
and just at its junction with the Zumbro the village of Kellog was 
laid out adjoining, which entirely suspended Pawselin, and business 
centered there. A large grain elevator was erected, which added to 
its importance ; the postoffice was removed to Kellog, a Methodist 
church built, and two hotels. 

Many difficulties attended the early settlement of Greenfield, 
owing to a band of outlaws settling there. The leader of this band 
was one Dresser, Eufus Dresser. He settled upon a claim now 
owned by Mr. James Orr, and endeavored, by aid of his crew, to 
keep possession of the entire valley. Other parties taking claims. 
Dresser, or some one of his band, would declare ownership at once, 
a dispute would commence, and crime be the result. 



620 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

A iniin by the name of George Hayes purchased a claim, and 
Alexander Beard, one of Dressers men, claimed ownership. Mr. 
Hayes, not willing to give up possession, employed a Mr. Wilds 
and others to remove Beard, who was building a log house. Dresser 
was then assisting him. Mr. Wilds, upon his arrival, ordered them 
both off the place. A quarrel arose upon this, which came to blows, 
and finally Dresser ordered Beard to shoot, which he did, shooting 
and mortally wounding Mr. Wilds, who died the same day. A 
warrant was issued, by a justice from Wabushaw, for their arrest, 
and sheriff Hui-d attempted to arrest them, but failed. A party 
from Wabasha met them at Tepeeotah that same night, among 
whom was A. A. Weston. They arrested and conveyed them to 
Wabashaw, where they were examined, and afterward conveyed to 
Stillwater, but, soon making their escape from there, they returned 
and boldly made their appearance at Wabasha. Beard was again 
arrested and confined, but escaped again and left the country. Mr. 
J. J. Stone was deputy sheriff at this time, and in attempting to 
arrest Dresser was shot at by Dresser's wife through the door. On 
the loth of February Mr. Weston was shot through the window of 
his house and died from the effect of the wound about three years 
after. Dresser was again arrested, but finally made his escape and 
left the country. It is supposed that this same band were instru- 
mental in the destruction of Tepeeotah by fire. 

Gi-eeufield is well watered and has a fair amount of timber. The 
Zumbro flows through the town from west to east, and discharges 
its waters into the Mississippi through three different mouths. The 
extent of the farming lands are fifteen thousand seven hundred and 
thirty-seven acres. 

Wabasha county possesses as good facilities for manufacturing 
pursuits as any county in Minnesota. The immense power at 
Minneapolis, of course, more than equals any other single power ; 
but tlie powers of the Zumbro and its tributaries are being rapidly 
develo])ed, and they are equal to propel as much machinery as any 
in Minnesota. The united forces of the four principal forks of this 
stream traverse the county through its entire length, a distance of 
about fifty miles. 

The two middle forks unite in the township of Oronoco, in Olm- 
sted county, forming one rapid stream, which winds its way for a 
distance of two miles and unites with the waters of the south branch, 
which it carries onward about two miles farther, and enters Wabasha 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 621 

county in the town of Mazeppa. The north branch also enters the 
county at this point, and flows a distance of about four miles, and 
discharges its waters in the main Zumbro very near the center of 
the town. From Mazeppa it finds its way eastward, forming the 
boundary line between Zumbro and Hyde Park, crossing the north- 
west corner of Oakwood and the southeast corner of West Albany, 
traversing the towns of Glasgow and Greenfield, and enters the 
Mississippi, receiving on its way tributary waters from smaller 
streams. The principal powers that are improved on this stream 
are at Mazeppa and Zumbro Falls. The French name of this river 
is Embarrass, so called from its many windings and turns, and difti- 
culty in following it to its several mouths. The Indians call it 
Waziouja. 



CHAPTER LYH. 

WABASHA AND VICINITY. 

A LARGE share of the early settlers of Wabasha were Canadian 
French, succeeded by a percentage of Irish and German Roman 
Catholics — good citizens and zealous Christians in their way, but not 
to be counted on when the claims of other sects are presented in the 
furtherance of religious enterprises, which, with the hardships at- 
tending new undertakings here, and the struggles of every one to 
provide for his own, made the prospect of establishing a Protestant 
church in Wabasha look rather discouraging. 

CHURCHES. 

In 1842 Father Ravoux, now of St. Paul, sent a log building from 
Mendt^ta to this place to be used as a chapel. The building was 
placed upon a raft and floated down the river, and set up on the 
point where Main street now terminates. This was the first build- 
ing for religious purposes ever erected in Wabasha. It was used 
for the purpose designed several years, but went finally into disuse 
as a church edifice in consequence of the irregularity of services, 
and was afterward used for secular purposes. The first paper 
printed in Wabasha was printed there, and a school was taught in 
it ; finally it succumbed to civilization, and today all traces of the 
"old church" are obliterated. 



622 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

In 1849 a bill was passed organizing the territory of Minnesota, 
whose boundary on the west extended to the Missouri river, and at 
that time the whole region was little more than a vast wilderness. 
Mr. Alexis Bailly was at Wabasha and Messrs. Read and Rich- 
ards at Read's Landing, where they had a store. Mr. H. S. Allen, 
of Chippewa Falls, built a warehouse upon the levee during that 
year, and some years later added to it and opened a store therein 
in company with a Mr. Creamer. This was the first warehouse on 
the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien. The Indians were numer- 
ous, but very peaceable with the white people, but their enemies, 
the Chippewas, were often made to realize their hatred, and when 
some unfortunate Chippewa ventured so near as to lose his scalp, 
the Sioux would hold what they called a scalp dance. The last of 
these occurred in 185S, on the levee just below the American House, 
then kept by C. W. Wyman. 

In 1850 Congress constructed a militar}^ road from Wabasha to 
Mendota, costing five thousand dollars. The length of this road 
was sev^enty-five miles. 

The first recognized postmaster of Wabasha, was Mr. Alexis 
Bailly, and all mail matter, previous to his appointment in 1853, 
went to Read's Landing, where Mr. F. Richards had been appointed 
postmaster in 18-19 by the government. Previous to the establish- 
ment of the postofiice at Read's Landing the mail matter for this 
section of country was brought from La Crosse, sometimes by boat, 
more frequently, however, by voyageui-s or persons detailed for 
that purpose. 

The town of Wabasha was surveyed and laid out in 1855 by 
A. S. Hart, the proprietors being Messrs. Oliver Cratte, Joseph 
Buisson and Philo Stone. Mr. Shively, Mr. Amos Wheeler, Mr. 
Store and Mr. Murphy, agent for H. S. Allen & Co., Chippewa 
Falls, were the first American born settlers. Mr. Stone •was a 
native of Vermont, coming to this country in 1838. He engaged 
in hunting on the neutral grounds between the Sioux and Chippe- 
was, which being seldom visited b}^ either tribe, made most excel- 
lent ground for hunting. He was very brave, of a wiry, quick, 
impulsive temperament, and passed through many skirmishes in 
earlier times, always coming oft' the best man. His first wife was 
the daughter of Campbell G. Scott, by whom he had several chil- 
dren. She was an excellent housekeeper, and took great pride in 
their children. Two of the daughters still reside here. His second 



WABASHA AND YICINTrY. 623 

wife was from Michigan, and they now reside on a farm in Polk 
county. He has a son and daughter by this second marriage. The 
location of Wabasha for beauty and scenery is unsurpassed by any 
on the Mississippi. The river at this point is broad and smooth, 
and forms north and eastern boundaries of the town, and also the 
dividing line between Wisconsin and Minnesota. It lies about two 
miles below the foot of Lake Pepin, and, until the lake opens in the 
spring, is the head of navigation. 

The warehouse erected by Mr. Allen at this place stood at the 
corner of Bridge and Levee streets, and remained a landmark until 
destroyed by fire in 1870. 

Mr. B. F. Hurd is also one of the early settlers, coming to the 
place in 1855. Lie erected the hotel known as the Hurd House in 
1856, and is still proprietor of the same. The American Llouse, 
which stood on the corner of Pembroke and Levee streets, was 
erected also that year, and was the first hotel opened to the public. 
Destroyed by fire in 1868. Hancock brothers erected a grain ware- 
house in 1856, which was also destroyed by fire. In the summer ot 
1857 Mr. Hiram Eogers, of Zanesville, Ohio, came to the place, 
and erected the third warehouse of the place, together with several 
dwellings. 

The county of Wabasha, as at present described on the state 
map, was organized in 1856, with Wabasha as the county seat. 
The history of Wabasha county is so closely connected with that of 
the city that it is given here under the same head. The first term 
of the district court was held by Judge Thomas Wilson in Septem- 
ber, 1857, and the building used for that purpose was the large 
warehouse erected that year across the slough by Mr. Lowrey, of 
New York city. John McKee and S. L. Campbell were the first 
lawyers who settled in the place. The first newspaper published in 
the county was the ' ' Wabashaw Journal, " conducted by Mr. H. 
J. Sanderson, making its first appearance on the 4th of July, 1856. 
It remained under his control some two years, when it passed into 
the hands of S. S. Burleson, Esq., of l^orth Pepin, who changed its 
name to the "Minnesota Patriot"; its politics were democratic. 
After a few months Burleson sold out to H. C. Simpson, wlio 
changed the name to the "Journal " again. In 1860 Mr. Simpson 
took Mr. G. W. Marsh in connection with him, and the "Journal " 
became a republican paper under the campaign which elected 
Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. 



G2-i HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

The " Herald" was first issued at Read's Landing in May, 1857, 
by tlie brothers T. A. and W. C. McM aster, and was a neat seven- 
column paper, and republican in politics. After its first issue the 
two senior brothers were drowned by the upsetting of a sailboat, 
Ma}-- 12, and the "Herald" did not appear again until September, 
when Mr. JST. E. Stevens, of the "Watertown (Wisconsin) "Chronicle" 
issued the paper as "The Wabasha County Herald," and published 
it at that place until 1800, when the office was removed to Wabasha, 
displacing the "Journal," which was removed to Lake City by Mr. 
Simpson. Mr. Stevens continued the publication of the "Herald" 
until 1802, when IT, B. Shaver purchased the subscription list, and 
on the 6th of July commenced its publication with entire new 
material, the old presses and types being withdrawn by Mr. Stevens. 
In 1863 Mr, R. H, Coi3eland, of the "Alma Journal," purchased a 
half interest in the paper, which continued until January, 1864, 
when he severed the connection and enlisted in the United States 
army. In July, 1865, the "Herald" was published by E. W. 
Gurley, who associated with him Mr. Frank Daggett, Mr. Daggett 
finally purchasing his partner's interest. Soon after he associated 
with him Mr. H. W. Rose, and the new firm worked up the credit 
of the paper to a high degree of usefulness. Mr, Daggett withdrew 
in January, 1868, and Mr, Rose remained in charge until his death 
in April following. Mr, Daggett again purchased the "Herald" 
and published it until 1871, when it was purchased by Amasa 
Sharpe, who continued its publication until 1874, when it passed 
into the hands of W, S. Walton, who remained in charge until April, 
1881, when Mr, O. S. Collier purchased all interests and continues 
in charge at the present time. 

Read's Landing was for a time a place of some note, and a good 
healthy business was done there for several years, owing to its posi- 
tion at the foot of Lake Pepin, and confluence of the Chippewa river 
with the Mississippi ; but the advent of railroads destroyed its 
importance, while Wabasha has gradually increased in population, 
manufactures and wealth. Being recognized as the county seat, a 
small jail was erected in the spring of 1858, and during the summer 
of that year a stone schoolhouse was erected. It proved to be too 
far away to accommodate the needs of the town, and in 1860 the 
county purchased it for court-house and county offices, a building of 
wood being put up in another part of the town for school purposes, 
which was occupied for the same until the fiill of 1869, when the 
beautiful brick structure now occupied was completed. 



WABASHA AND VICmiTY. 625 

Wabasha was incorporated as a city in 1858, its first mayor 
being Capt. W. W. Wright; Carlos W. Lyon, recorder; Charles 
Webb, city justice ; Lyman M. Gregg, marshal ; S. N. Wright, city 
treasurer ; D, W. Wellman, surveyor ; John K. Murdock, city 
attorney ; and the official paper, the " Minnesota Patriot." Its first 
aldermen were John B. Downer, William B. Lutz and W. W. 
Prindle. 

The act of incorporation consisted of seven chapters, the first 
relating to city boundaries, which were as follows : Sec. 2. Terri- 
tory within the following boundaries and limits shall constitute the 
city of Wabasha, namely, beginning at a point in the Mississippi 
river on the dividing line between Wisconsin and Minnesota, at the 
mouth of a small creek, called Smith's creek, between Wabasha 
and Reed's Landing ; thence up said creek to the west line of town- 
ship 111, range 10 ; thence along said township line to the south- 
west corner of section 6, in township 110, range 10 ; thence along 
the south line of sections 6, 5 and 4, of township 110, range 10, to 
the southeast corner of said section 4 ; thence north along the east 
line of said section 4, township 110, range 10, and section 33, town- 
ship 111, range 10, to the Wisconsin line ; thence along the Wis- 
consin line up to the place of beginning. The second chapter 
relates to the election of officers and vacancies ; the third, to the 
powers and duties of officers ; the fourth, to the city council, its 
powers and duties ; the fifth, to taxes, manner of assessment, levy- 
ing and collecting ; the sixth, to the opening of streets, lanes, etc. ; 
the seventh, to miscellaneous provisions. 

Nothing could argue so well for the character of our first settlers 
as the early erection of places of worship. Man is eminently a 
religious being, and, though often departing from the immutable 
principles of right, his loftiest aspirations, his finest feelings and 
sublimest conceptions have their foundation in, and are most inti- 
mately connected with, his religious nature ; for without religious cul- 
ture his whole life is a moral waste, a desert, unrelieved by a single 
green spot of virtue and high-toned thought or aspiration. In the 
autumn of 1858 two churches were erected in the place, the first 
completed being a Baptist church, the society having been organized 
the spring previous. The second was Congregational, which society 
was organized in February, 1856, the original members being deacon 
Oliver Pendleton, Mrs. W. W. Prindle, Mrs. W. Hancock, Mal- 
colm Kennedy, W. S. Jackson and Mrs. H. Wilson; Rev. S. 
37 



626 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Morgan, missionary director. This was properly the first church 
society organized in the phice. As before stated, Kev. Father 
Eavoiix had built a log house, in which to hold religious services, 
but this was before Wabasha had been considered a town, and his 
principal members were of the French and mixed blood population. 

The lirst settled pastor of the Congregational church was the 
Kev. S. L. Hillier, who commenced his ministry May 1, 1S57. 
Mr. Hillier was succeeded by Rev. David Andrews, October 15, 
1858, and he by Rev. J. Doane, August 27, 1860. Mr. Doane was 
succeeded by Rev. L. N. Woodruff, September 16, 1862, and he by 
Rev. Edward Ilildreth, April 19, 1866 ; Mr. Hildreth by Rev. 
Henry Loomis, October 1, 1868. Rev. C. W. Honeyman succeeded 
Mr. Loomis in 1871, and Rev. O. Hobbs ofhciated from January 14, 
187'4, to April 2, 187-1, when he was succeeded by E. W. Weeks. 
Mr. Weeks by Rev. J. T. Todd, :N^ovember 3, 1875, and Mr. Todd 
by Rev, J. W. Ray, April 4, 1877, who continued his pastoral care 
until October 1, 1882, when he was succeeded by Rev. C. P. 
Watson, the present incumbent. This congregation erected a 
beautiful parsonage on the church grounds in 1872. 

The first and only pastor of the Baptist society was the Rev. 
James Wharton, from Ohio. A bell was purchased by the citizens 
for this church during the winter of 1858, and hung in its belfry, 
being the first to ring out the glad tidings of salvation to willing 
ears in the place or county. As the old church had gone to decay, 
a new Catholic church was erected in the spring of 1858 by Rev. 
Father Tissott, which in 1874 was succeeded by a new and elegant 
brick under the direction of the Rev. Father Trobex. An Episcopal 
congregation was organized in 1859, and in 1865 they purchased the 
Baptist house, removing it to another block, under the pastoral care 
of Rev. H. G. Batterson, and have occupied the same until the 
present time, erecting a commodious rectory upon the same grounds 
in 1869. 

A Methodist chapel was erected in 1860, and the four last-men- 
tioned churches have been sustained, the Roman Catholic element, 
however, being much the strongest, both in town and county. 

The building given to the county for a court-house has been 
added to and improved greatly, and in 1872 a large and substantial 
brick building was erected just in the rear, for jail and residence of 
sheriff. 

The city was first platted in 1854, south Wabasha being added 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 627 

in 1855. Since that time the county has advanced with rapid prog- 
ress, and when we compare its present civilization with its barbarous 
existence previous to that time, it ahnost seems that the wand of 
magic has passed over the land, changing the hunting-grounds of 
the savage into cultivated farms and homes. Being located in part 
upon what was called "the half-breed tract," much trouble was ex- 
perienced both in town and county by the first settlers in obtaining 
good titles to their land. These were finally adjusted by the gov- 
ernment, and Wabasha county has become one of the most prosper- 
ous counties of the state, with a most intelligent and enterprising 
population. The city charter was revised during the winter of 
1868-9, which revision divided the city into two wards, with two 
aldermen elected in each ward, who held their office two years. 
The city recorder is elected for one year. In the spring of 1857 a 
new company was organized and the town site greatly enlarged by 
the platting of one thousand acres on the west side of the slough 
which divided the plateau from the original site. This company 
consisted of Messrs, S. P. Gambia, B. W. Brisbois, S. L. Campbell, 
Tho. A. Tomlinson, H. M. Kice, Gen. Shields, Oliver Cratte and 
Philo Stone ; Hon. S. L. Campbell, trustee. A large warehouse 
was erected on that side by Mr. Lowry, of New York city, and the 
foundation of an extensive hotel was laid, and the prospect was flat- 
tering for the growth of the city on that side. But the terrible 
convulsions in the financial world which commenced this year came 
with crushing effect upon the young city, and discouraged both pro- 
prietors and people. Immigration fell off, and business of all kinds 
sufiered exceedingly. In consequence, that part of the city was 
given up and the land divided among the proprietors in 1860 ; yet 
the city proper continued to increase in population slowly until 1871, 
when the river branch of the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Milwaukee 
railroad was completed, and Wabasha rejoiced in its first railroad. 
The mail facilities until 1856 had been very irregular, but in that 
year arrangements were made with the boats to carry the mails, and 
a triweekly mail was the consequence during the summer, and in 
winter they were can-ied by private enterprise. In the spring of 
1857 the boats brought a daily mail, and Mr. H. C. Burbank put on 
a line of stages that fall from St, Paul to La Crosse, carrying the 
mails as well as passengers, thus affording a daily mail both up and 
down the river. In 1858 the name of the postoffice was changed to 
"Wabasha," leaving off the final "w" as superfluous, at the sugges- 



628 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

tion of some of tlie citizens, so that the original Indian name of 
Wapashaw, like that of many other towns, has become extinct. To 
our taste, the original spelling and pronimciation of these names 
and ])laces and rivers is far more liquid and musical than the 
modernized, and most of them should have been perpetuated. 

Like many other new counties where rival towns are springing 
up, the question soon arose for the removal of the county seat. 
Plainview had aspirations that way, and Lake City had assumed a 
high position, and parties there were ambitious that it should 
become the shire town, and laid their plans for its removal to that 
place. A vote of the county was taken in 1860 upon the pro])osed 
removal, which resulted in favor of Wabasha ; the people of Lake 
City not being satisfied with that result, a bill was introduced in the 
legislature in 1867-8, which passed both houses, again allowing 
the people to vote upon the question. The feeling of rivalry was 
very strong between the two towns as election day approached, and 
voters were sought for, far and near ; but by dint of hard work 
"Wabasha again succeeded in securing the most votes, four thousand 
and fifty-two being polled for that location, while Lake City had 
three thousand and thirteen. Some people thinking there was 
irregularity in these votes, brought the matter before the courts, and 
the supreme court finally decided in favor of AVabasha, where the 
matter still rests. 

The first agricultural fair of the county was held in September, 
1859, across the slough, in the building erected for a waiX'house, 
which building, in 1864, was removed to this side the slough and 
occupied as a grain elevator until it was consumed b}' fire April 3, 
1883. Mr. S. L. Campbell was president of the association, Mr. 
H. C. Simpson, secretary. Address delivered by S. L. Campbell, 
Esq. 

A company was organized at one time for the improvement of 
the Zumbro.* This was to be done by bringing its waters along the 
base of the bluffs, a distance of some five miles, in a canal running 
in what is now called the slough, which would furnish an immense 
water-power. The enterprise seemed to be of great importance, but 
lor want of capital to carry forward the work it has been abandoned. 

*The early French explorers named the Zumbro river La riviere des 
Embarras, which means " the embarrassed river." The early American settlers 
could not pronounce the word " Embarras," so they got it as near as they could 
and called it " Zumbro," by which name it is now known. 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 629 

In 1858 determined efforts were made to build a road across the 
island bottoms, just opposite the city, to the bluffs, in order to 
secure the trade from that side of the river. Much labor and money 
were expended, but owing to the crash in the financial world it 
became a failure, and the ferry and ferry-boat succeeded the effort 
in 1862. As the county improved Wabasha became a good market 
for wheat and all other productions of the farmers. In 1865 a large 
grain elevator was erected on the levee, and occupied by H. W. 
Holmes & Co. , and about this time a steam flouring-mill was erected 
by A. G. Remendino on the corner of Bridge and Third streets, 
which passed into the hands of F. Klinge. Destroyed by fire in 
1868. In 1870 a machine-shop and foundry was started by Mr. 
Lowth, who also, in connection with J. B. Downer, erected the 
stone flouring-mill now in operation. Messrs. Ingraham, Kennedy 
and Gill erected a planing-raill in 1871, and opened up a lumber- 
yard corner of Second and Alleghany streets, reaching to Bridge in 
the fall of the same year. The first lumber-yard of the place and 
county was opened in 1851 by H. S. Allen & Co., of Chippewa Falls, 
on Levee street between what is now Bridge and Alleghany streets. 

The pioneer hardware establishment of Wabasha was opened by 
Joshua Egbert in the summer of 1857. Mr. Egbert sold out to 
Jewell and Duganne in 1868, Duganne retiring in 1869. The busi- 
ness continued for some years under the name of Jewell & Son ; in 
the autumn of 1882 Mr. Jewell sold out all interest to H. B. Jewell 
and Julius Schmidt, which firm still continues the business. 

About a mile above the city, on the bank of the river, the city 
has located a lovely spot, consisting of about fifteen acres of land, 
as the final resting-place of the weary, when the higher, nobler part 
shall have winged its way to the beautiful land, which all anticipate 
and hope for, yet from which no traveler returns. Riverview 
cemetery truly is one of the beautiful places where 
Streameth down the moonlight 

On cliff and glen and wave, 
Descending ever softest, 
On a little grassy grave. 
And where 

" With tenderest effulgence, a tide of pallid gold 
Down issues, brightly bathing the marble and the mould." 

In the fall of 1868 a club was organized with forty-two members, 
the object being to invite and develop literary culture, build up a 
circulating library, and establish a place -vThere all could spend 



(530 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

their leisure time profitably. The club rented a hall and furnished 
it neatly, supplied the table with the daily papers of the state, 
together with most of the popular magazines and leading literary 
journals, and filled the shelves of the room with a select number of 
books. They also furnished facilities for all and various drawing- 
room games. This club consisted of the best society of the place, 
both ladies and gentlemen. Its managers, however, were gentle- 
men. During the winter of 1870-1 the interest in the club seemed 
to be on the wane, and fears were entertained that this good begin- 
ning might have to be abandoned. But the ladies decided that it 
should not be a failure, and they took the library oft' the hands of 
the gentlemen entirely, reorganizing under the name of the "Ladies' 
Library Association," which has been sustained by efforts of the 
ladies wholly, and is still in a very flourishing condition, there 
being, at the present date, some sixteen hundred volumes. 

Messrs. Luger brothers in 1876 erected a large furniture factory 
on Bridge street, on the site of the flouring-mill before mentioned, 
and the business supplies the trade here and a large branch house 
in Fargo, and other points of the northwest. 

The manufacturing interests of Wabasha are improving ; the 
natural facilities being great, capital only is required to perfect what 
nature has so liberally provided for. 

In the autumn of 1871 the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Chicago 
railroad was com]ileted, passing through Wabasha on the west side, 
which event was hailed with great rejoicing. In 1878 the Minne- 
sota Midland was projected and completed as far as Zumbrota, start- 
ing from Wabasha ; since which event the place has seemed to 
receive new im})etus, and its business has increased nearly one-half. 
The Lake Superior & Chippewa Yalley was completed to this point 
in July, 1882, crossing the Mississippi between this place and 
Read's Landing, and intersecting the Minneapolis, St. Paul & 
Chicago road at their depot, giving Wabasha some prominence as a 
railroad center, creating great hopes again of its growth in wealth 
and population. 

The business of the city has ever been transacted on a safe basis, 
and after struggling through continued hardships with untiring 
perseverance, it now looks as though Wabasha had a grand future 
before it. 

The first meat-market in the place was kept by S. Demary. 
There are now three. Misses Kate and Winifred Redmond were 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 631 

the first milliners and dressmakers here. That line of business has 
improved and increased greatly also. 

The first banking house in Wabasha was instituted by H. 
Rogers and son, from Zanesville, Ohio, in the summer of 1857. 
This did not continue long, however, owing to the financial crisis 
of 1857-8, and Mr. Rogers removed to St. Paul in 1859. In 1861 
Mr. N. r. Webb opened a bank on Main street, which continued in 
business until the autumn of 1870. Messrs. Southworth and Florer 
in 1871 established a bank, which will be fully treated of in the his- 
tory of the town ; changed managers in 1882, and is now known as 
the bank of Wabasha ; directors, A. D. Southworth, J. G. Law- 
rence, L. S. Van Yleit, C. F. Young, H. P. Krick, C. F. Rogers, 
Lucas Kuehn. 

The first physician to settle in the town was Dr. F. H. Milligan, 
who came in 1853. He married a daughter of Mr. Alexis Bailly, 
and settled here soon after. Dr. William L. Lincoln was the next, 
coming here in July, 1857. There was a young lawyer here by the 
name of John McKee, when the town was organized, of marked 
ability, but intemperance fastened her fangs upon him and he died 
in 1857 from the effect of her seductions. Death has claimed 
many of our prominent and esteemed pioneers. C. W. Lyon, W. 
W. McDougall, Charles Wyman, Dea Oliver Pendleton, W. W. 
Prindle, W. S. Jackson, whose places here have not yet been filled. 
Mr. Francis Talbot, the last of the pioneer fur traders, came here in 
1863 with letters of introduction to Mr. Bailly, from his friend, 
John H. Kinzie, of Chicago, with whom Mr. Talbot was connected at 
an early day. The first white child born in Wabasha was Charles, 
son of B. S. Hurd, on the 14th of May, 1855. A steam planing 
and saw mill were erected on the east bank of slough at the foot of 
Fourth street in 1856, by Mr. L. Clapp. This mill did a good busi- 
ness until the financial crash of 1857, when it succumbed gracefully 
to the pressure. 

Philo Stone in 1850 erected the dwelling on Levee street after- 
ward owned and occupied by Dea Oliver Pendleton until his death 
in June, 1875. A building on the levee, just above the present 
residence of Mr. W. T. Duganne, was erected in 1853 by a river 
pilot, whose name was Harold, and it was kept as a boarding-house, 
known as Harold's Exchange. Destroyed by fire in 1858. 

It seems like magic that in so brief a period of time the Indian 
titles to forty millions of acres of land, broad and beautiful, should 



632 HISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNl'Y. 

have been made to blossom as the rose, and that the keen-eyed 
enterprise of the American people should have accomplished so 
much as has been done in a quarter of a century, and the fabled 
magic of the eastern tale that renewed a palace in a single night, can 
only parallel the reality of this. Minnesota was admitted to the 
union in 1858, since which time the blankets and painted faces of 
the red man have entirely disappeared, together with the moccasins 
and red sashes of the French voyageur and half-breeds, while civili- 
zation, with its thousand arms, has advanced in their stead with 
resistless and beneiicent empire ; and now arts, manufactures and 
science equal those of any state in the union, while steam on the 
water, steam on the land, is almost unjiaralleled. Immigration from 
the Atlantic and European states is rapidly developing the almost 
unsearchable riches of the lands, while the immense line of rail- 
roads, when completed, will bring the Atlantic and Pacific coasts in 
direct communication with the great markets of the world. 

In the preceding pages reference has been made to most, per- 
haps to all, of the subjects of these sketches who have been pro- 
minent actors in some department, and further notice may seem like 
repetition ; but as the object in view is to pay tribute where it is due, 
I trust the reader will pardon the iteration. Messrs. E-ocque and 
Buisson were of French descent, and their children and descendants 
still remain in Wabasha. Augustin Eocque built the first house in 
this vicinity in 1830, and Duncan Campbell was the next to build, 
and on the same side of the slough. Oliver Cratte was sent here in 
1838, and he built the first house on the present site of the city. 
Mr. Rocque died in 1856, and, at his own request, lies buried upon 
the top, and just on the verge of the highest bluflr' overlooking the 
town, with no stone or epitaph to mark his resting-place, other tlian 
the silent grandeur of the scene. His son, Joseph Rocque, was ac- 
counted the greatest hunter of his time, and was so fleet on foot, 
that one time upon a wager he ran down a deer and drove it into 
camp. At another time he carried dispatches on foot from Fort 
Snelling to this place, a distance of ninety miles, from sun to sun. 
The governor fearing he would not be able to make the trip, sent a 
man on horseback after him ; but Rocque left man and horse on the 
prairie, and distanced both. He was perfectly familiar with the 
country, having traversed it many times in company with Indians 
and voyageurs, and understood the shortest route, which he took, and 
so executed his mission in due time. Another son, Baptiste, acted 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 633 

as scout for Gen. Sibley during the Indian outbreak of 1862. Men- 
dota at that time was called St. Peters. Nearly all the old French 
traders married Sioux wives, and the government set apart four hun- 
dred and fifty square miles for the benefit of the so called half-breed 
children. In 1857 these half-breeds received four hundred and 
eighty acres of land scrip from the government in place of their re- 
served land, and several old French settlers at Wabasha received 
scrip for their wives and children. Duncan and Scott Campbell 
received about twenty-three scrips ; Mr. Cratte had nine ; Mr. Alexis 
Baily, seven. The Campbells were men of Scotch parentage, and 
both were well known at all the different posts and among various 
tribes. Dur.can Campbell was killed in a duel near Mackinac, with one 
Crawford, a brother of the agent of the Korthwest Fur Company. 
Campbell was an independent trader in opposition to the Northwest 
Company. Nelson's Landing was a trading post on the Wisconsin 
side of the river. At one time, a war party of Chippewas, numbering 
about one hundred and fifty, came down to the Mississippi, and 
stopped at the Landing. This was in 1853. They threatened the 
village, and just as they made their appearance on the river bank a 
Sioux Indian was seen coming down the river in his canoe. On see- 
ing his enemies so close to him, he threw himself over in the water, 
and holding his canoe with the left hand swam ashore, the canoe 
serving him as a shelter from the bullets of his enemies, although 
completely riddled by them. But "Oregon'- (so he was called by 
the wliites), managed his bark so as to reach the Minnesota side 
without being wounded, and as soon as upon land he gave the war- 
whoop common to his tribe, which was soon answered by scores of 
his friends, and the Chippewas were glad to retreat without even a 
scalp. A short time before, a treaty of peace had been perfected 
between the Chippewas and Wapashaws band, which was ratified by 
all the principal men of the band, and everything seemed quiet. 
But the Redwing band either did not know of the treaty or ignored 
it wholly, and made raid upon the Chippewas, which renewed hosti- 
lities at once. 

When the writer of these annals first came to Wabasha, in the 
spring of 1857, the teepee of the Indian was to be seen in every 
direction, and the dusky form of the savage might be ex-^Dected to 
walk in upon you, or be seen peering curiously at you through the 
window at any time. L^sually they wanted food or "coshpop" (the 
Indian term for ten cents), begging being one. of their strong charac- 



634 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

teristics. Just below the liouse in wliich we lived stood a little 
copse of wood, where tlie death-song of the ''poor Indian" was 
heard many times when he thouglit himself dying ; the "fire-water" 
of the white man proving too much for him. He would get thus far 
on his way back to the teepee, lie down, as he thought, to die, and 
then tiie terrible wail would begin and continue until the poor fellow 
was overcome and dead-drunken sleep drowned all sensibilities. 
Their dances, too, were very frequent and dreadfully hideous, yet 
a])parently enjoyed with all the zest their benighted brains and 
energies could desire. Their medicine and war-dances were the 
most frequent ; they had also a snake-dance, which took in all the 
serpentine antics and hisses, while the monotonous beatings of their 
drums was most unearthly. 

Sitting at our dinner-table one day, We were startled by the door 
being opened suddenly and five dusky faces, one above the other, 
peering in at us, the last one with face ])ainted black and red, with 
mischief-gleaming eyes and two feathers in his hair. Our eldest 
son, who, in a short time, had caught much of the Sioux language, 
upon seeing the last face, jumped up and accosted him with, "Now, 
Dick, what does all this mean \ " "Indian hungry," was the reply. 
"But why are you here with that face?" "Dick dandy," he 
replied, and it appeared that he had painted and dressed himself in 
those habiliments for our especial benefit. The Indian was known 
ever after as " Dandy Dick." In the raid upon the whites, in 1862, 
Dandy Dick came to grief as one of the marauders, although pro- 
testing his innocence and pleading hard for life. He was finally 
removed, with many others, to the San tee agency, Nebraska. 
Among those banished to that reservation at that time was the old 
and faithful Sioux, Ta-mah-haw, who had been a friend to the 
United States all his life. He was familiarly known as "the one- 
eyed Sioux," and Lieut. Pike speaks of him as "my friend " in his 
journal, and also says he was a war chief, and that he gave him his 
"father's tomahawk," In the table of the appendix of this journal 
he is set down as belonging to the MedaywokantVans ; he was 
also called "the Bourgne'' (French for one eye), but his Dahkota 
name was Ta-mah-haw, his French name was "L'Orignal Leve," 
and his English, "The Rising Moose." He was born ?i.t Prairie 
Ausc Ailes (Winona), and in his younger days was noted for his intel- 
ligence, daring and activity. During a game in boyhood one eye 
was accidentally destroyed, giving him the peculiarity by which he 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 



635 



was always known. In person, he was tall and of fine appearance, 
muscular and active even to the day of his death. During the war 
of 1812 he rendered most valuable service to the American cause. 
Gen. Clark, of St. Louis, employed him as scout and messenger, 
and, with one exception, he was the only Sioux who remained 
friendly to us during that contest. This other was Hay-pie-dam, 
who belonged to the band of Wakuta. Col. Dickson, the British 
leader, once had him arrested at Prairie du Cliien and threatened 
him with death, but Ta-mah-haw bravely and firmly refused to 
betray his cause. Gen. Clark esteemed his services highly, and on 
May 6, 1814 (sixty-nine years today) gave him a commission as 
chief of the Sioux nation, together with a captain's uniform and 
medal. He carefully kept and treasured this commission and shows 
it with genuine pride to every new comer. Most of the early settlers 
are familiar with his characteristics, always wearing a high-crowned 
hat, and often appearing in an oflicer's blue swallow-tailed coat and 
epaulets, given him by Gov. Clark. He was remarkable among the 
Sioux, and it was his highest pride and boast that he was the only 
American in his tribe. He deserved, on this account, to receive 
from the government authorities special consideration ; yet he 
was suffered to go away in banishment from his old friends the 
white men, which grieved him so much that he died_ in a few 
months. In the Dahkota tongue Ta-mah-haw means " pike. " He 
was given that name by his band, undoubtedly on account of friend- 
ship for and intimacy with Lieut. Pike. 

It may be thought that too much pains has been taken to eluci- 
date the history of this man, but he was more than an ordinary 
Indian, and his personal friendship for Lieut. Pike, of whom he 
delighted to talk, and his devotion to the American cause, justly 
attaches to his history more than ordinary notice. 

Old Wapashaw, the grandfather of the present chief who bears 
his name, was the man of his time, and tradition has preserved the 
name of no braver, greater man than he. He was the leading 
hereditary chief of the People of the Lakes, and in all tribal affairs 
his word was law, not only with his own particular band, but with 
all those belonging to the same division. At one time he went to 
Quebec to settle some trouble in relation to a murder which had 
been committed, and there he represented the Dahkotahs as living 
in seven bands, with as many chiefs, of whom he was one. He there 
received for them seven medals, one being hung around his own 



636 HISTORY OF WABASHA COimTY. 

neck, and the remainder to be given one to each chief of the other 
bands. Wapashaw died far away from his home on the Hoka 
river, and, it is said, the father of Wakuta was the physician who 
attended him in his last illness. The Dakotahs will never forget 
the name of Wapashaw, 'and their affections cluster around and 
cling to this place from very reverence to his memory. 

I copy from the "Wabasha Herald" the particulars of an inter- 
view with Wakuta, the last Sioux chief who dwelt on the Mississippi, 
and who is said to have possessed one of the medals given Wapa- 
shaw at the time of liis visit to Quebec: "A few days since we 
had the pleasure of looking at a few old relics in the shape of 
parchments, commissions, treaties, etc., which privilege was granted 
us by an old Indian chief, Wakuta by name, at present located at 
the Santee reservation in Nebraska with his tribe, and who is pay- 
ing his old friends and acquaintances here a visit. The first docu- 
ment shown us was a commission to Tatangamanie, or "Walking 
Bufialo," appointing him as grand chief of the Gens de Lac 
Nation (Men of the Lakes), and signed by James Wilkinson, com- 
mander-in-chief of the army of the United States and governor of 
the territory of Louisiana and superintendent of the Indian affairs, 
indorsed as follows : "Given under my hand and seal of arms, at 
St. Louis, this 27th day of May, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand eight hundred and six, and of the independence of the United 
States of America the twentieth." Signed by>i'his excellencie's 
command, James Wilkinson." Also another, bearing date August 
26, 1812, appointing Walking Buffalo as first chief of the Mende- 
wacouton band, which constituted all the Sioux on the Mississippi 
river ; also another, appointing Walking Bufialo chief of the Tribes 
of the Lakes, signed by Wm. Clark, governor of Missouri, bearing 
date July 29, 1815. He had another document, a treaty of peace, 
signed at St. Louis in 1815 by the following chiefs and commission- 
ers : Wm. Clark, Marian Edwards and Aug. Choteau, commission- 
ers, and Tatangamanie, the "Walking Bufialo"; Hai-saw-nee, 
"The Horn"; A-am-pa-ha, "The Speaker"; Na-ru-sa-ga-to, "The 
Hard Stone"; Hai-ba-had, "The Rounding Horn," chiefs. 

These papers are in a good state of ]3reservation, and the one 
bearing date of 1806, is written in both English and French, while 
the others are all in English. From these papers it appears that 
Walking Buffalo was grand chief of the Gens du Lac Nation (People 
of the Lake), and also chief of the Men-da-wa-con-ton band, which 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 637 

included all the Sioux of the Mississippi river. The documents were 
handed down by Walking Bufialo to his brother, Wakuta, the "Eed 
Wing," who in turn gave them into the possession of his son, the 
present chief, who is seventy years old at this time. The domain of 
the Tribe of the Lake Band extended from Bead's Landing to Red 
Wing, and the domain of AVapasha extended from the same point to 
the mouth of the Black river. ^ 

Although Wakuta spoke in the Sioux language, we were able to 
glean a good many interesting facts from him through his nephew, 
Jos. Carron, and only regret that our education in that language was 
neglected in our early days ; that deprived us of a further research. 
Although seventy years old, Wakuta does not appear to be over 
fort3^ On showing him a specimen of a stone axe claimed by many 
to be of the stone age, he said that the Indians used it for almost every- 
thing in their every-day life. On handing him a piece of pottery 
that was supposed to be the handiwork of the mound builders, he 
immediately recognized it as a part of an Indian cooking utensil. 
This was handed him for the purpose of finding out whether he knew 
anything of such a race, and upon being questioned, said many 
years ago, which he counted by the five or six hundred, there was 
a nation of people (he called them Indians) that lived in what is now 
known as Indians mounds, and instead of burialplaces they were their 
habitations. This race, he says, disappeared when his people came, 
and thinks they were either killed or driven off. He also said that 
when the present Indians came to this land, there were a couple of 
houses standing near the present town of Stockholm, Wisconsin, on 
Lake Pepin, which he thinks must have been built by the French 
voyageurs. The old chief has been over nearly the whole of the 
United States, and immediately recognized a bird's-eye view of the 
city of New York, and laid another as a scene on the Hudson. From 
our limited " talk " we judge that he was " well read," as they say in 
the United States, and was well informed of the events of his time, 
and had stowed away many traditions of the nation and country he 
represented, of which the modern historical researcher would gladly 
avail himself. 

An incident on Lake Pepin is also given in the shape of a fish 
story— an old Indian story told and handed down from time to time — 
that a catfish was caught in the lake that measured the length of 
seven bows between the eyes. An Indian bow being, say, about 
three feet in length, would make the fish some twenty-one feet 



638 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

between the eyes, wliich makes a ])retty large fish story, and should 
be placed side by side with the sea-serpent stories of the east. As 
fishy as it may seem, they tell it as a fact, and all give the same 
version. At the date of this writing Wakuta is dead, having died at 
the Santee agency. Their old cani])ing-ground at this place was 
very dear to them, and they would return at times to visit their 
friends and relatives among the half-breeds who still remain here, 
and upon what is called the " Grand Encam])ment," five miles below 
on the river. It was given that name by the old French voyageurs 
who made it a point to camp there on their way up and down the 
river. Tee])eeotah, as remarked in a former chapter, is situated on 
this encampment. 

In the preceding chapters it has been shown that Wabasha justly 
lays claim to being the oldest town on the Mississippi from Prairie 
du Chien to Fort Snelling and Mendota, and that its position has 
ever been an important one. Situated, as it is, just below the mouth 
of the Chippewa river, it has been the rendezvous for all the lumber 
rafted down that river, and from this place to the great markets 
below, ever since the manufacture of lumber began from the pineries 
above. The lumber, after coming out of the Chippewa, is rerafted 
at this point and sent down the river, and now much of it goes 
farther west by means of the railroad communication with other 
points. The Midland road intersects the Northwestern at Zumbrota, 
and the prospect is that the road will be continued to Austin, and 
thus direct transportation be opened from the great lumber manu. 
factories themselves to Omaha and other points west. A goodly 
number of smart, enterprising villages have sprung up along the 
line of the Midland, the first being Glasgow, then McCrackens, at 
which point there is a never-failing spring of pure water, Theilmen. 
ton, Tracey, Keegan, Millville, Jarrett, Hammond, Funk, Zumbro 
Falls, Mazeppa, Forest Mills, Zumbrota. All these stations are of 
considerable importance as shipping points, and several possess 
extensive grain elevators ; and all these are tributary to Wabasha. 
With these and many other advantages the city of Wabasha 
undoubtedly has a grand future before it. Stillwater claims to have 
been the first settled town in the state, which is a mistake. That 
city was first settled in 1843, and Wabasha dates back to 1838 and 
1841, being christened "Wabashaw" in 1843. For beauty of loca- 
tion Wabasha is unexcelled, and the sunset from the place is most 
enchanting. Just at the outlet of Lake Pepin the river makes a 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 639 

bend, which from this point seems to bring the bluffs of AVisconsin 
and Minnesota very close together, leaving just space enough to see 
the sun in all its glory as it sinks to rest in the placid waters of the 
lake, and its last rays light up the bluffs on either side with a golden 
radiance that fills the heart with rapture at the beautiful scene. It 
is in the month of June especially charming, and would quite repay 
a little journey to the place by any lover of beautiful scenery, just 
to have one look at this enchanting sunset. 

More than a century ago traveling fur traders would ascend the 
Mississippi for the purpose of trading with the Indians and obtaining 
valuable furs, of which they usually had an abundance, their head- 
quarters being at Prairie du Chien. Mention has been made of 
some of these traders, and it seems fitting that this work should give 
some notice of some of the most prominent of these, particularly 
those who at times have either lived here or transacted business with 
others who did. A sketch has been given of Mr. J. B, Faribault, 
and it seems most fitting to introduce just here a sketch of his son- 
in-law, Mr. Alexis Bailly, as he figured largely in the early history 
of the place. Most of the pioneers of Minnesota, as a class, have 
been men superior in morality, intelligence and education to those 
of the pioneers of the earlier territories, and they have left their 
impress upon town and state. Many of them were attracted to this 
wild region from the love of adventure, or of the chase, there being 
just enough danger always to give zest to frontier life, more than 
mere love of gain ; yet the}^ were by no means free from the frailties 
and vices of poor human nature, and were not especially given to 
respect law, especially when it favored the speculator at the expense 
of the settler. 

Mr. Bailly was born at St. Josephs, near the shore of Lake 
Michigan, but received his education at Montreal. When about 
nineteen he came to Mackinaw as clerk for the American Fur Com- 
pany, and remained there some two years. In 1826 he was em- 
ployed by the company to drive some cattle to the, Red River of 
the North, and he, with eight others, made the trip on foot, leaving 
Mackinaw the middle of May, reaching their destination late in 
"October. Upon their return they lost their way, going between 
two and three hundred miles to the west, striking the shed waters 
of the St. Peters river (now Minnesota) instead of those of the Sauk, 
as they had intended. They endured almost untold hardships, going 
several days without any food, except a few kernels of dry corn, but 



640 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

finallj succeeded in reaching Prairie dii Chien without loss of life. 
Mr. Bailly was a man of fine business habits, and was an intelligent 
and very genial companion. He was married twice, his tirst wife 
being the daughter of J. B. Faribault, who died in Wabasha. Sev- 
eral years after, he married, at St. Paul, a Miss Julia Corey, of 
Cooperstown, New York, who is still living here. 

At the time Mr. Bailly engaged with the fur company the wages 
of a good clerk was two hundred dollars per annum ; that of an 
inter])reter, one hundred and iifty dollars, and common laborers or 
voyageurs, as they were called, was one hundred dollars, with 
rations, which rations were of the simplest kind. The articles 
principally used in the trade with the Indians were blankets, 
calicoes, cloths, tobacco and cheiip jewelry, including wampum^ 
which served in lieu of money as a basis of exchange. During the 
winters the traders and their men ensconced themselves in their 
warm log-cabins, but in the spring it was required of them to visit 
the various Indian camps and secure the furs and peltries collected 
by the savages in their hunts. Goods were always paid for on 
delivery, and never given on credit. 

Mr. Bailly commenced trading on his own account at Prairie du 
Chien in 1828, but removed to St. Peters (now Mendota) in 1835, 
and subsequently opened a store in St. Paul. Not meeting with 
the success he desired he removed to Wabasha, where he remained 
until his death in June, 1861. Mr. Bailly figured largely in the 
interests of the county, and did much to settle the difficulties in 
relation to the half-breed tract, and his eldest son, Alexis P. Bailly 
was the first register of deeds of the county. His second son, Capt. 
H. Bailly, was killed in the rebellion, at the battle of Lookout 
Mountain. 

Mr. Bailly was the first civil officer in the county, being ap- 
pointed justice of the peace, after the town ot Wabasha was organ- 
ized, by the governor. 

He was at one time associated with N. W. Kittstm in business, 
they holding trading-posts in different localities. Mr. Wm. H. 
Forbes, a brother-in-law of Mr. Bailly's, came to Minnesota as 
Indian trader in 1837. Mr. Bailly's trade was principally among the 
Sioux. Mr. Bailly, upon coming to Wabasha, bought out Labathe, 
of whom a rich anecdote is related by Hon. H. H. Sibley. Indian 
etiquette demands on all occasions that the visitor shall leave nothing 
unconsumed of the meat or drink placed before him. There was a 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 641 

tea-partj given at one time at Fort Snelling by Capt. Gooding, of 
the army, and Joseph Laframboise, Alex. Faribault and Sabathe 
were invited. It was in July, and the weather very warm. It 
appears that Laframboise spoke with fluency several different 
languages, and both he and Faribault were practical jokers. In due 
time the party were seated around the table, and the cups and 
saucers of those days were of the generous proportions ignored in 
these days. The large cup filled with tea was handed to Labathe 
and soon disposed of. At that time the poor fellow could speak 
nothing more of English than the imperfect sentence " tank you." 
When his cup was emptied, Mrs. Gooding, who was at the head of 
the table, said, "Mr. Labathe, please take some more tea." Labathe 
replied, "tank you, madam," which tlie waiter understood to mean 
assent. He took the cup and handed it to the hostess, which was 
forthwith supplied with the tea. Labathe managed to swallow that, 
sweltering meanwhile with the fervent heat of the evening, and was 
again requested to permit his cup to be replenished. "Tank 
you, madam," was the only reply the poor victim could make. 
Seven great cups full of the hot tea had been swallowed, 
Laframboise and Faribault in the meantime almost dying with 
laughter. For the eighth time the waiter approached for the cu]), 
when the aboriginal politeness which had enabled him to bear up 
amid his sufferings gave way entirely, and rising from his seat, to 
the amazement of the company, he exclaimed frantically, '''• Lafram- 
loise, pour Vamoir de hon Dieu^ pourquoi ne dites vous pas a 
madame qui je ne vout point davantagef'' — " Laframhoise^ for the 
love of God, why do you not tell madam that I do not wish any more 
tea?" Gen. Sibley says Labathe never heard the last of that while 
he lived. 

Mr. Koque, too, mentioned in preceding pages, affords another 
instance of the inconvenience of not being able to speak English. 
He only knew one compound word, and that was roast-beef, which 
he called "Ros-bif." At the time of his accompanying the delega- 
tion to Washington Cit}^ on being asked at the public-houses what 
he would be helped to, he could only say ros-bif! So, the old 
gentleman, although longing for a chance at the many good things 
he would have preferred, performed the round trip on ros-bif. 

We find Mr. Bailly figuring largely in matters concerning the 
Sioux, to whom he was a good friend, and he is frequently mentioned 
in connection with the treaties made and also as justice of the peace. 



642 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

He married several couples while acting as justice of the peace of 
this county, and in 1852 acted as assistant commissary at the treaty 
with the Dahcotahs at Traverse des Sioux. 

It became necessary that the territory bordering on the Ked 
River of the North should pass into the hands of the United States 
government and become subject to the civil jnrisJiction of the terri- 
tory. President Fillmore departed from the usual mode of appointing 
commissioners for negotiation, and deputed the commissioner of 
Indian affairs, the Hon. Luke Lea, and His Excellency Gov, Ramsey 
to meet the representatives of the Dahcotahs and conclude a treaty 
with them for such lands as they niight be willing to sell. A large 
number of halt-breeds and others, citizens of the United States, 
who were originally a part of the Selkirk settlement, demanded 
protection of the government against the encroachments of the 
Hudson Bay Company and the privileges of American citizens. 
On the 27th of June, 1852, Commissioner Lea arrived at St. Paul, and, 
in company with Gov. Ramsey, proceeded to Traverse des Sioux, 
arriving there June 30. This treaty was considered of great impor- 
tance, the conditions being the ceding and relinquishment of all 
their lands in the territory and State of Iowa by the Wah-pay- 
kootah and Med-a-wa-kan-toans bands of Indians, the United States 
reserving for them a home the average width of ten miles on either 
side of the Minnesota river and bounded on the east by Little Rock 
river, on the west by the Yellow Medicine, paying them certain 
moneys and annuities to continue for fifty years. Another treaty, the 
same year, was perfected with the Tillager band of Chijjpewas, by 
which they ceded a country sixty-five miles in width by one hundred 
and fifty in length, intersected in its center by the Red River of the 
North, for this land the government agreeing to pay them annually 
the sum of ten thousand dollars for twenty years and thirty 
thousand -dollars cash down. Mr. Bailly was spoken of at these 
treaties as " one of the most useful and active camp men that ever 
was." 

At the Traverse des Sioux camp Mr. Bailly married, in the 
Episcopal form, David Faribault and Nancy Winona McClure, after 
which the groom gave a dinner, and all went to dine together. 
After the repast, toasts and speeches appropriate to the occasion 
flowed freely. One of the toasts was given by Joseph La Framboise, 
who was one of the oldest and most intelligent pioneers of the valley 
of the St. Peters. Hon. Wm. II. Forbes, who was also present at 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 643 

this treaty, gave as a sentiment, "Gov. Ramsey, ex-ofRcio superin- 
tendent of Indian aifairs, a public officer who has, as he deserves to 
have, the entire confidence of the Indians under his charge." Gov. 
Ramsey gave " Millard Fillmore, a national president — a man worthy 
of his high trust." After dinner there was a virgin feast of young 
Dahcotah girls, nineteen in number, and fifteen young men. Before 
sitting down to the feast, consisting of tea and fried cakes, each of the 
party advanced and touched a red stone which was placed in their 
midst, this being the test oath of truthfulness and virtue. Mr. Wm. 
H. Forbes was present at this treaty ; also Mr. Kittson, J. R. Brown 
and Hon. H. H. Sibley. 

Minnesota is the "land of the Dahkotahs." Long before their 
existence was known to civilized men they wandered through the 
forests between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, in quest of the 
bounding deer, and over the wide prairies beyond, in search of the 
ponderous buffalo. They are an entirely different group from those 
found by the early settlers of the Atlantic States, on the Connecticut, 
Mohawk and Susquehanna rivers, and their language is much more 
difficult to comprehend ; yet they have many customs common with 
the tribes who once dwelt in I^ew England, New York, Pennsyl- 
vania and Illinois, while other peculiarities mark them as belonging 
to a distinct family of the aborigines of North America. 

Winona, Wapashaw, Mendota, Anoka, Kasota, Mahkato, and 
other names designating the towns, streams and lakes of Minnesota, 
are words derived from their vocabulary. When they were first 
noticed by the European adventurer they occupied the country 
between the Mississippi and the headwaters of Lake Superior, which 
is a country of many lakes, and the voyageur gave them the name of 
"People of the Lakes." The word Dahkota, by which they love to 
be designated, signifies joined together in friendly compact, equiva- 
lent to the motto on the seal of the United States. In a history 
written by a Catholic missionary nearly two centuries ago, it is 
remarked of the Dakotahs : "For sixty leagues frpm the extremity 
of the upper lakes, toward sunset, in the center of the western 
nations, they have all united their force hy a general league.'''' 

This refers only to the Sioux tribes, which name originated among 
the early voyageurs. The Ojibways were a people whose ancestors 
had lived on Lake Michigan, but had been driven westward by 
the Iroquois. For centuries " they had waged war upon the 
Dahkotahs, and the two nations were deadly foes. Many nations 



644 HISTORY OF M^ABASHA COUNTY. 

cull the Dahkotahs Nadoiiessioux, the hist two syllables being the 
Ojibwaj word for foe, but Charlevoix, who visited AVisconsiii in 1721, 
says the name "Sioux" was entirely original with the voyageur. 

From an early period there had been three divisions of this great 
people, which again had been subdivided into smaller bands. That 
division known as the M'dewakontons, or People of the Lakes, con- 
sisted of seven distinct bands, whose summer residence was in 
villages. These villages were situated at Wapashaw prairie, now 
the site of Winona, Red Leaf or Wapashaw, Red Wing, Kaponia on 
the Mississippi, and anotlier at Lake Calhoun, another at the Little 
Rapids on the banks of the Minnesota, near the present village of 
Belleplaine. Old Wabashaw, long since dead, was the leading heredi- 
tary chief of the People of the Lakes, and in all intertribal aftairs of 
importance his word was law, not only with his own particular band, 
but witli all those belonging to the same division. 

The authority of the chiefs was very great ; but from the date of 
the jSrst treaties negotiated with the government it began to decline, 
until finally the chief was considered the mere mouthpiece of the 
soldiers' lodge, the members of which constituted the only real power 
in the bands. Though the treaty of 1763 between France and 
England ceded all the territory within the limits of Wisconsin and 
Minnesota to England, yet for a long time the English did not obtain 
a foothold. The French traders, having purchased wives from the 
tribes according to their customs, managed to preserve a feeling of 
friendship toward their king long after the trading-posts at Green 
Bay and Sault St. Marie had been discontinued. This was the cause 
of so many French half-breeds, especially at Prairie du Chien, whose 
children and their descendants coming up the Mississippi settled in 
and around Wabashaw. Prairie du Chien was the great mart where 
all the tribes on both sides of the river annually assembled to dis- 
pose of their furs to the traders, who also had their Indian wives ; 
and Carver speaks of their village, upon his arrival there, as 'being 
one of about three hundred families. 

About the year 1785 Prairie du Chieii made its transition from 
an encampment for Lidians and their traders to a hamlet, and among 
its first settlers were Messrs. Giard and Dubuque. In 1780 the wife 
of a Fox warrior discovered a large vein of lead in Iowa, on the west 
bank of the Mississippi, and at a council held in Prairie du Chien in 
1788, Julien Dubuque obtained permission to work the mines on and 
near the city which now bears his name, and on the bluff stands the 
little stone house that covers his remains. 



WABASHA AND VICINITY. 645 

After the treaty of 1783 between Great Britain and the United 
States, the British did not immediately surrender their posts, which 
led to much ill-feeling ; and when Washington sent Baron Steuben, in 
1784, to Detroit to take possession of that fort, the British com- 
mander refused to give possession, upon the ground that it was upon 
Indian territory. But in the treaty effected by Mr. Jay, Great Britain 
agreed to withdraw her troops from all places within the boundary 
lines of the treaty, and after France ceded Louisiana to the United 
States, in 1 800, this part of Minnesota began to be settled by white 
people and French half-breeds, — Augustine Eocque, as before stated, 
being the first white settler at Wapashaw. In 1S05, Lieut. Pike held 
a conference with the Sioux Indians, when they agreed to grant to 
the United States full power and sovereignty over these lands forever. 

For more than a century there had been a westward tendency in 
the emigration of the Indian nations, and a frequent source of war 
was the encroachment upon each other's hunting-grounds, and in 
1825 a congress of tribes was convened at Prairie du Chien to estab- 
lish the boundary lines between the Chippewas and Sioux. This did 
not prove effectual, and in 1830 another congress was convened at 
Prairie du Chien, at which time the M'dewakantonwan band made 
a treaty, bestowing upon their relatives, the mixed bloods, this tract 
of land about Lake Pepin, since known as "the half-breed tract." 
This tract in said treaty is described as follows : "Beginning at a 
place called the Barn, below and near the village of the Red Wing 
chief, and running back fifteen miles, thence in a parallel line with 
Lake Pepin and the Mississippi about thirty-two miles to a point 
opposite O'Beuf or Beef river, thence fifteen miles to the Grand 
Encampment, opposite the river aforesaid. " This reservation begins 
at Red Wing, Goodhue county, and runs through the town of Red 
Wing in a southwesterly direction, thence through Hay Creek town- 
ship, including all of it but a small part of the northwest corner, 
including the southeast corner of Fetherstone township, all of 
Belvidere township and Florence; runs angling through Goodhue to 
section 31, thence southeast through Zumbrota, including the north- 
east corner thereof, to the town of Chester in Wabasha county ; it 
runs diagonally and includes the northeast half of the town through 
Hyde Park, leaving the southwest corner of it which lies north of 
Hammond's ford ; takes in most of Oakwood, except a part of the 
southwest corner ; then striking the northeast corner of Elgin and 
runs diagonally across Plainview to section 24 ; from there it runs 



64c6 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

northeast through the town of Whitewater, in "Winona county, 
diagonally through Watopa, including the northwest half of the town, 
taking in all of Highland and the most of Greenfield, through which 
it i-uns diagonally, leaving out the southeast corner, and strikes the 
Mississippi near the southeast corner of section 12, at what is called 
the Grand Encampment. It also includes all of the townships of 
Wabasha, Lake, Mount Pleasant, Guilford, West Albany and Glas- 
gow, thus including all but a small part of Wabashaw county and a 
portion of Goodhue. 

The year 1837 forms an important era in the history of Minnesota, 
as the first steps were then taken for the introduction of the wood- 
man's ax and the splash of the millwheel. Missionaries were also 
sent out by a society from Lausanne, Switzerland, who arrived and 
located at Redwing and Wabashaw villages, but after a short time 
they abandoned the attempt to ameliorate the condition of the 
Dahkotahs. The same year a deputation of Dahkotahs was sent to 
Washington, and all lands east of the Mississippi were ceded by 
them to the United States, but this reservation was held as a sacred 
bequest to the half-breeds, according to the treaty at Prairie du 
Chien in 1830. White men began to stop at Wabashaw, and settle- 
ments began upon this tract, yet disputes as to possession frequently 
arose, and the Indians being numerous, the safety of the white man 
was very precarious. There was often a hundred lodges, sometimes 
more, about Wabashaw, and it is easy to conceive how the natural 
love of the beautiful should prom):>t the red men to select this as 
their home and hunting-ground. Canoes lined the shore, and games, 
feasts and dances filled in the time, while long in the night the hol- 
low beat of their drums, and the dismal screech of male and female, 
could be heard in the woods, trying to drive away the Evil Spirit, or 
cure some Indian sick man. In 1850 the population of this county 
was two hundred and forty-three souls. In the census of 18S0 it was 
sixteen thousand one hundred and forty-nine. 

The half-breed tract contained four hundred and fifty square 
miles. In 1854 the government appointed commissioners to enroll 
the half-breeds in order to divide the lands equally among them, and 
in the spring of 1857 Gen. Shields was sent on to issue land scrip to 
them, in place of these reserved lands, each half-breed receiving 
four hundred and eighty acres. This scrip made a nice haul for the 
sharpers, who in most cases figured them out of it. The French 
settlers at Wabasha received scrip for their wives and families. 



PEPm TOWNSHIP, 647 

Joseph Buisson had seven scrips, Alexis Bailley had seven, Rocque's 
family had thirteen, Mr. Cratte had nine, Monette had four, Trudell 
had seven ; Duncan and Scott Campbell had twenty-three, Francois 
la Batte had ten. Most of these have not a cent left. 

Few of the old settlers remain, some have gone to other parts of 
the country, but most of them lie sleeping their last sleep, and the 
hunting-ground of the red man is now turned into lields of grain 
and flowering gardens. A beautiful city stands on the site of the 
old camping-ground, which a short time ago was lighted only by the 
council lires of tlie savage. 



CHAPTER LVIII. 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 



This is the name given to a fractional township lying along the 
shores of Lake Pepin and the Mississippi river. It contains a little 
less than one-half the number of sections of land comprised in a 
full-sized township as determined and set oif by United States gov- 
ernment survey. There are in Pepin township sixteen full sections, 
one fractional half-section, and five other ' fractions of sections 
that are mere strips along the shores of the river and the lake ; the 
whole five forming less than one full section, or one mile square. 
Pepin township lies six miles in length along the shores of the lake 
from whence it derives its name, and the Mississippi river, and has 
an average width of three lull sections, except in the soutlieast 
corner, where one section is cut off and attached to the corporation 
of the city of Wabasha. Lake Pepin is simply a broadening of tlie 
Mississippi river into a beautiful sheet of bluff-environed water, 
low lying in the basin of the hills which rise on all sides from four 
hundred to five hundred feet above its clear waters. The length of 
the lake is about thirty miles ; its width from two and one -half miles 
to four miles. The origin of the name "Pepin " is matter of merest 
conjecture. Keill, in his history of Minnesota, queries whether or 
no it may not have been so named in honor of Pepin, the Seur de 
la Fond, who married the aunt of La Parriere, the builder of an old 
fort on the north side of the lake, in the fall of 1727. The name 
itself is one immortal in French history for over one thousand years. 



648 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

It was first brought into prominence by the old Carlovingian, 
Pepin le Yicux, whose grandson Pepin le Gros eftectually cliecked 
the encroachments of tlie kingly line of the Merovingians in the 
seventli century. This Pepin le Gros was the father of the illus- 
trious Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace to the last of the 
Merovingian dynasty, whose power he also reduced, and who 
is celebrated as the deliverer of Western Europe from the rav- 
ages of the Saracens, whom he routed at Poictiers in 732, and 
again in 738 at Lyons. This name of Pepin, so illustrious in those 
early days, has always had an honored place in French histor}'^ ; and 
this fact taken with that other, namel}^ that the early Mississippi 
explorers were adventurous Frenchmen, may be all that is neces- 
sary to account for the name of the lake, Pepin, the origin of which 
has puzzled so many writers of early northwestern explorations. 
Pepin township is virtually a ridge or narrow tableland, l,ying be- 
tween the Mississippi river and the Zumbro, at an elevation of from 
three hundred feet to five hundred feet above the level of the Missis- 
sippi river. This tableland breaks off abruptly on the north or lake 
side, but descends more gradually on the south toward the valley of 
the Zumbro ; but this southern declension does not begin within the 
limits of Pepin township, so that the high character of the ground is 
preserved to its extreme southern limit. The surface of this table- 
land is quite rolling, at times even broken, but all lies elevated, 
and is, with the exceptions of some ravines jutting up from the 
lake, of tillable character. Tiiere are no streams crossing the face 
of the township, though a small one, in which water is found run- 
ning at nearly all seasons of the spring, summer and fall, empties 
into the lake near the northeastern corner of the township, through 
the ravine technically known as King's cooley. This term "cooley " 
is doubtless a corruption of the French "couler,'* to run or flow ^ 
and was applied to those ravines through which the water flowed 
from the tablelands downward to the lakes or larger streams. There 
are two of these "cooleys'"' within the limits of Pepin township — 
King's cooley in the northeast, and Smitli's cooley in the south- 
west. Through both of these the water rushes, an impetuous torrent, 
after coi)ious rains, or when the deep snows, lingering late on the 
uplands are suddenly melted by the ascending sun of late spring, 
but at other times they are dry, and in Smith's cooley for most of 
the time no water is found running. The soil of Pepin township 
is a friable clay, yellowish in color, and with a very slight admixture 



PEPm TOWNSHIP. 649 

of sand, hardly sufficient to be discovered, yet it no doubt exists in 
sufficient quantities to temper the quality of the clay, and render it 
more easily worked. This soil is admirably adapted to the growth 
of wheat, oats, barley and other cereals. It is a common saying, 
that when wheat cannot be grown in Pepin township, it cannot be 
grown anywhere. 

Comparatively little stock is raised by the farmers here, as the 
operation of the herd law, doing away with fences, compels every 
farmer to fence in especially for his stock, and this entails an expense 
more severely felt than it would be were the farms all fenced. To 
commence raising stock would require a very large outlay in the 
matter of fences alone by nine out of every ten farmers in the town- 
ship. The surface of the soil was originally covered with ouck, 
scrub-oak openings, and, once grubbed, no finer wheat lands or 
more productive are to be found in southern Minnesota, but it is 
doubtful if the soil is as well adapted to i-aising corn as the 
warmer and more alluvial soils of the valleys. There are no wells 
in the township ; water for stock and domestic purposes is generally 
supplied from the cisterns, with which every farm is abundantly 
provided. There are, however, in some locations, to be found most 
excellent springs of pure water, and these not confined to any one 
section of the township. 

The rule of all early settlement in this section of the west, and 
probably in all others, has been that the valleys and lower levels are 
taken up first, leaving the uplands to those who should follow after. 
Wabasha county was no exception to this general custom of the 
northwestern pioneers, and the valleys of the Zumbro and its tribu- 
taries were dotted with flourishing farms before it could be fairly 
said that any settlement for farming purposes deserving the name 
had been made in Pepin township. Cook's valley, in Greenfield 
township, Mazeppa, Bear's valley, in Chester, and Plainview, had 
all been settled before agricultural operations had made any head- 
way in Pepin township. The Lager and Sclimauss families are the 
oldest residents in the township, both coming here in 1859. Claims 
had been taken as early as 1857, but were not improved, and it can- 
not be said with strict fidelity to fact that the farming lands on the 
ridge were put under cultivation prior to 1859. Henry Schmauss' 
farm, taken by him in 1859, the J^.W. J of section 30, was claimed 
originally by one Allen (first name not known), who laid a soldier's 
land warrant upon it, and of this man, Allen, Schmauss purchased, 



650 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

occupying the land in the season of 1S59. Ben Lager, the ]-)resent 
chairman of the board of supervisors for the township, who bought 
claim of F. Learej in 1859, and at that date settled on the northwest 
of section 2S, says that in 1859 there was not, all told, more than 
iifty acres of ground broken on the ridge between Schmauss' and 
Read's Landing, which is virtually to say there was not more than 
that amount under cultivation in the entire township. The fact that 
the elevation above the lake was high, no streams affording water 
for stock, and the situation naturally exposed to the wind, seemed 
to overbalance the considerations of productiveness of soil and near- 
ness to market, to such an extent that the lower-lying and well 
watered valleys of the interior of the county were settled from four 
to five years before Pepin was really taken for farming purposes. 
While this is true, however, of the uplands of the township, it is 
also true that the very earliest white settlement for permanent occu- 
pancy made in southern Minnesota was made within the geographi- 
cal limits of Pepin township. This was the settlement made by 
Charles R. Read, who as early as 18-17 stuck his stakes in the north- 
east corner of the township, opened a trading and suppl}^ depot for 
traffic with the natives, half-breeds and lumbermen of the Chippewa 
valley, and announced his intention of staying despite all attempts 
to oust him from the land, which by treaty of 1830 belonged to the 
half-breeds and was known as the half-breed tract. The particulars 
of the bestowal of this tract upon their relatives of mixed blood by 
the M'dewakantonwan Dahkotahs, its extent and the consequent 
litigation when white settlers attempted to locate upon, as also the 
deleterious effect upon the early settlement of the county, are among 
the most interesting matters connected with this "history" and 
will be found fully treated of in another chapter. 

All that has been said under the title Read's Landing from 1858 
to 1868, when the village became duly incorporated as the village 
of Read's, pi-operly belongs to the history of Pepin township, ot 
which Read's Landing was virtually the capital until it took cor- 
porate honors upon itself and ceased to be an integral part of Pepin 
township for all political purposes. Prior to 1858, during the 
eleven years that Read's Landing had been stamping its identity 
into the trading consciousness of the upper Mississippi and the 
Chippewa, the Landing had been variously governed, ungoverned 
and misgoverned. The first attempt to introduce home government 
in the limits of Pepin township was made in 1850, when Charles R. 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 651 

Kead was appointed justice of the peace by tlie then territorial 
governor, Alexander Ramsay. 

Scenes of violence and bloodshed were not uncommon in those 
early days, and to the ordinary rough and ready ways of frontier 
life were not only added all the increase of lawlessness and disre- 
gard of life common to the rough raftsmen, who thronged the land- 
ing by the scores and even hundreds, but the savagery of Indian 
character as well. The river at Read's was the meeting-place of 
those hereditary foes the Chippewas and the Sioux, and to their 
mutual hate was often added a common enmity against their white 
neighbors, whose presence on both sides of the river was frequently 
resented. As illustrative of this latter fact take the following inci- 
dent : Late in November, 1856, two white men, Sam Sutton and 
Jerry Landerigan, were paddling down the river in a canoe past 
Nelson's Landing, where a party of whites, half-breeds and natives 
were sitting near the shore. Among the bucks was the son of old 
Ironcloud, second chief of Wacoutah's band. Young Ironcloud had 
for some time aspired to the honors of chieftainsliip, and on being 
taunted by the young men of his tribe with having done nothing to 
deserve such distinction, had declared he would shoot the first white 
man or Chippewa he met. The present seemed a fitting occasion to 
display his prowess, and remarking that he wondered if his gun 
would carry that far, drew bead on the men in the boat and shot 
them both. Sam Sutton was mortally wounded, surviving, however, 
about twenty-four hours. Jerry Landerigan was severely wounded 
in the breast, but recovered after being laid up several months. 
"Wahshechah-Soppah (the white black man), now living and known 
by the English name of John Walker, was in the company with 
young Thundercloud, and immediately crossing the river to Read's 
Landing, gave information of the afi'air. As both the wounded men 
resided at Read's the excitement was intense. Sutton had made his 
home at Charlie Read's for more than a year, his principal occupa- 
tion being the manufacture of ox-bows for the lumbermen in the 
pineries. Landerigan had recently come to the landing. It was 
not considered prudent to allow the matter to pass, as young Thun- 
dercloud was known to be a dangerous character. A party was 
soon started across the river who captured the murderer and 
brought him to Read's for trial. He was arraigned before Squire 
Richards, but the justice was powerless in the case, the crime hav- 
ing been committed in another territory. To obviate this difficulty 



652 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

resort was liad to Indian law. The culprit, of whose identity there 
was not the smallest doubt, was quietly escorted to the place from 
whence he came by a band of determined whites, led by Charlie 
Read, and there expiated his oflense in a way not uncommon at 
this day on frontier settlements and in mining camps. Judge Lynch 
pronouncing sentence of death, wliicli was speedily carried into exe- 
cution. The squaws tracked the party by their imprint in the snow, 
and the next day cuttingdowu young Ironcloud's body, brought it 
across the river and buried it. The snow lay deep upon the ground 
at the time. The margin of the river was frozen on either side, the 
current in the main channel only open. Wrapping the body in 
blankets, the squaws tied a rope around the feet and dragged it to 
the margin of the stream, placed it in a canoe and brought it over 
to the Minnesota shore, where it was buried by them near the site 
of old Fort Perrot. A ball was in progress at Read's Landing the 
evening of the lynching, and the excitement was most intense among 
the young people there assembled, many of whom had only that sum- 
mer come to the county, and were totally unused to such scenes of 
blood, or to such a summary mode of dealing with a murderer. 
Charles R. Read, at that time one of the commissioners of the 
county, took a very active part in the aifair above narrated, and 
as he was by some censured for his action, the reasons that induced 
him thereto are not out of place. In ls44:, just after Read came to 
Nelson's Landing, Sheriff Leister, of Prairie du Chien. who had 
been up the river to summon witnesses in an important case coming 
on at Prairie du Chien, I'eturning down the river, was shot by an 
Indian in cold blood in much the same way that Sutton was. The 
sherift's boat was opposite Fountain City at the time and no provo- 
cation was given for the murderous deed. The Indian who killed 
Mr. Leister was arrested, taken to Prairie du Chien, put u])on his 
trial, and after two years discharged for want of evidence to convict. 
This Indian, u])on his release, came up the river, was frequently at 
Nelson's Landing, where Read often heard him boasting of his 
deed, and Mr. Read determined if another case of the same kind 
happened it would not be his fault if the murderer escaped. The 
history of the early operations of the fur-traders and lumbermen in 
the vicinity of Read's, at an early day, is replete with incidents of a 
really thrilling character, illustrating the nature of both savage 
and (so called) civilized society, when removed from the usual 
restraints of law, and the safeguards that surround society in more 



PEPm TOWNSHIP. 653 

densely populated, and judicially organized districts. As it was, 
the necessities of the case, as each arose, demanded such prompt 
and vigorous action, as would at least render public opinion, the 
opinion of the better class of that public, a terror to evil-doers. 
Thus the forms of law grew to be a possibility, the fact of law even 
under the most adverse circumstances, as in the affair above nar- 
rated, having been duly demonstrated. As these forms of law 
became better understood, and their necessity recognized, a general 
acquiescence in tlieir regulations and demands followed, until with the 
establishment of the state government in 1S58, and the consequent 
organization of the several counties into townships, for electoral and 
locally judicial purposes, the era of lawlessness may be really said 
to have passed away and the reign of law, order and accepted 
government truly begun. 

The formal organization of Pepin township was eiFected in com- 
mon with that of the other townships in the county. May 11, 1858. 
This meeting of the electors of the township for the purpose of for- 
mal organization was held in the hamlet of Read's Landing, 
in the extreme northeast section of the township. No. 24, at the 
office of S. A. Kemp. The number of votes polled was thirty- 
two, and the names of the officers-elect will be generally found 
in the tabulated list of Pepin township officers. In addition to 
those mentioned in that table, William Bain was elected overseer 
of the poor, William Perkins and J. Murray were elected constables, 
and Frank Berins overseer of the poor. The tirst recorded act of 
the new township was to settle the question of allowing or not allow- 
ing hogs to run at large. The vote on this occasion was so much 
larger than the vote upon the election of town officers that one is led 
to conclude that the expression of opinion on the hog question was 
not confined to the qualified electors of the township. The vote 
resulted in a decided majority against hogs being allowed to run as 
free commoners, being seventeen nay to fifty-one yea, a total vote 
of sixty-eight, as against thirty-two cast for town officers the same 
week. In 1860 the vote of the township, as evidenced at the regu- 
lar state election, held November 6 of that year, was ninety-eight. 
The vote for presidential electors standing sixty-five republican and 
thirty-two democratic, a vote of eighty-three to fifteen being cast 
for and against one of the candidates for state representative. In 
1862 only seventy-one votes were polled ; two years later the vote 



654 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

rose to one liimdred and twenty-six, declining again in 1866 to a 
maxinuim ballot of one hundred and eight, the vote cast for S. S. 
Kepler for state representative, he being a candidate on the demo- 
cratic ticket, against whom there was not a ballbt cast in the town- 
shij). This was the last state election held in the township of Pepin 
prior to the incorporation of "Reads" as a village. The vote of 
1868 shows a decline from one hundred and twenty-six in 1864 to 
fifty-two in that year, from which it would appear that the voting 
strength of the village was a little in excess of the rest of the town- 
ship. The vote of the township in 1870 was sixty ; in 1876 a total 
of seventy-three ballots was cast, and this was the highest ballot ever 
cast b}^ the township since Reads was set off, the ballot for 1880 
being recorded at sixty-four, and that for 1882 only reaching an 
aggregate of fifty-six. 

The levy of the town board for town ]3urposes, including roads, 
falls a little short of $250 annually, it being, in round num- 
bers, for 1880, $256 ; for 1881, $252, and ior 1882, $180. The 
voting returns of the township, as above given, will indicate with 
sufficient accuracy the statistics of population, if the years are taken 
into account in which the votes were cast ; that is, comparing the 
years of presidential elections with each other, and those in which 
only state elections were held with each other. The village of Reads 
being included in the enumeration district of Pepin township, by 
the commissioner for this census district, the population of the 
township and village, can only be given in the aggregate. The re- 
turns for 1860 show a total population in both (Reads and Pepin 
townships) of four hundred and thirty. The population of both 
today will be about four hundred, as near as can be ascertained. It 
does not appear from the returns regularly made to the auditor's 
office for the county of Wabasha, that the valuation of property in 
Pepin has greatly changed since Reads was incorporated. The de- 
struction of the records by fire prevents any accurate statement of 
values prior to 1867, the year before "Reads " village was set off. 
The real and personal pro])erty returned for that year was as fol- 
lows : Real estate (not including the value of town lots in Reads), 
$39,109 ; town lots (in Reads), $42,665 ; personal property, includ- 
ing village and town, $44,666. The value of real and personal 
pi'operty in Pepin, at various dates since the incorjjoration of Reads, 
has been as follows : 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 655 

,g„^ / Real property $42 047 

la/KJ. ^ Personal property 11 232 

^ „„^ f Real property 92 905 

18/0, j Personal property 11 572 

^ „-,Q f Real property 85 760 

lo/y. ^ Personal property 15 341 

1889 / ^eal property 60 292 

IOO-. I Personal property 13 321 

There are no clmrches in the town of Pepin of any denomina- 
tion. The number and condition of the common schools in the 
township will be included in the general report of educational mat- 
ters for the county. The general character of the population of 
Pepin is such as is to be looked for in a plain agricultural commu- 
nity — thrifty, industrious, economical and virtuous. The people 
are mostly foreign born, or descendants from the German, Hano- 
verian and Luxembourgan families that first settled the township ; 
and, in religious faith, a majority of them members of the Koman 
Catholic church. 

Metliodist Episcopal Cliurcli. — The planting of the church in this 
place was a proceeding of no small ditticulty, and it was more than 
a decade after the first attempts were made before the seed had 
germinated sufficiently to predicate a fact of life in the case at all. 
As Read's Landing and Wabasha have always been connected for 
chiirch purposes, save during those years from 18^6 to 1866, in 
which it does not aj^pear that Read's Landing was even thought of 
in connection with the religious work of the Wabasha circuit, with 
which from 1854 to 1856 it was connected as a missionary station. 
In 1857, by vote of a quarterly conference held at Wabasha for the 
Lake City and Wabasha circuits of the Red Wing district, it was de- 
cided that the Wabasha circuit should include Wabasha, Read's 
Landing and Cook's valley, but there is no record of any services at 
Reads, nor, as before said, is there authentic account of further work 
there until 1866. The importance attached to Reads at this time 
may be inferred from the fact that in the fall of this year, when the 
annual estimates for minister's salary were made up, it was hoped 
that a deficiency of seventeen dollars, remaining after other appor- 
tionments had been allotted, might be supplied by Reads. Whether 
this modest hope was realized or not, does not appear from the 
record, and in fact for ensuing two years no promise of life appeared 
for church organizations at Reads. Its life as a lumber depot, and 



656 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

center of rafting operations, called together the wrong class of people 
for any very marked interest in church work. Exceptions of neces- 
sity there were, but so little hold had all attem])t8 hitherto made 
taken upon the life of the place, that at this time the church had 
neither class nor organization of any kind, nor did it have for the 
ensuing two years. In 1868 Rev. S. G. Gale was transferred from 
the New York East conference to the Minnesota conference, and 
appointed to the Wabasha and Read's Landing circuit. His salary 
was fixed at eight hundred dollars, six hundred and fifty dollars of 
which to be paid by the churches, the remaining one hundred and 
fifty dollars from the missionary fund. In the following winter, 
1868-9, Rev. Gale entered vigorously uj)on his work of building up 
a church at Reads, as the village incor{)orated the previous spring 
was called. A series of meetings was held with gratifying suc- 
cess, and steps taken to build a church. A lot was secured in a 
central location, one street back from the main business street of the 
village, and on this property, the gift of some generous-hearted 
Christian whose name is not recorded, a comfortable frame church, 
30 X 60, with spire and bell, was erected. The contract price for 
the building was two thousand six hundred dollars. Furnaces were 
afterward put in, and these, with bell, raised the entire cost to a little 
over three thousand dollars, almost all of which was raised by con- 
tribution from the generous-hearted citizens of Reads. The original 
board of trustees, incorporated according to state law and church 
usage, were : W. W. Slocum, B. F. Welch, W. W. Cassady, W. B. 
James, S. Bullard, Geo. J. J. Crichton, W. F. Kennicott, Daniel 
Dansion and Franklin Berins. Rev. W. C. Rice was pastor of the 
church from the fall of 1869 to 1870. Rev. B. Y. Coffin was his 
successor, and in the fall of 1871, Rev. S. G. Gale was reappointed. 
During this, his second pastorate, a substantial frame parsonage was 
erected, at a cost of sixteen hundred dollars. It stands on the lot 
adjoining the church on the east, commands a pleasant view of the 
river and the AVisconsin bluffs, and is really a comfortable and com- 
modious residence for the incumbent of the church. Rev. Gale 
remained two years, leaving behind him as monuments of his three 
years' ministry, a commodious church, a comfortable parsonage and 
a flourishing "class." His successors have been : Revs. W. C. 
Shaw, M. O. M'NifF, W. H. Soule, James Door, W. A. Miles and 
D. J. Higgins, the present pastor. 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 6.'57 



BEAD S LANDING. 



This is the name of a small village on the Minnesota side of the 
river just w^here Lake Pepin narrows into the usual channel of the 
Mississippi. It received its name about thirty-six years since from 
Charles R. Read, a man with a history, and who is still living just 
outside the corporate limits of the village, which was given the 
honors of a corporate existence twenty-one years after he set up his 
stakes and built his shanty just opposite the mouth of the Chippewa 
river. The location is a delightful one and most admirably adapted 
for the purposes of early Indian trade. Above it the river broadens 
out into the beautiful waters of Lake Pepin, around whose shores 
the natives were wont to gather, and associated with whose waters 
and rocks are some of the most plaintive legends of the northwest- 
ern tribes. Just across from it is the mouth of the Chippewa river, 
down whose current the fur-laden canoes came in early days, only 
to be followed in later years by the rafts of the Wisconsin lumber- 
men, each raft the tribute of a forest. The village occupies a nar- 
row strip along the river, at the base of the cliffs or bluffs which 
here rise, quite precipitous, almost from the rocky shore, leaving 
footing, however, for the business houses and dwellings of what 
was once the most thriving town on the upper river. Somewhere 
on the margin of the river, if tradition speaks correctly, just east of 
the old Richards warehouse, on ground now occupied by the tracks 
of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, Augus- 
tine Rocque, a Scotch-French-Canadian, built the first trading shanty 
ever erected in this region. Mention is made of earlier trading- 
posts along the shores of the lake, but nothing positive is known 
concerning them; and, well authenticated as are the facts of 
Rocque's occupancy of the present site of Read's Landing as a trad- 
ing-post for some fifteen or twenty years, nothing accurate can be 
learned as to the date of his coming or the time of his departure. 
This much we can ascertain : it was some time in the early part of 
the present century, during the first decade, that Augustine Rocque, 
leaving Prairie du Chien, located at the foot of Lake Pepin, and 
made that point the center of his trading for furs with the Indian 
tribes on both sides of the river. The Sioux, as they were then 
beginning to be known to the whites, brought their furs to the post 
established by Rocque, receiving goods in return. The Chippewas 
received their supplies from him and brought their furs to the tem- 



668 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUXTi'. 

porary post established by him at Chippewa Falls, and which he 
visited at regular intervals. Beyond this little is known of Augus- 
tine Rocque's operations under the direction of the traders at Prairie 
du Chien. He continued at the foot of Pepin, so says his grand- 
son, Baptiste Rocque, of Wabasha, for some fifteen or twenty years, 
till the infirmities of old age necessitated his relinquishing the 
arduous labors of a fur-trader on the frontier, and he returned to 
Prairie du Chien, where he shortly afterward died, at which time 
he was supposed to be about ninety years of age. Augustine 
Rocque married a half-breed woman, and by her had four children 
two sons and two daughters. Of these sons, one, Augustine, followed 
his lather's occupation on the banks of the Mississippi and its tribu- 
taries, becoming in time quite an influential trader, whose voice was 
respected in the councils of the Sioux and also of the Sac and Fox, 
to wliich latter tribe his wife belonged. The other son of the elder 
Augustine, name not definitely known but given as M'Kendie, was 
in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, and subsequently lost 
in the wilderness there, no trace of his fate having been learned 
by his people. 

Augustine, Jr., when a young man, opened a trading-post at the 
mouth of La Riviere au Boeuf, or Beef river — the present mouth of 
the Beef slough, and continued in trade there for some time, when 
he removed his headquarters to the west side of the Mississippi 
below Minneiska, at a place known as Mount Vernon in the early 
history of this section. Augustine Rock extended his trading o])era- 
tions up the Chippewa as far as the falls, and through southern 
Minnesota into Iowa, establishing posts along the Turkey and Cedar 
rivers. His trade had become quite extensive, when it was broken 
np by the Black Hawk war, and his interior posts abandoned. 
During this war Mrs. La Chapelle, a French-Sioux woman whose 
descendants are now living on the lot adjoining Baptiste Rocque, 
at Wabasha, was called upon to act as interpreter between the 
United States authorities under Gen. Dodge, and the Sioux 
chiefs. Baptiste, son of Augustine, was at that time" a boy of ten or 
twelve years of age, and describes in a very graphic manner the 
conference between Gen. Dodge and Wahpashaw, in which the latter 
was completely won to the side of the whites, and took up arms 
against the Sac and Fox under Black Hawk. Not long after the 
conclusion of the Black Hawk war, probably about 1834 or 1835, 
Augustine Rocque removed from Mt. Yernon and established a 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 65^ 

trading-post on the margin of the river, just within the present limits 
of the city of Wabasha on the west, very nearly on the site of old 
Fort Perrot. Here he brought his family, consisting of four sons 
and four daughters, and this place became his Jiome until the day of 
his death, about twenty-five years since. His body was buried at 
his own request on the bluif overlooking the river and town, that his 
spirit might have a free outlook over the scenes of his earlier career. 
As before said, he was a man of note among the tribes to which he 
was allied by blood and marriage. When Gen. Dodge, at the con- 
clusion of the Fort Snelling treaty with the Chippewas, July 29, 1837, 
requested the Indian agent to select a delegation of Sioux and proceed 
to Washington, Augustus Kocque accompanied the chiefs and, in con 
sort with Alexis Bailly, Joseph Laframboise, Francis Labathe, and 
others, represented the fur-traders' interests. During this visit the 
portraits of these representatives of the far west were taken, and 
that of Augustine Kocque now adorns the walls of the Indian gallery 
at the national capitol. The Eocque family, in the person of Augus- 
tine the elder, were the first to establish trade at what is now Read's 
Landing, and Augustine the younger was the first permanent settler 
at what is now Wabasha. All these settlements were for the pur- 
poses of trade and not as actual occupants of the land. 

, In 1840 one Hudson, an Englishman who had been living for 
some time at St. Peters (now Mendota), and had there married a 
woman of mixed blood, a daughter of Duncan Campbell, a licensed 
trader on the St. Croix, came to Reads and located there. As the 
husband of a half-breed woman, representing her rights, he laid 
claim to her share of the half breed tract conveyed, in the treaty of 
1830, by the M'Dewakantonwan Dahkotahs to their relatives of 
mixed blood. Hudson found himself without the means to build any 
considerable-sized house, and as the lumbering operations on the 
Chippewa were growing into importance, and it was desirable to 
establish some base of supplies on the Mississippi at the mouth of 
the Chippewa, a proposition was made to Hudson, by the lumber 
firm H. S. Allen, and accepted. In accordance with this arrange- 
ment Hudson proceeded to the lumber regions, after a short stay at 
Reads, and the following season returned with lumber for his ware- 
house, no doubt a moderate one, in which he conducted business 
until his death in 1845. Hudson's widow married Lewis Rocque, 
son of Augustine the younger, and thus the trading-post at the foot 
of Lake Pepin came again into the possession of the Rocque family 



660 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

after an interval of over a quarter a century. Matters were in this 
condition at Hudson's Landing, as it was then known, when Charles 
R. Read, who had occupied a post at Nelson's Landing, just across 
the Mississippi on the Wisconsin shore, came over into Minnesota, 
and occupied the vacant post, which he rented from Louis Rocque. 
Nelson's Landing, at tlie mouth of the Chippewa, on the Wisconsin 
shore, had been named from one Nelson, a trader, who some years 
previously had established a post there in connection with one 
Churchill, for purposes of trade with the Chippewas. This trading- 
post had been under the charge of Read for two or three years, 
when, in 1847, he abandoned the trade thei-e and came over into 
Minnesota. This Read, the Charles R, Read from whom Read's 
Landing afterward derived its name, was an adventurous young 
Englishman, who at the early age often years crossed the seas with 
his brother's family and settled near the forks of the Chijipewa 
river on the old Niagara peninsula. After some years spent in 
Canada, young Read left his brother's household and came over the 
lines into the United States. He was at Cleveland, Ohio, when the 
Canadian rebellion broke out in 1837, and the following year, 
though only seventeen years of age, enlisted in the American army 
of invasion for the liberation and annexation of Canada. This army 
crossed the frontier near Windsor, oi3posite Detroit, and after rout- 
ing the Canadian militia and capturing the barracks at Amherstburg, 
were in turn routed by the British regulars under Gen. Erie, and 
Read, with many others, rriade prisoner. His devil-may-care 
appearance and youth won upon his captors, he was decently 
treated, and though tried and sentenced to be hung, was pardoned 
by the queen's clemency and returned to the United States in June, 
1839. After five years' service in the American army in the Indian 
Territory and Texas, where he formed an acquaintance with the 
Indian character and habits that after stood him in good stead, 
young Read found himself at St. Louis in the summer of 1844. 
From St. Louis he came up the river to the mouth of the Chip- 
pewa, taking service with Messrs. Churchill & Nelson, for the 
first year as cook, afterward in charge of their business at Nel- 
son's Landing, buying furs and trading with the Indians. In 
1847, as before said, Mr. Read having secured permission from the 
United States authorities, crossed the river into Minnesota, rented 
the old Hudson warehouse from Lewis Rocque, and opened trade. 
From that date the place has been known as Read's Landing. 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 661 

Thus after an interval of a quarter of a century the old trading- 
post of the elder Rocque began to be transmuted into a modern 
trading-post for whites and half-breeds, as well as natives. This change 
soon became more manifest and became distinctivel_y a trade with 
the whites, but not without some opposition and at times the danger 
of sanguinary strife. The coming of Mr. Read to Minnesota soil, and 
his establishment of a trading-post for Indian traffic, was strongly 
opposed by Alexis Bailly, of Wabasha, who had been Indian trader 
at that point for some years, and was, by vii-tue of his early marriage 
relations with the Sioux chiefs, in condition to make his opposition 
felt. 

When Mr. Read went to Fort Snelling to secure his license from 
the Indian agent at that point, he took steamer up the river. Wah- 
pasliaw had secured a numerously signed remonstrance against 
Read's securing government license, and this remonstrance was 
forwarded by United States mail on the same steamer with Read. 
This boat only went to Stillwater, and Read carried the mail (a small 
one, which he put in his pocket) on foot to Fort Snelling, a distance 
of twenty-six miles. Read handed his mail to the Indian agent, 
Col. Bruce, and at the same time his request for license as an Indian 
trader. The colonel opened the letter of remonstrance in Read's 
presence, told him the nature of its contents, and how difficult it 
would be for him, as agent of Indian affairs there, to overlook the 
remonstrance. Fortunately for Read, he had a friend at court in 
the person of post sutler Frank Steele, and through his representa- 
tions and influence the license was granted, and Read returned to 
the landing. He was allowed to pursue his business one year 
only in peace, when the opposition to his trading took definite form, 
and the Indians, instigated thereto, began to give him trouble. One 
day in June, 1848, Read was sitting on a log which he had been 
sawing for shingles, when a strapping Indian came up and, seating 
himself on the log, told Read he (Read) would have to leave there 
at once, that the tract ke was on belonged to the half-breeds, and 
that he had no business there, and if he did not go they would make 
him. For reply Read raised his hand and, giving the Indian a 
hard back-handed blow, knocked him off the log ; at which the 
Indian took himself off', and Read says he was not seen in that 
vicinity for a year thereafter. One evening in the following Octo- 
ber, after supper, Read was sitting in his shanty, when he was sur- 
rounded by Little Crow, a chief of the Kaposia band of Sioux, with 



t)D2i HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

twelve of his braves. These Indians had been on a visit to Wahjm- 
shaw, and it is supposed were instigated by him to get Eead out of 
the way. These, with one exception, were all on horseback, and 
members of Little Crow's band ; the Indian on foot was a member 
of Wahpashaw's band, and entering the cabin informed Read 
they had come to kill him, and clean him out. Read had learned 
that promptness in dealing with an Indian is the only strategy, and 
seizing a chair he felled the Indian to the floor, and set one of the 
legs through his upper li]), tearing it out, and four teeth with it. The 
savage sprang to his feet with a yell, and darted through the 
door, the blood spurting from his mouth. Read's blood was up, and 
lie dared another one of them to enter his cabin at ])eril of his 
life. In the meantime, William Campbell, an educated half-breed 
Sioux, and warm friend of Read's, came up, and being informed of 
the trouble, armed himself with an axe, and taking sides with Read 
stood in the doorway, and told Little Crow he could only get at 
Read over his dead body. The pros])Cct was not inviting, and Little 
Crow drew off his band, leaving Read in peace, and no farther at- 
tempt to drive him away by force was resorted to. Upon the organi- 
zation of the territory, the following year, 1849, Gov. Ramsay was 
requested to remove Read, on the ground of his being the cause of 
all the Indian disturbances in that region, and also because, as was 
alleged, he was selling liquor to the Indians. The investigation was 
ordered, and after a careful examination the charges were dismissed. 
All that could be substantiated was that Read had .sold an empty 
barrel, formerly containing whisky, to an Indian, who claimed that 
there was some whisky in the barrel at the time he purchased it. 
This was the last attempt to interfere with Read's trade at the land- 
ing ; the following year other persons came, and the life of a solitary 
trader ended for him. 

In 1849 Mr. Read built his new warehouse, a more commodious 
structure than the one previously occupied by him. This latter 
building stood where the postoffice now is, in the old Richards 
warehouse, built in 1855. In 1850 Mr. S. F. Richards, a native of 
Genesee county, New York, who had been at Prairie du Chien for 
some years, came to Read's Landing and opened trade with the 
Indians, also supplying the lumber camps up the Chip])ewa valley. 
Mr. Richards built his first store very near the corner of Water and 
Richards streets, as they now are, on the river side of Water and 
east of Richards. His capital was by no means small, and his trade 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 663 

was quite extensive. Some five years later he built his storeroom 
and warehouse on the northwest corner of Water and Kichards 
streets. This was a three-story building as seen from the levee, 
two stories from the street in front, 25 X 60 feet, and in this Mr. 
Eichards did a very large business for years. The following season 
Knapp, Stout & Co., one of the heavy lumber firms of the Chip- 
pewa valley, built their store and warerooms on the west of Richards', 
adjoining, and so business multiplied. Prior to this, in 1854, a 
hotel was built, and later the Bullard House was erected, which 
from 1859 to 1865 was known as the best hotel on the river. In 
1863 the storage and commission house of Charles Wunn was estab- 
lished. Helmick & Warszawski followed, with others, until at the 
close' of the war there was not a point on the Upper Mississippi 
river where so thriving a trade was carried on as at Read's Landing. 
The causes of its prosperity and decay are matters of some little 
interest, illustrating as they do the rise and fall of towns as business 
i^ diverted from or directed into certain channels. 

The early lumbering operations on the Chippewa and its tribu- 
taries were carried on at a very manifest disadvantage. All supplies 
must necessarily reach them from below through the Mississippi river 
and the navigable waters of the Chippewa and its tributaries. This 
channel of communication was only open during certain seasons oi 
the year, and when navigation closed the lumbermen in he pineries 
and at the mills were cut ofi' from the outside world, to a very great 
extent. Mails had to be transported on voyageurs' shoulders or by 
pony express for hundreds of miles, and heavy freighting during that 
season became quite too expensive as well as hazardous to be 
resorted to only in extremity. The lumber crews returning from 
their voyages down the Mississippi to the up-river steamers would 
land at the mouth of the Chippewa and wait for rafts to be made up for 
new trips. All the necessities of the trade required that at some 
point at the mouth of the Chippewa there should be a depot of sup- 
plies for the mill-owners and storekeepers in the woods and at the 
mills, commission houses and agencies to transact business between 
the lumber firms and the crews that floated logs down the river to 
their various places of consignment, and hotels and accommodations 
for the waiting crews. For many years this want was supplied by 
Read's Landing, and as the volume of the lumber trade along the 
Chippewa and its tributaries increased from year to year, the volume 
of the trade at Reads increased until its yearly aggregate was out ot 



664 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

all pro])ortion to tlie size of the place. It was the center of exchange 
for all matters connected with the lumber trade of western Wiscon- 
sin ; its one hand reaching up the Chippewa, clutcliing the innumer- 
able string of logs and lumber that Issued from its streams and woods ; 
its other hand stretching down the Mississippi, directing the course 
of these rafts to their various points of destination and returning the 
proceeds, less commissions and wages, to the directing head. So long 
as Reads could maintain this position as the center of exchange, her 
prosperity was assured. For years her levee was one busy scene of 
activity so long as the unchilled current of the Mississippi vent 
flowing toward the gulf; and in winter there was sufficient trade 
on sleds up the valley to at least keej) the channels of trade opened 
and incite to new activity when the imprisoned waters should again 
go free. At this time it was no unusual thing to see from three 
hundred to four hundred raftmen at the landing waiting for the 
Chippewa floats to be made into rafts for them to navigate down the 
river, and the volume of freight discharged at the levee was simply 
enormous. It was in fact the Mississippi landing for all the supplies 
necessary to provision, clothe and equip the lumber camps and 
mills, and employes connected therewith. 

The flrst setback Reads received was on the completion of the 
Western Wisconsin railway to Eau Claire in 1870. By this opening 
of railway communication to the lumber camps and mills the neces- 
sity of Read's Landing as a center for supplies and distributing 
depot was abolished. Supplies came direct by rail to the very heart 
of the lumber district ; consignments of goods, mails, etc., were 
more readily made by rail than by water, with this added advantage : 
the comnmnication was not closed by the incoming of winter, but 
remained open the year round. Less capital was according!}- locked 
up in transit, returns being made more readily and the accumulation 
of winter supplies being no longer indispensable. The commission 
and trading houses were the ones to feel this curtailment, but gen- 
eral business at Reads still continued good. The constant outgoing 
and incoming of her hundreds of raftsmen day by day created trade, 
and money was always in free circulation. Reads was necessarily 
the headquarters of the rafting crews and their point of departure 
from the lumber camps in the logging season after navigation had 
closed for the year. Only the one arm of Reads' prosperity was 
thus cut oft', the other, however, was soon to be crippled. The 
trade sustained by outfltting rafts, furnishing supplies of all kinds, 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 665 

notably provisions and clothing for the men, was in itself sufficient 
to keep a good-sized town alive. But the slow process of floating 
rafts clown the Mississippi became too tedious for the hasty, hurrying 
movements of western enterprise, and the idea of towing rafts down 
the river by steamer was soon mooted, discussed, scouted at, tried, 
and, proving a success, was finally adopted, became the rule, the 
number of raftsmen was decreased to one-third of the former army 
required to man the floating rafts, and the second chapter in the 
history of Read's Landing's decadence was ended. 

, The credit of towing the first lumber raft down the Mississippi 
belongs to Capt. Si. Bradley, of Stillwater, who successfull}^ accom- 
plished the generally considered impossible feat in the Minnie Will, 
in 1866. A patent was applied for, denied, and little by little the 
towing by steamer became general, until floating down the Mis- 
sissippi was practically abandoned. Still there was an immense 
business centering at Read's Landing. All the rafts that went down 
the Father of Waters, whether of timber or of logs, and the number 
was legion, came down the Chippewa in strings, to be made into 
rafts at the mouth of that stream, and when so coupled, to be towed 
to southern lumber mills and yards. This business of coupling 
"strings" into rafts was very extensive, and hundreds of men found 
employment at this work, whose trade and the supply of whose daily 
wants kept business still healthily alive at Read's Landing. But 
even this source of revenue was denied her after a time, and all logs 
were destined to forsake the main channel of the Chippewa and find 
an outlet into the Mississippi through the southern mouth, usually 
known as Beef Slough. 

The Chippewa river forks some twenty miles above its entrance 
into the Mississippi at Read's Landing, and one branch of this delta 
follows the east range of bluffs till it enters into the Mississippi about 
twelve miles below Reads Landing ; the other and more direct chan- 
nel of the Chippewa follows the foot of the west line of bluft's and 
empties into the big river opposite Reads. The first-named channel, 
from its forking from the main Chippewa stream to its entrance into 
the Mississippi, is a succession of lagoons, or sloughs, opening one 
into the other with innumerable islands and sluggish channels, cover- 
ing the whole flat surface between the foot of the blufi's and the open 
channel of the Mississippi. Through these sloughs the logs are now 
brought ; miles of booms stretch their parallel lengths through these 
sluggish waters ; crews of men are stationed at intervals to receive 



666 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the logs, assort tliem, trail each owner's logs into strings and deliver 
them at the mouth of the slough, to be coupled into rafts and taken 
down the river. This immense business, aggregating from 
400,000,000 feet to 500,000,000 feet annually, within a few years 
has been entirely transferred from the upper to the lower mouth of 
the Chippewa, and the trade it created and fed was deserted from 
Read's Landing to Alma in Wisconsin and Wabasha in this county. 
Thus was the third chapter in the financial decrease of Reads written, 
and its monuments are the unoccupied ])iles of brick and mortar, 
where business no longer flourishes, but all is silent, deserted, and 
going to dry rot. The linishing stroke was given to the trade of the 
landing by the completion of the Chippewa Yalley I'ailroad to 
AVabasha in 1SS2. By this construction all the real profits of Chip- 
pewa valley trade, so far as it benefits Minnesota merchants, is 
reaped at Wabasha, the rail carrying all crews and their kits direct 
from the mouth of the Chippewa to Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls, 
leaving scarcely any gleanings of trade for the merchants of Read's 
Landing, who find each year less prospect of returning prosperity. 

VILLAGE OF READS. 

It was during the season of Reads' greatest prosperity, before 
the opening of the railway to Eau Claire, that the incorporation of 
the village was deemed advisable by the inhabitants of the little big 
trading and freighting post, and steps accordingly taken to accom- 
plish that object. This incorporation was effected under an act of 
the state legislature approved March 5, 1868, and the election to 
fill the various offices created by said act was held on the second 
day of the following month, April 2, 1868. The officers to be 
elected were five trustees, one clerk, one treasurer, one marshal, 
one justice of the peace and one assessor. The judges of election 
were : Messrs. J. Sauer, C. R. Read and Wm. B. Haines ; the 
clerks were : P. B. Cline and Claude R. Haines. The highest num- 
ber of votes cast was for the office of trustee, ninety-seven being 
polled. The successful candidates were — trustees : F. S. Richards, 
D. W. Wilson, Joe Dieterich, Jacob Sauer, Christ. Neihardt ; 
clerk, Joseph Warszawski ; treasurer, B. Brass ; marshall, Wm. F. 
Clock ; justice of the peace, Wm. B. Haines ; assessor, Chas. 
Hornbogen. The officers-elect met on the 20th of the month 
(April) and organized, with S. F. Richards as president of the board 
of trustees, for the ensuing year. The bonds of the various officers 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 



667 



were fixed as follows : treasurer, $2,000 ; justice of the peace, 
$500 ; marshal, $100. The first act of the newly inducted viUage 
iathers was to pass an ordinance prohibiting all illegal and un- 
licensed traffic in spirituous, vinous or fermented liquors, under 
penalty of one hundred dollars, or fine for every such off"ense, 
upon conviction thereof. License was fixed at fifty dollars and the 
seller was required to execute an approved bond for five hundred 
dollars to keep a decent and orderly house, gaming of all kinds for 
money being expressly prohibited. Licenses were made nontrans- 
ferable, and the place at which liquors were sold under any given 
license could only be changed by permission of the board of trustees. 
By the provisions of section 1, act of incorporation of vilLage 
of Reads, the board of village trustees formed the village school 
board ; the village clerk was the clerk of the school board, and the 
village treasurer, treasurer of the school board. The present cor- 
porate limits of the village of Reads extend from Brewery creek on 
the east to a point on the river west of the table-land upon which 
residences have been built, and stretching up the foot ef the bluff 
overlooking the village on the west. The entire length of the vil- 
lage is about one and one-half miles and its breadth at the widest 
point does not exceed half a mile. Brewery creek is a small stream 
, fed from springs in the ravine back of the village, and emptying 
into the Mississippi river just west of Riverview cemetery. It 
forms the boundary line between Reads and the corporate limits of 
the city of Wabasha, and during some of the floods that have poured 
down the sides of the bluffs, during the excessive rainfalls of this 
season, has been swollen to a destructive torrent. The most disas- 
trous rise was that of July 21, 1883, when in an hour's time it over- 
flowed its banks, flooded Burkhadt Brothers' brewery to a depth of 
eight feet, swept out as though it were brushwood the solid stone 
abutments of the bridge on the main road from Reads to Wabasha, 
and carried the solid granite block, weighing tons, rods down the 
stream, leaving scarcely a stone to mark the old foundations. Not 
long after the incorporation of Reads it was found that the elections 
were held too late in the spring for the interests of the village. By 
the middle of April the raftsmen had all returned up river and the 
loggers from the pinery, at least such of them as designed rafting, 
and the election was at the mercy of these incomers who had proba- 
bly as much home right at Reads as elsewhere, and yet had no inter- 
est in the place and no concern to see its government decently admin- 



668 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

istratod. Accordingly, in 1869 a change was made in tlie date of 
holding the election, and March was designated as the month in 
which the village board should be chosen. This change continued 
until 1875, when a still earlier date was deemed advisable, and the 
month of February was made election month. The first election 
under this latter change was held February 8, 1876, at which date 
one hundred and fifty-six votes were cast. The growth and de- 
cadence of the village maybe somewhat discerned from the number 
of votes polled at the elections held at different times. At the first 
election, 1868, the whole number of votes yiolled was ninety-seven. 
In 1871 the number had increased to one hundred and sixty-nine, 
and three years later, 1874, Reads cast her highest vote at any char- 
ter election held in her corporate limits, polling one hundred and 
ninety-three. This number had decreased to one hundred and fifty- 
six in 1876, to one hundred and thirty-two in 1878, to eighty in 1880. 
At the last election, held February 13, 1883, the wliole number of 
votes polled was sixty-nine. 

In the spring of the year, during the interval between the opening 
of the river and the lake (Pepin), a ])eriod of about two weeks, more 
or less, Reads was formerly, before the completion of the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul railway up the river, a place of great 
activity. The steamers arriving from below, a score in number, 
loaded with north-bound passengers, wei-e impatiently awaiting the 
opening of the lake. The crews had no better business on hand 
than to make the most of their time on shore, and the passengers, 
those of them who did not take stage northward, only served to swell 
the tide of impatient discontent. Bets would accumulate, and 
money was i'reely wagered daily on the question of ait opened or 
closed lake within a given ]3eriod. Burbank's stage route, which 
connected La Crosse with St. Paul during the winter season, was fully 
utilized at this season by those desirous of making their way north- 
ward for opening navigation, without delay ; and as the rattling 
vehicles clattered over the gravel and cobble-stones with which the 
streets of Reads are so ])lentifully sprinkled, the little town took on 
an ap])earance of business that of late years it has unfortunately been 
a stranger to. Reads has had some knowledge of the u])s and 
downs <yf business life. You find upon her streets today those who 
have made good use of their opportunities and reaped at least a 
moderate harvest while the fields of enterprise and trade activities were 
still golden. Out of her have gone many superior business men, who, 



PEPIN TOWNSHIP. 669 

carrying with them the experience there gained, are pushing their wa}^ 
in new fields of endeavor, certain to succeed if energy, perseverance 
and ability can bring the success they deserve if they do not achieve ; 
others remain to conduct what business still survives, and these few 
houses are doing a moderate trade. The Knapp, Stout & Co. 
Company now maintain the largest trading establishment at Eeads, 
and are probably selling from $25,000 to $40,000 worth of mer- 
chandise and supplies at this point per annum. One of the features 
of Reads just now is L, Troutman, Jr's, drug-store — a perfect gem 
in the way of a drug-house ; nothing more artistic in the finish of the 
interior or its arrangement can be found in any house of the kind in 
Minneapolis or St. Paul. It is pronounced on competent authority 
the most complete and finished in its appointments of anything in 
the state, equaled by only one in Wisconsin ; and certainly when the 
character of its surroundings is taken into the account, it is one of 
the most curious instances of luxury in the lap of decay it has been 
our lot ever to witness. So new, so clean, so artistic in the finish of 
its shelving, counters and prescription case, so brilliantly clear in its 
plate-glass and silver-plating, so unique in some of its appointments, 
yet all so harmonized in color and utility as to give only the most 
pleasing effects ; it is certainly worth a visit from any one who with 
an eye to effects has roamed over the stranded town, taken in the 
scores of deserted store-rooms, and thus, prepared only for decay 
and dry rot, drops into this grotto of freshness and takes in the full 
measure of the contrast. Reads has one consolation in her decay : 
she has not lost ground by any penny-wise pound-foolish policy of her 
citizens, individually or collectively. She has been the victim of 
circumstances over which she had no control. No human prescience 
could have averted the destiny upon which she has fallen. She 
could no more prevent the tide of business from following the chan- 
nels of necessity, and flowing where the lumber-rafts crowd the 
streams, than could old Wahpashaw prevent the passing away of his 
people from the homes so long enjoyed by them on the shores of the 
great Father of Waters. 

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT. 

Prior to the incorporation of the village of Reads in 1868 the 
support and direction of the public school for the children of this 
section of the county was provided for in the same general man- 
ner as was prescribed for all other sub-districts in the county. 



670 HISTORY OF WABASHA COrNTY. 

This work was under the direction and supervision of the regularly 
appointed and elected superintendent of education for the district or 
county, as the case might be, and all matters connected therewith 
during this period naturally belong to that department of the school 
work for the county that is reported of by them. Our notice of the 
school at Reads in this connection therefore only includes the his- 
tory of said school from 1868, and of that but little need be said. 
The work of education for the newly incorporated village was com- 
mitted, by virtue of its act of incorporation, to the trustees annually 
elected to manage the affairs of the corporation. The succession 
and list of village ofticers will also give full information concerning 
the succession and list of officers who managed educational affairs, 
both boards being one. The independent school district, embracing 
all within the corporate limits of the village of Reads, was organized 
as school district R, April 20, 1868. The school-building for the 
independent district was erected two years later, on an elevated lot 
fronting the river, two blocksback from the levee, and affording a 
delightful view of the whole valley of the Mississippi up and down 
the river for miles. This school-building is two stories and basement, 
brick, with solid stone foundations. It is fifty feet square on the 
ground and divided into four good sized, well ventilated rooms, two 
on each floor. The enrollment for 1882-3 is two hundred and 
seventeen pupils. The average attendance during the winter term 
was, in round numbers, one hundred and fiftyj for the spring and 
summer terms about one hundred. The school is under the direc- 
tion of Prof C. A. Hamilton, of the Oshkosh, Wisconsin, high 
school, who has been engaged in teaching for the past ten years. 
This is Mr. Hamilton's third year as principal of the school at 
Reads, and his work approves itself to the judgment of those who 
are sufficiently interested in the management of school affairs to see 
that genuine instruction is given and real results attained. There 
are three de])artments in the school. The other two are, the 
intermediate, under the care of Miss Mae Rechards, and the 
primary, taught by Miss Victoria Dell. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

ARMY. 

FIRST REGIMENT. 

Wabasha county was well represented in the war of the rebell- 
ion, and responded nobly to the call for men. Although so young 
prior to these stirring events (the grandest in the liistory of the 
world), it furnished its fall quota of heroes, who fought and bled for 
their country, returning in honor to their homes, or laid down their 
lives as martyrs in a glorious cause. It would not have seemed 
strange if many beheld the approach of that terrible conflict with 
indifference, and felt a want of patriotic ardor, that characterized 
older and more favored sections. But if all the facts could be set 
forth of public and personal sacrifice, of heroic devotion and per- 
sistent eftorts by the people of this county, it would not only com- 
pare favorably with the most loyal communities of the land, but 
make a valuable contribution to the history of the state ; and a care- 
ful and just recognition of the claims of each locality reflects great 
honor upon each neighborhood. In the beginning of the war, when 
no bounties were offered, and patriotism was the sole incentive to 
enlistments, many volunteers went from their homes to the villages 
which received credit for the names enrolled, so that when it was 
found necessary to order a draft, the claims of such localities were 
ignored, consequently the draft fell upon some communities already 
decimated by voluntary contributions. Next to our religion, the 
claims of country should undoubtedly receive our ardent attention, 
and it was this interest that caused the American people, irrespective 
of party or party interests, to res])ond so promptly, and sacrifice so 
much in such a cause. Bat as citizens of the world, caring nothing 
for country or locality, or the welfare and prosperity of one state or 
section more than another, men would cease to be regarded as 
patriotic ; and no matter how philanthropic they might regard them- 
selves, without some special consideration for the country of our 
birth or adoption, and of its success and happiness, we should 
scarcely be considered good citizens. 



672 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

The 1st rep;t. Minn. Vols, was mustered into service April 29, 
1861, and it is a noteworthy fact that it was the first one tendered 
to President Lincohi upon his calls for troops after the attack upon 
Fort Sumter, Ai)ril 19, 1861. 

It was ordered to Washington, June 14, and participated in the 
battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. In that memorable battle the 
regiment lost one hundred and eighty-nine men. The bravery of 
its officers and men in that engagement filled the whole country with 
admiration. Charge after charge was made, and still the Minnesota 
First stood its ground, every man proving himself a hero. The regi- 
ment participated also in the skirmish at Edward's Ferry, Maryland, 
October 22, 1861, guarding six miles of the Potomac in the battle 
of Yorktown, May 7, 1862; was in two engagements at Fair Oaks, 
May 31 and June 1 ; in battles of Peach Orchard and Savage Station, 
June 29, 1862 ; in battles of AVhite Oak Swamp and Kelson's Farm, 
June 30, 1862 ; in the battle of Malvern Hill, July 31, 1862. In 
these last engagements the regiment lost, in killed, wounded and 
missing, ninety-one men. October 7, 1862, it took part in a heavy 
reconnoissance to Malvern Hill, also several severe skirmishes. 
August 30,1862, it reached Centreville, Virginia, and acted as rear 
guard of Gen. Pope's retreat from Fairfiix Court House to Chain 
Bridge ; had several severe skirmishes ; participated in battle of 
Antietam, September 17, 1862 ; the first siege of Fredericksburg, 
December 11, 12 and 13, 1862 ; the second Fredericksburg, May 3, 
1863; also the fearful struggle of Gettysburg, July 2 and 3, 1863, 
and was at Bristow Station, October 14, 1863. There is probably 
no regiment of the whole war that shows a better record than that 
of the heroic Minnesota First. 

The following is a list of the men from this county enrolled in 

that regiment: 

Company I. 

John H. Pell, Joseph Harley, Charles B. Halsey, Waldo Farrar, Richard L. 
Gorman, Wm. H. Worthington, Edward B. Price, Oliver M. Knight, Daniel S. 
Weaver, William J. Roe, Francis Fornerod, David A. Coffin, James O'Neal, 
John M. Churchill, John A. Organ, Henry Wells, Carl M. Carlson, Augustus 
Ellison, Byron Welch, Henry Abbott, Nathan S. Bledin, Jehial W. Boyd, 
Rollins M. Burnham, Nahum C. Baker, Ransom A. Bartlett, William O. Can- 
field, James Cannon, Thomas Carroll, Patrick S. Cureneff, Bartholomew Cari- 
guet, Andrew H. Colyer, James Coleman, Amose Canfield, Alfred Dechanette, 
Stephen B. Dilly, Jeremiah Donevan, Albert S. Davis, Philander C. Ellis, Levi 
Enery, Jacob F. Freeze, Myron I. Faries, Joseph Frey, John Fox, Allen H. 
Hancock, Marcus L. Hendricks, John Hickey,- Wesley Harris, William D. 



ARMY. 673 

Howell, James W. Hetherington, Anson R. Haydon, Daniel Hutchins, Andrew 
Johnson, Nelson Johnson, John A. Johnson, George S. Keeler, Daniel Keis 
Edward M. Keriott, Mark Kenney, George Kline, Hermon Lawson, Ferdinand 
Lessing, Benjamin Lent, George Miller, Frederick Miller, George A. Millikin, 
John H. McKey, Charles F. Mason, Ernest L. F. Miller, Johli O. Milne, Lewis 
F.Mitchell, John W. Murray, Charles Nassig, Freeman Orciitt, Henry C.'orcutt, 
Corwin Pickett, William N. Peck, William A. Putnam, William L. Paul, Edwin 
Paul, James Q. Pittinger, Henry Parsons, William B. Philbrook, Herman 
Rabaca, AVilliam K. Richards, Samuel E. Seymour, Omar H. SutlifF, William 
Stull, George M. Smith, Palmer Soper, Edmund Soper, Michael Schweizer, 
Sivert Strandt, Anton E. Shimeck, John Sullivan, Henry Widger, Milo S. Whit- 
comb, Oscar Woodard, William F. VVeliman, George Weaver^ Edward E. Win- 
kleman, Thadeus N. Hitt, John M. Churchill, Daniel S. Weaver, Frank S. 
Brown, Dennis Crandall, Thomas M. Dvvelle, Thomas G. Pickett, F. M. Hen- 
dricks, Alexander Erwin, Loyd G. Pendergast, Levi Clark, Thomas Conner, 
Charles K. Fisher, Van H. Fisk, Benjamin Jackson, Ambrose Jones, George 
W. Ketchum, Edward P. Hale, Edmond Veon, J. McClay, P. Niman, J. Scurry, 
H. Coleman, J. Cooper, J. Lavercombe, N. Shook, William Schmeigert. 

Upon the first call of President Lincoln for troops, impromptu 
meetings were held all over the county, which resulted in the for- 
mation of a company for this regiment, known as Co. I, Capt. J. 
H. Pell, of Elgin. As this regiment passed down the river to its 
sanguinary struggle, the boat landed at tli.e Wabasha levee for the 
purpose of giving the enlisted men of the county the privilege of a 
last look, to many, at home and friends, and a final "good-bye." 
The ladies of Wabasha, in anticipation of this event, had purchased 
a beautiful silk flag, assisted by several patriotic ladies of Lake City, 
which was presented to the company at that time. Capt. Pell re- 
ceived it in behalf of the company with an assurance that its colors 
should never be surrendered. He kept his word, and after passing 
through the bloody struggles of Bull Eun, Antietam and the Wilder- 
ness, all tattered and torn, it was returned to the state and is now 
treasured with other glorious relics of those times, among the 
archives of the State Historical Society. 

SECOND EEGIMENT. 

The 2d regt. Minn. Vols, was organized in July, 1861. It 
rendezvoused at Fort Snelling until October, 1861, and was then 
assigned to the army of the Ohio. It was engaged in many 
battles, skirmishes and sieges, and was noted for its patriot- 
ism and the bravery of its men and officers. It participated in the 
battle at Mill Spring, January 19, 1862 ; was at the siege of Corinth, 
40 



674 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in April, 1862, and then transferred to the army of the Tennessee. 
Was at Bragg's raid, Perry ville, October 8, 1862 ; participated in 
the skirmishes of the Tulhihoma campaign ; was at Chickaniauga, 
September 19-20, 1863 ; at Mission Ridge, November 25, 1863. 
This regiment was veteranized in January, 1864. Partici])ated in the 
battles and skirmishes of the Atlanta cam])aign, namely, Eesaca, 
June 14, 15 and 16, 1864 ; Kenesaw Mountain, June 27, 1864 ; 
Jonesboro ; Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas ; 
was at Bentonville, March 19, 1865, and discharged at Fort Snelling, 
July 11, 1865. The following is a list of the brave boys who par- 
ticipated in the fortunes of this gallant regiment from Wabashaw 
county : 

Henry P. Holland, John C. Jones, Jacob Heald, Henry Kelsoy, Frank 
Kelsey, William C. Smith, Henry C. Simpson, Jules Capon, Daniel B. Bailly, 
George W. Marcune, Frank J. Hyland, Tilson Tibbets, William A. Bacon, John 
Acker, Peter Auger, Joseph Beaudette, John J. Brown, Rudolph Brunner, John 
Caney, Ceaser Derigon, James Kent, Jonathan Jackson, Joseph Larnque, John 
McAulifi", Asahel Putney, Christia Schilt, Charles Seny, Mathias Shoeny, 
Peter Walrich, Martin C. Gassell, Valentine Jacob, Michael Kane, John 
Marlett, John B. Baldwin, Michael Casey, John Cummings, David Siddel, 
Timothy Eegan, John Stewart, John Wales, Flora Birch, Rufus A. Colby, 
Michael J. McGrath, John Zeigler, Louis P. Stoups, John B. Rieve, Gil- 
bert H. Bone, Abram L. Mills, Lewis N. Smith, William H. Weagant, Julius E. 
Williams, Tenbroeck Stout, Edward Nessell, Henry H. Hills, James W. Delong, 
Francis M. Harrison, Edwin P. Mosier, George W. Hart, ThadeusBerge, Orrin 
Ellithorp, John Funk, Charles Latham, Rufus A. Culby, Marian F. Hills. 

THIRD REGHSIENT. 

The 3d Minn. Inf. was organized in October, 1861 ; ordered to 
Louisville, Kentucky, in November, 1861, and to Nashville, Ten- 
nessee, in March, 1862. This regiment participated in the engage- 
ment at Murfreesboro, iif July, 1862 ; were captured and there 
paroled ; afterward ordered to St. Louis and thence to Minnesota, 
where they engaged in the Indian expedition of 1862, participat- 
ing in the Wood Lake battle of September, 1862. Ordered to 
Little Rock, Arkansas, in November, 1863, and was veteranized in 
January, 1864. Was engaged in the battle of Fitzhugh's Woods 
March 30, 1864. Ordered to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in April, 1864, 
and thence to Duvall's Bluff in October the same year. This 
regiment was mustered out of service at Dnvall's Bluff, September 
2, 1865, and discharged at Fort Snelling. 



AEMY. 675' 

Following is a list of men enlisted and recruited from Wabasha 
county : 

Everett W. Foster, Ezra B. Eddy, Levi M. Philips, Richard C. Custard, 
Abraham F. Dearborn, Lewis A. Hancock, Deville Ford, Frederick A. Pell, 
James A. Canfield, Evander Skillman, George L. Fisk, George S. Harrison, 
George S. Krick, Chauncy D. Gibbs, Charles F. Wyman, Ezra J. Sergeant, 
James J. Sibley, William Yawman, Eldridge E. Andros, John K. Arnold, John 
K. Boxwelt, George W. Buckman, Madison Barber, William G. Barnard, 
Andrew Bingham, Lewis H. Barr, Justus B. Clark, Dexter Chaddock, Milvin 
W. Cross, Tliomas Canfield, Evan Crun:i, James Clarkson, Erastus G. Cross, 
EzraT. Champlin, Moody Cook, George Campbell, Wallace W. De Long, Robert 
R. Evans, William C. Fox, George F. Gregg, Josephus S. Ferren, Charles A. 
Grow, Howard M. Gross, Ziba C. Goss, James M. Hendricks, William E. Hale, 
Edgar A. Holcomb, John 0. Hancock, Charles Hull, John S. Howe, Edward 
B. Hawkins, Loren P. Hall, Francis M. Jerry, Avon E. Johnson, Degrove 
Kimball, Albert D. Knapp, Isaac Knox, Alden G. Levitt, Israel M. Marsh, 
George W. Mack, Perry D. Martin, Frederick Messer, William McGee, Abra- 
ham Miller, Joseph J. Mertz, John Negus, Elihu J. Oaks, William F. Oliver, 
Albert D. Pierce, Erick Peterson, William Pell, Norman Prior, William 
Palmer, Philip Quigley, Edward]Quigley, John L. Rice, Oliver Shurtliff, James 
A. Shrigler, Franklin Skillman, Edward L. Sharpe, John- B. Smith, Casper 
Schellenberg, William W. Smith, Michael Smith, Horace N. Smith, Robert S. 
Terrell, James 0. Wilcox, William H. Warring, William Borett, George 
Forbes, Gould D. Allen, Henry W. Applegarth, Ezra B. Andrews, John B. 
Ash ton, John W. Barns, Isaac B. Collier, Thomas Cranshaw, Robert H. Cross, 
Silas Cross, Edward E. Collins, Abban Davis, William T. Flora, William 
Foster, Julius Fellows, Lafayette Grow, John H. Graves. 

THE FOFRTH REGIMENT 

Was organized December 23, 1861, and was ordered to Benton bar- 
racks, Missouri, April 19, 1862 ; was assigned to the army of the 
Mississippi May 4, 1862, and participated in the siege of Corinth in 
April, 1862 ; was at luka on September 19, 1882 ; at Corinth, Sep- 
tember 3 and 4, 1862 ; and was with Gen. Grant in the siege of 
Yicksburg, and fought bravely in the assault and capture, July 4, 
1863. Participated in the skirmishes and battles of Forty Hills, 
Raymond, Jackson and Champion Hill ; was transferred from the 
17th corps to 15th corps, and was at Mission Ridge November 25, 
1863 ; was veteranized in January, 1864 ; at Altoona, in July, 1864 ; 
participated in Sherman's march through Georgia and the Carolinas ; 
was at Bentonsville, March 20, 1865, and on July 19, 1865, was 
mustered out at Louisville, Kentucky ; discharged at Fort Snelling, 
Minnesota. Volunteers for this regiment from Wabasha county 
were : Elephalet B. Hale, William Smith, Francis W. Shaw, Albert 
B. Morrison. 



676 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

FIFTH REGIMENT 

Was organized in May, 1862, and was ordered to Pittsburgh Land- 
ing J\Iay 9, 1862. A detachment of three companies remained in 
Minnesota to garrison some of the frontier posts, and were engaged 
with the Indians at Kedwood, Minnesota. August 18, 1862. Were 
at the siege of Fort Kidgely, August 20, 21 and 22, 1S62 ; also at 
Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory, the last of August, 1862. The 
regiment was assigned to the 16th Army Cor]:)S ; participated in the 
battles of luka, September 18, 1862 ; Corinth, October 3 and 4, 
1862 ; Jackson, May 14, 1863, and siege of Vicksburg ; took part 
in the assault of Yicksburg, May 22, 1863 ; was at Median icsburg, 
June 3, 1863 ; was atKichmond, June 15, 1863 ; at Fort DeRussey, 
Louisiana, March 14, 1864 ; participated in the Red River expedi- 
tion, March, April and May, 1864 ; was at Lake Chicot, June 6, 
1S64 ; at Tupelo, June, 1864, and was veteranized in July, 1864 ; 
was at Abbeyville, August 23, 1864, and marched in September, 
1864, from Brownsville, Arkansas, to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 
and from thence by boat to Jeiferson City, thence to Kansas line, 
and from thence to St. Louis, Missouri. Was ordered to Nashville 
in November, 1864, and participated in the battles of Nashville, 
December 15 and 16, 1864 ; was at Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely 
in April, 1865, and was mustered out of service at Demopolis, Ala- 
bama, September 6, 1865. This regiment, next to the noble First, 
saw greater service and more hardships, and lost more men, than 
any of the other Minnesota regiments. The following is a list of 
the men from Wabasha county : 

John Gardner, Ambrose Gardner, Orlando Eddy, Alexis P. Bailly, Robert 
I\I. Finer, Timothy Fuller, James W. Vance, Lyman T. Payne, Dewitt C. Collier, 
Jacob Bush, Jonas Snyder, Benjamin Young, Hercules P. Lachapelle, Henry 
G. Rising, MaitUind H. Wilcox, Thomas Mills, Oliver Bebeau, Henry Buisson, 
Bennet Budde, Andrew Benjamin, George Campbell, James W. Drew, William 
J. Dickey, Michael Fury, Frederick L. Grammets, John Huddleston, John Hig- 
gins, Dennis Kelly, Thomas Le Blanc, Francis Le Point, Jerome Lansing, 
George Lansing. George iNLatselder, Oliver Monette, Finkey C. Myers, Joseph 
Myers, Henry Putnam, Monroe Stevens, Charles H. Sibley, George H. Suits, 
Franklin S. Meason, Eli S. Picket, Seth W. Paine, John Robson, Baptiste Q. 
Rocque, Andrew Stewart, Daniel Smith, David Springstead, Mike St. Jake, 
Charles J. Stauff, Andrew J. Wilds, Edmond F. Weston, George W. Scott, Mar- 
cus IVL Ingram, Lyman Stoddard, James IVL Waskey, Charles G. Strong, Isaac 
R. Bryan, Amos C. Barber, Nathan Buckingham, Lewis Butterson, Clark Cong- 
don, Henry E. Congdon, Jacob *^. Cutshall, Philetus Crandall, Zara Cornisle, 
George Chamberlin, Henry Davis, Daniel EUetson, Samuel S. Everson, Charles 
A. Erickson, Henry C. Jefi'rey, Barzie Jerry, Edwin W. Maxwell. 



677 



SIXTH REGIMENT. 



The 6th regt. Minn. Inf. was organized in August, 1862, and 
was ordered immediately upon the Indian expedition on the fron- 
tier. A detachment of two hundred men were engaged in the 
battle of Wood Lake, September 23, 1862. 

The regiment garrisoned frontier posts from November, 1862, 
until May, 1863, when ordered on the Indian expedition and en- 
gaged with Indians, July 24, 26 and 28, 1863. Again stationed 
at frontier forts from September 18, 1863, to June 5, 1864:, when 
it was ordered to Helena, Arkansas. Ordered to St. Louis, Mis- 
souri, in 1864, and then to New Orleans in January, 1865. Assigned 
to the 16th Army Corps, and participated in engagements of Spanish 
Fort and Fort Blakely in April, 1865.. This regiment was dis- 
charged at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, August 19, 1865. 

The volunteers from this county for this regiment are as follows: 

Rupel A. Johnson, Edwin C. Eaton, Gustaf Sandberg, Charles Wilson, 
Arnold Hollman, Nathan W. Tupper, Joshua A. Tupper, Sylvester Franklin,' 
James H. Adams, Joseph N. Woods, John T. Averill, James Ardins, John s! 
Huntley, Nathan W. Tupper, Sylvester Franklin, James H. Adams, Joseph N. 
Woods. 

EIGHTH REGIMENT. 

The 8th regt. Minn. Inf. was organized August 1, 1862, and was 
stationed at frontier posts until May, 1864, when it was ordered upon 
the Indian expedition, and participated in the following skirmishes, 
battles and marches : At Tah-cha-oku-tu, on July 28, 1864, battle of 
the Cedars, Overall's Creek ; ordered thence to Clifton, Tennessee, 
and thence to AVashington ; from Washington to Wilmington, North 
Carolina, and thence to Newbern ; was in the battles of Kingston, 
March 8, 9 and 10, 1865. This regiment was mustered out at Char- 
lotte, North Carolina, July 11, 1865, and was discharged at Fort 
Snelling. 

Names of enlisted men from Wabasha county in this regiment 
are as follows : 

George Atkinson, Wesley Kinney, Nathaniel F. Randolph, Henry Selover, " 
Lyman E. Thorp, James Armstrong, Samuel D. Welch, Samuel V. Carr, Benj. 
Rawalt, Stanley M. Veeder, Moses B. Whitney, Enos Way, Sandford Wood- 
worth, Joseph E. Farrow, Albert H. Taisey, George C. Everett, James A. Oliver, 
Allen Allison, Thomas Baldwin, Daniel L. Burdict, Clark B. Bartlett, Lewellyn 
Bartlett, John Body, Gilbert Beardsley, Joseph S. Collins, Patrick Carroll, 
Joseph Crawshaw, Alonzo Congdon, David Cronin, James E. Cady, James A. 
Densmore, Stephen W. Downing, Pratt Drinkwalter, George H. Davis, John 



678 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Desso, Henry C. Eaton, W. B. Emmons, Onecannes N. Frink, Albert J. Field, 
James B. Glover, Rufus R. Goodell, John R. Goodenoufrh, Wilson Hutchins, 
James Ilendren, William H. Hayes, Lewis C. Jiidd, Albert Jones, Oliver 
Jones, Thomas Kinney, William C. Knai)p, INIanly B. Lowe, Nicholas Lippert, 
Wm. McDonoiigh, Daniel Monroe, Fred Mack, Eugene Manning, Wm. H. 
Norton, Thomas Nesdell, Lewis C. Paxon, Barna B. Powers, John J. Ross, 
William Reeves, Jame:^ Reeves, George Selover, Miles H. fewecny, James O. 
Smith, Isaiah Smith, Samuel B.Smith, James Sanders, Benj. L. Starr, Calon 
Sinclaire, Henry K. Sherman, Daniel W. Schaetler, Frank Shepard, John 
Soules, Charles F. Taylor, Riley C. Tabor, H. G. Thompson, John T. Webster, 
Thomas J. Webster, John R. S. Warring, Reuben Warren, James L. White, 
Horace M. Workman, Alexander Young, Philander O. Bartlett, David C. Crow, 
Augustin Carpenter, John J. Dilley, Richard Hammond, John C. Harradon, 
Henry C. Keeler, William H. Parsons, Henry C. Rigby, John J. Stearns, Leander 
W. Stearns, P^dwin Walters, James H. White, Edwin Woodworth, Chauney 
AVoodworth, John S. Huntley, John K. Davis, Henry Denne, Jacob Ide, Martin 
Kratz, William H. Milton, Thomas Milton, Julius Niehardt, Frederick Nie- 
hardt, Joseph Netzer, Nicholas Webber, Peter Dickman. 

The 9tli Minn. regt. was organized in August, 1862, and was 
stationed at frontier posts until September, 1863, when it was 
ordered to St. Louis, Missouri. From there it was ordered to 
Jefferson City, Missouri, and thence distributed among several posts 
in the interior of that state ; ordered to St. Louis again in May, 
1864, and from there to Memphis, Tennessee. This tine regiment 
engaged in the Guntown expedition in June, 1864, and was 
assigned to the 16th Army Corps, same month. Was at Tupelo in 
July, 1863, at Tallahatchie in August, and in the Oxford expedition 
the same month. This regiment participated in the celebrated 
march in pursuit of Price, from Brownsville, Arkansas, to Cape Girar- 
deau, and thence by boat to Jefferson City ; from there marched to 
the Kansas line, and from that again to St. Louis. This regiment 
participated also in the battles of Nashville, Tennessee, December 15 
and 16, 1S64, Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely, in April, 1865, and 
was discharged at Fort Snelling, August, 1865. 

The following is a list of volunteers to this i-egiment from 
"Wabasha county : 

Jules (]apon, Frank Lohr, Etna Benjamin, Francis Trudel, George Abbott, 
Alois Burzell, Octabo Barker, Joseph Baker, Jacob Baden, Pierre Demars, 
James Fitzgerald, Paul Felix, Paul Guhrt, Jacob Germ, John Gilbert, Frederick 
Heilman, Karl Kirchner, Gerhart Lehnert, Herman Lessing, Frederick la 
Chapelle, Alexander Morto, Bartholomew Olinger, Charles Pnitchett, Pierre 
Rodier, Alois Soitzmesser, Jacob Theilen. 

Kecord of 10th regt. Minn. Vols, is as follows : Was organized 
in August, 1862, and stationed at the frontier posts until June, 1863, 



ARMY. 679 

when it was ordered upon Indian expedition. Participated in the 
engagement with the Indians upon the plains, on July 24, 26 and 
28, 1863. Was ordered to rendezvous at St. Louis, Missouri, in 
October, 1863, and went from there to Columbus, Kentucky, in 
April, 1864 ; from there to Memphis, Tennessee, in June, 1864 ; 
and was assigned to the 16th Army Corps. Participated in the fol- 
lowing battles, sieges, skirmishes and marches : in the battle of 
Tupelo, July 13, 1864 ; Oxford expedition, August, 1864 ; and 
marched in pursuit of Price from Brownsville, Arkansas, to Cape 
Girardeau ; thence they went by boat to Jefferson City ; from there 
to Kansas line and back to St. Louis, Missouri. This regiment par- 
ticipated in the battles of Nashville, Tennessee, December 15 and 
16, 1864 ; was at Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely in April, 1865, and 
was discharged at Fort Snelling, August 19, 1865. 

The following is a correct list of names of volunteers from this 
county in that regiment : 

Walter M'Nallan, Bartholomew Costello, George W. Tenny, Christian Shil- 
son, William O. Sleeper, William M. Parvis, George C. Putnam, Josiah A. Peck, 
Henry Southwick, James K. Taft, John Thompson, Francis H. Wilde, John D. 
Winter, William W. Wright, Ogden D. Warner, Horace B. Whiting, Daniel 
Winter, Solomon Young, Daniel Young, Nathaniel Yeoman, Royal W. Olm- 
sted, Lemuel S. Orton, John Nelson, Christ Nelson, Edward H. Matterson, 
Eusebius Mullens, Robert Moody, George Mathewson, James W. Lockey, 
"Merritt G. Lawrence, Albert Linstram, Hans Jaelson, Lewis Johnson, James 
W. Hayes, James G. Foster, David Foley, Charles D. Foster, Peter Erickson, 
Almon H. Doeg, Daniel M. Davis, George W. Drew, Thomas J. Cross, David E. 
Cross, Alanson H. Case, Thomas C. Cepperton, William Canfield, Hiram 
Bemis, Franklin M. Buck, John Burnes, Clarence L. Burtch, Silas R. Burpee, 
John Burton, John M. Benthall, David Ackley, Octavius A. Leland, Collins 
Pratt, Austin D. Carroll, Henry Hippie, Charles G. Dawley, James M. Collier, 
Francis W. Knapp, John M. Burnham, John W. Murphy, Martin W. Bechter, 
Oliver P. Crawford, John B. Robinson, Oliver H. Holcombe, Wallace W. Case, 
John Lathrop, Charles W. Hackett, Albert S. Hopson. 

The 1st regt. Minn. Heavy Art. Inf. was organized in April, 
1865, and was ordered to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it remained 
until mustered out of service in September, 1865, and was dis- 
charged at Fort Snelling. 

Harlan P. Allen, George W. Colby, John L. Conway, Charles F. Church, 
John D. Dunham, William F. Fulton, Franklin H. Gillott, Orlando Gaylord, 
David Jagers, James Lewis, Charles A. McKean, William Sullivan, Alexander 
Selover, Charles H. Sibley, Marshall Wier, Perry D. Willard, William H. 
Thorp, Robert P. Andrews, Charles G. Austin, Ulric Beebe, Rudolph Burk- 
hardt, Gottlieb Burkhardt, Edwin Brown, James C. Burns, Charles C. Bidwell, 
Albert W. Bean, Joshua Clarkson, William C. Carpenter, James McGrath, 



680 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

William II. Mathews, Georg Porter, William M. Porter, Robert H. Piner, 
Turner Preble, Jr., AVilliam M. Perkins, Albert R. Ross, John N. Ross, Martin 
Ryan, Ira Stone, Frank 8t. Clare, John Satory, Antoin Schultzer, Charles W. 
Sargeant, Augustns W. Stowman, Sidney H. Smith, Jerome J. Stone, Charles 
Needham, Clinton N. Sterry, Andrew Clark, Orville D. Ford, Lamont Gilbert, 
Dewitt C. Collier, Hiram Dieterle, Alonzo Darow, Peter H. Fenton, Orton D. 
Ford, Ira A. Fiefield, George B. Franklin, Lorenzo J. Fiefield, Ebenezer F. 
Farnsworth, Frederick Gramonds, Joseph Guthner, Herman Graner, Isaac N. 
Green, William Hayes, Henry Horton, Edward Johnson, James Kenedy, 
Oscar Kestner, August Kirchner, Herman Lawson, John II. Lewis, Dwight 
Leach, George S. Leach, Charles Lindt, Charles Myers, H. H. B. INIcMasters, 
William P. Nelson, Charles Piers, John Montgomery, Miles Shcrin, William 
P. Tenny, Jr., AVilliam P. Tenny, Sr., Thomas Thorp, Charles White, James H. 
Whaley, Henry Wherenberg, Elon Warren, Isaac York, William Yonke, 
George W. Tyson. 

The 1st bat. Minn. Yol. Light Art. was organized in October, 
1861, and rendezvoused at Fort Snelling until ordered to St. Louis, 
Missouri, in December, 1861. From St. Louis it went to Pittsburgh 
Landing in February, 1862, and engaged in the following marches, 
battles, sieges and skirmishes : At Shiloh, April 5 and 6, 1<S62 ; 
siege of Corinth, April, 1862 ; at Corinth on October 3 and 4, 1862, 
and marched from Corinth to Oxford, Mississippi, and from Oxford 
to Memphis, Tennessee ; was assigned in November, 1862, to the 
17th Army Corps, and veteranized in January, 1864. 

This battery was ordered to Cairo, Illinois, and from there to 
Huntsville, Alabama; from there to Altoona, Georgia, and from 
there to Ackworth, Georgia. Participated in the battle of Kenesaw 
Mount ; was at Atlanta July 22 and 28 ; and was in Sherman's cam- 
paign through Georgia and the Carolinas. 

Discharged at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, June 30, 1865, having 
been in active service three years and eight months. The following 
is a list of the volunteers for this battery from Wabasha county : 

James M. Cheatham, Joseph Latherman, Henry Plart, William H. Grif- 
fing, Albert W. Allen, Alfred B. Bruce, Ozias W. Burdick, James Boaz, John 
Cassaden, John Davison, Charles W. Donaldson, William Furlong, Brigham 
Foster, Reuben Farnum, Warner Freer, David Greeve, Joseph D. Grifhng, 
Dennison J. Griffing, Levi S. Goddard, Robert H. Smyth, AVilliam H. Griffing, 
John W. Studaberkin, Charles E. Murphy, Joseph W. Marcyes, Andrew D. 
Ilowison, Reuben Farnham, Brigham Foster, Henry Hart, David H. Duryee, 
Miles Dunning, Ira Humphrey, David Hart, Andrew D. Howison, Henry Hil- 
gidi(!k, Abiel E. Kibbe, Alfred W. Lathrop, Elijah D. Lathrop, Creniss Lakne> 
Albert Pomeroy, Alvin Pomeroy, John W. Pogson, John W. Ploof, John D. 
Ross, Ab.salom Elliott, Eugene T. Wilson, Nelson Cheatham, John Conkite, 
R. D. Case, A. G. Crawford. 



AEMY. 681 

' The 2d regt. Minn. Vol. Cav. was organized in January, 
1864, and ordered upon Indian expedition in May, 186'4 ; partici- 
pated in the battle with Indians July 28 and August, 1864. This 
regiment was stationed at frontier posts until mustered out by com- 
panies between November, 1865, and June, 1866. 

Enlisted men from Wabasha county as follows : 

William B. Haynes, Wilson R. Russell, George C. Butterfield, Charles L. 
Fertile, Evan E. Johnson, Peter Peterson, Thomas B. Root, Edgar F. Tibbetts, 
Philo J. C. Walker, Levi Tibbetts, Mathew S. Tyler, Franklin Alle, AVilliam 
Lansing, George P. Harris, John R. Brown, James K. P. Fetzer, John A. Harris, 
Ezra M. Mathews, Philip P. Weaver, John Leewald, George S. Johnson, John 
C. Fowler, Luther McNeal, Jonathan Tisdale, David Delling, Jr., William B. 
Haines, John Kelley, Truman D. Merrill, Nathan F. Dane, Thomas Evanson, 
Almond L. Austin, George W. Adrian, Erastus T. Green, Henry S. Hoyt, Henry 
B. Lockwood, Charles E. Mills. 

The 1st Mounted Hangers Minn. Vol. Cav. was organized in 
March, 1863. This cavalry was stationed among frontier outposts 
until May, 1863, when it was ordered upon Indian expedition, and 
participated in the engagement with the Indians on July 2-1, 26 and 
28, 1863, and upon the return of the expedition was again stationed 
at frontier forts until mustered out. This regiment was mustered 
out by companies between October 1, 1863, and December 30, 1863. 

List of men enrolled from this county as follows : 
- Newton Williams, Albert R. Field, Timothy R. Bullis, James R. Burker, 
George W. Emeigh, Stephen R. Field, J. S. Harrison, William Kirkpatrick, 
William C. Pious, Thomas Smith, R. M.'Weaky, William Wooden, Benjamin 
S. Youngs, William Young, Milton Hatchenway, Frederick E. Vance, Albert 
W. Bean, James O. Hattlested, James H. Kinney. 

Bracket's bat. Minn. Yol. Cav. consisted originally of coin- 
panies 1, 2 and 3, and was organized in November, 1861. It 
was ordered to Benton Barracks, Missouri, in December, 1862. In 
April, 1862, the name of this regiment was changed to the 5th Iowa 
Cav. ; was veteranized in 1864 and ordered to the department of 
the JSTorthwest ; was mustered out by companies between May and 
June, 1866. The men who engaged in this battalion from Waba- 
sha county were : 

George Phelps, Edward W. Hunt, Henry Slaymaker, Reuben Slaymaker. 

The Independent bat. Minn. Vols, was organized July 20, 
1863, and stationed at Fort Abercrombie until mustered out of 
service by companies from April, 1866, to June, 1866. From 
Wabasha county there were only five enlistments, namely : 

Edward L. Sharpe, Abbot H. Handy, Jacob INIeetmesser, William B. 
Brumard, Albert Kimball. 



682 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

The 3cl bat. Art. was organized in 1803 and ordered upon the 
Indian expedition, and upon the return of this expedition stationed 
at the frontier forts until mustered out of service February 27, 1866. 

Men enlisted from Wabasha were : 

Henry M. Montjjomery, Gad M. Dvvelle, Thomas Rodney, Richard Rew, 
Lyman D. Rosier, William Rouleau, Isaac Rogers, David Richardson, Reuben 
W. Russ. 

CHUECHES. 

Episcopal Church. — The first Episcopal service held in Wabasha 
was given in June, 1857, by the Kt. Rev. Bishop Kemper, 
missionary bishop of the Northwest, which included Wisconsin, 
Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Dakota. After Minnesota became 
a diocese, the first service held in the diocese by its bishop, the Rt. 
Rev. Henry Benjamin Whipple, was at Wabasha, in the Baptist 
chapel, October, 1859, as he was on his way up the Mississippi to 
. St. Paul. Regular services were held during the year 1860, by the 
Rev. Charles W, Clinton, in a room fitted w\) for that purpose in a 
building on Bridge street known as Apollo Hall. A Sunday school 
had been organized in the winter of 1857 by a lady, holding it in 
her own house, under the sanction of Bishop Kemper, being assisted 
from time to time by clergymen who held occasional services in the 
place before Rev. Clinton's ministry began. That school has been 
continued until the present date without interruption, and it was the 
first Sunda}^ school organized in' Wabasha. Mr. Clinton remained 
about eight months, preaching alternately here and at Lake City. 
After he left, the Rev. C. P. Dorsett held occasional services until 
the autumn of 1862, when the Rev. H. G. Batterson commenced 
his labors here, his first service being given on the twenty-third 
Sunday after Trinity, November 23, 1862. The parish was not 
organized until December 16, when, at a meeting, it was voted to 
call the organization by the name of Grace church, Wabasha, 
regular service and Sunday school being held in the court-house. 
In the spring of 1863 three lots were given by Wm. W. Prindle for 
church purposes, and arrangements were made dui'ing that year for 
building a stone church upon the ground, contract let to R. P. 
Andrews for the laying of the walls. Basement was completed in 
the spring of 1864, and corner-stone laid on June 15, with 
a[)propriate ceremonies. A copper box was placed in the stone, 
containing a cop}' of the Holy Scri])tures in English, according to 
the standard of King James' translation, a copy of the Book of 



AKMY. 683 

Common Prayer, a copy of the Church Almanac, with parish list for 
186i, also copies of the "Church Journal," "The Northwestern 
Church," and the " Wabasha County Herald," one silver dime and 
half-dime of the issue of 1853, an English shilling piece of the 
reign of Charles III, 1788, a five-cent Canada coin of silver, 
Victoria, 1858, ten and five cent specimens of the postal currency, 
ten-cent piece of scrip, Bank of Tennessee, Nashville, December, 
1861, a copper coin of Canada and United States, ein kreuzer, 1816, 
photograph of the first bishop of Minnesota (Bishop Whipple), and 
the pastor, Kev. Mr. Batterson ; the names of the bishop and 
clergy of Minnesota for 1864, with names of the members of the 
standing committee and other ofticers of the diocese. The day was 
beautiful, and in the evening the friends of Mr. Batterson called to 
oifer their congratulations. Unfortunately, on June 23, the builder 
and contractor were drafted for the war, and the work on the structure 
had to be suspended and the project finally abandoned, for, as the 
price of labor and material advanced, the parish had not the means 
to carry forward the work. 

During the winter of 1864-5 the Rev. Mr. Batterson was absent 
from the parish on account of ill health, during which time Mr. 
Ralph E. Arnold gave a lay service every Sunday morning and 
took charge of the Sunday school, which at this time numbered one 
hundred and nineteen srliolars. Mr. Batterson returned in the 
spring, and on the first day of June, 1865, the Baptist chapel was 
purchased and removed to the church lots on corner of Bailley and 
Third streets. It was thoroughly repaired and painted, a bell tower 
in the rear being added, and the opening service was held therein 
on Sunday, July 30. By a general subscription, aided by friends 
of Mr. Batterson, a bell was purchased of Messrs. A. Fulton, Sons 
& Co., of Pi|;sburgh, Pennsylvania, and it was rung the first time on 
Sunday morning, October 29, 1865. The weight of this bell was eight 
hundred and fifty pounds. On April 29, 1866, Rev. Mr. Batterson 
preached his farewell to the parish, and was succeeded by Rev. 
Samuel Wardlaw, who commenced his labors on June 24, 1866. 
Mr. Wardlaw was succeeded by the Rev. Alex. Seabrease, B.D., who 
took charge of the parish May 23, 1869, first Sunday after Trinity. 
During this year the parish built a rectory, costing sixteen hundred 
dollars, and steps were taken to fill up the basement made for 
the stone church by taking out the wall and filling it up. Rev. 
Mr. Seabrease closed his connection with Grace church on June 2, 



684 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

1872, and was succeeded by the Rev. Horace Hills, who closed his 
rectorship of the ])arish on September 30, 1877. Rev. James 
Cornell, the present rector, entered upon his duties on October 7, 
1877. During the summer of 1881 the church building was again 
repaired and improved by the insertion of stained-glass windows, 
new chandeliers and other fixtures, at an expense of two hundred 
and fifty dollars, the excavation was also filled up fully, which cost 
some twenty dollars moi*e. Size of the building is 24x50, with a 
vestibule 10x6. It contains a chancel 12x10, and vestry-room on 
the left, library on the right, of 10 X each. The congregation num- 
bers about two hundred, including the Sunday school. 

During the summer and autumn of 1858 two churches were 
erected in Wabasha, the first being a Baptist church, the society hav- 
ing been organized during the summer of 1857. Tliis building was 
24X 50 feet, with a belfry of sixty feet, and cost one thousand dollars. 
The first and only pastor of this society was the Rev. James 
Wharton, from Ohio, who organized and kept the congregation 
together for two years after the church was dedicated. A bell was 
purchased by the citizens, and hung in the belfry of this church, 
which was the first bell to ring out the glad tidings of salvation to 
willing ears in the place or county. The second finished was the 
Congregational, which society was organized in February, 1856, the 
original members being Deacon Oliver Pendleton, Mrs. W. W. 
Prindie, Mrs. W. Hancock, Mrs. H. Wilson, Malcolm Kennedy 
and W. S. Jackson, Rev. S. Morgan, missionary director. This 
organization, next to the Catholic, is the oldest in the place. The 
first settled pastor was the Rev. S. L. Hillier, who commenced his 
ministry May 1, 1857, services being held in what was called 
Apollo Hall. Mr. Hillier was succeeded by Rev. David Andrews 
October 15, 1858, and he was the first clergyman wh<^ held service 
in the new church. This church was built on lot 2, of block 
14, on Second street, its size being 22x50, and was dedicated 
October 20, 1858. Rev. Mr. Andrews was succeeded by the Rev. 
J. Doane in August, 1860, he commencing his labors on the 27th. 
Upon the breaking out of the rebellion Mr. Doane resigned his 
charge for another in the service of his beloved country, and was 
succeeded by the Rev. L. N. Woodruff, September 16, 1862, and 
Mr. Woodruff by Rev. Edward Hildreth, April 19, 1866. Mr. 
Hildreth remained some two years, and was succeeded by the Rev. 
Henry Loomis in October, 1868. Rev. C. W. Honeyman succeeded 



ARMY. 685 

Mr. Loomis in the spring of ] 872, in which year tlie society erected 
a beautiful parsonage upon lot 1 of the church property, which 
cost thirty-six hundred dollars. Mr. Honeyman's health failing 
him, the Rev, O. Hobbs officiated from January 14, 1874, to April 
2, 1874, when he was succeeded by Rev. E. W. Weeks ; and Mr. 
Weeks ended his labors with this congregation in August, 1875, 
being succeeded by the Rev. J. F. Todd on November 3 of the same 
year. Mr. Todd continued his ministry here until succeeded by 
Rev. J. W. Ray April 4, 1877. Mr. Ray continued his pastoral 
relations until the autumn of 1882, when he was succeeded by the 
Rev. C. P. Watson, the present incumbent. 

This church has a membership of sixty persons, and congrega- 
tion, with sabbath school included, of some two hundred. The 
sabbath school was organized in the autumn of 1858, and has been 
continued with unabated interest and success until the present time, 
Mr, Malcolm Kennedy acting as superintendent some twenty-two 
years. W. S, Jackson was the very efficient and interested librarian 
of this school from its commencement to the time of his death in 
February, 1882. Tlie first deacons of this church were Oliver 
Pendleton, Sr., and William W, McDougall. The present officials 
are Dr. William L. Lincoln and J. Stuart. Deacons Pendleton and 
McDougall both lie in their narrow beds at Riverview cemetery. 
The size of this church edifice is 22x50 feet, with a bell-tower in the 
rear and a bell weighing one thousand pounds. The building was 
erected at an expense of one thousand dollars. 

In 1842 Rev. Father Ravoux, now of St, Paul, sent a log 
building from Mendota to this place to be used as a chapel for 
worship. It was placed upon a raft and floated down the river ; and 
after reaching Wabasha it was put up on the ground of what was 
called the Point, which is now the terminus of Main street, north. 
This was the first building for religious purposes erected in Wabasha 
count}", and was used as a church edifice some fourteen years. In 
consequence of there being no settled pastor of the fiock, services 
were very irregular, and the building was finally used for secular 
purposes. The first printing-press of the town was set up in it, and 
the first paper printed in the county issued therefrom. A school 
was taught in it also for a time, but it finally succumbed to civiliza- 
tion, and ' ' the old church " fell to decay, all traces of it being now 
wholly obliterated. 

In the autumn of 1858 Rev. Felix Tissot came to the place, and 



686 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTV. 

immediately took measures to erect a new cliurcli upon the ground 
of the Catholic cemetery, in the southeast part of the city, on what is 
called "Rocque's Addition." It was completed in the spring of 
1859, but it proved to be too far from the center of the town for 
convenience, and in 1862 it was taken down and moved to lot 6 in 
block 22. The size of this church was 30X50, with a tower in front 
in wliich a bell was hung weigliing five hundred pounds. It was 
consecrated by Rt. Rev. Bishop Grace on July 27, 1862. In the 
fall of 1872 a school was opened in the basement story of the church 
under the charge of the Sisters of Notre Dame, Milwaukee, of ninety 
pupils with three teachers. Sister Venantia the superior. It now 
has an average attendance of one hundred and seventy-five pupils, 
with a corps of five teachers, and sends out yearly its graduates in 
music, drawing and needlework, together with a liigh average in all 
the English branches of education. This church, proving too small 
for the increasing congregation, had to give place to the new and 
beautiful brick structure on lot 1 and half of lot 2, in block 26, which 
was erected in 1872, the cornerstone being laid with imposing cere- 
monies by Rt. Rev. Bishop Grace, of St. Paul, July 14, and it 
was consecrated the following year on July 18. An immense con- 
course of people gathered together from all the adjacent towns to 
witness the ceremonies. The size of this church is 50x100 feet, 
with a sanctuary 26x28 feet, and a vestry-room 17x20 feet, with a 
tower eighteen feet square at the base and a height of one hundred 
and fifty-iive feet. The plans were made by Mr, Charles Ross, of 
La Crosse, builder of the La Crosse cathedral. The contractors were 
A. W. Gage & Co., of Winona, and with the plans, ground, altar 
vestments, stained-glass windows, etc., cost the congregation thirty 
thousand dollars. Many citizens of Wabasha who were not mem- 
bers of the Catholic church contributed liberally toward its erection. 
The first resident pastor of Wabasha was Rev. Felix Tissott, rector 
of St. Felix church from October, 1858, to October, 1866, when it 
was placed in charge of Rev. James Trobec, who is still the resident 
pastor. The St. Felix congregation contains some fifteen hundred 
souls. A convenient rectory was built upon lot 6, block 22, at an 
expense of twenty-two hundred dollars, in the year 1872. 

German Lutheran. — This congregation was organized in 1875, 
with a membership of fifty, with the Rev. August Kanne as pastor. 
Their service was held in the court-room until July, 1876, when their 
church building was completed which stood on Market street. The 



ARMY. 687 

size of this church was 25x40 feet, and the whole expense, in chid- 
ing the church lots and belfry, amounted to two thousand dollars. 
The first trustees of this church were Jacob Thonej, Sr., Christian 
Florine and Wilhelm Kuchenbauch. They were succeeded by Her- 
man Lessing, Philip Grub and Maurice Ending. These were suc- 
ceeded by J. Breger, Jacob Scholer and Albert Lueck. Tliis church 
and society have a Sunday school, which was organized in 1876, with 
forty scholars, and the school and congregation number at the present 
date about one hundred and fifty. A seven-hundred-pound bell was 
purcliased in 1877. The first pastor of this church was Eev. August 
Kanne, who was succeeded in 1879 by the Rev. A. Krahn, who still 
remains in charge. The lot upon which the church was built was 
found to be not pleasing to the congregation, and in the spring of 
1881 another was purchased on corner of Jefiferson and Second 
streets. South Wabasha, and the church removed to it in the spring of 
1882, at an expense of one hundred and fifty dollars. The members 
constituting this church were : John Yoelger, Henry Balow, Jacob 
Thoney, Joseph Thoney, Jacob Ray, Jacob Gengnagle, Peter Ter- 
vana, Peter Yanette, Herman Lessing, George Bance, Peter C. 
Oavedetesher, Jacob Miller, William Reichenbach, Jacob Mingold, 
Peter Klaus, Philip Grub and Jacob Schuler. 

, The first Protestant services held in Wabasha were ty Rev. 
Dwight Kidder, in the bar-room of the American hotel, in 1855. 
Mr. Kidder was a Methodist, and had been sent to take charge of the 
mission embracing Read's Landing, Wabasha, Central Point and 
Wacouta. A class formed in Wabasha, consisting of H. B. Potter, 
leader, H. Tracy, T. G. Bolton, J. W. Bolton, Nancy Bolton, Ruth 
E. Bolton, Mrs. Wilds and Hannah Drew. Wabasha at that time 
contained about one hundred inhabitants. The first quarterly meet- 
ing held in the place was in the log chapel belonging to the Catholics, 
December 15-16, 1855. A Mr. Crist was appointed to this chai'ge in 

1856, but did not remain, and services were interrupted until August, 

1857, when the Rev. S. Salsbury was placed in charge by the first 
Minnesota conference, his work to comprise Wabasha, Read's Land- 
ing and Cook's valley. Mr. Salsbury left in the spring of 1858, and 
the next pastor in charge was the Rev. James Gurley. A Sunday 
school was instituted this year of forty-five scholars. The next 
pastor in charge was a Mr. Dyer, the next Rev. Jesse Smith, in 
charge to the fall of 1861, when the Rev. Harvey Webb was placed 
in charge, and remained until 1863. During his administration, the 



688 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

church was reorganized according to the statutes of the state, • by 
apjiointing John R. C. Creighton, secretary, Rev. H. Webb, pastor, 
presiding. Five trustees were elected, namely, Thomas Roberts, John 
R. Creighton, James Crowley, John Lewis and James Luscombe. 
The term of years each trustee was to serve was determined, and 
they decided to build a church upon a lot which had been previously 
purchased for that purpose by Mrs. T. Roberts. This lot was on 
Second street, and the church bought it of Mrs. Roberts. A build- 
ing committee was chosen, consisting of Rev. H. Webb, L. Dietz, 
John McArthur, Thomas Bolton and Thomas Roberts. Si)ecifica- 
tions for the church building were, size 24X40 feet, height 14 feet, 
the vestibule being added afterward. John Luscombe, builder. The 
whole expense of building amounted to one thousand dollars, and it 
was dedicated on August 6, 1862. The Rev. A. Wilford was placed in 
charge September, 1863, and remained in charge during 1863-4. In 
November, 1864, Rev. Wilford was ap])ointed, by the governor, 
chaplain to the 3d Minn. Vol. Inf., and his place was supplied by 
Rev. J. R. Creighton, who had received license to preach at confer- 
ence of 1864. At the next session of conference in 1865, Rev. T. 
M. Gossard was appointed in charge, and he was succeeded by Rev. 
J. L. Farber, who was reappointed in the fall of 1867 and remained 
until 1868, when the Rev. S. G. Gale succeeded him. Rev. W. C. 
Rice was pastor in 1869-70, and he was succeeded by Rev. E. Y. 
Coffin, who remained in charge until the fall of 1871, when the Rev. 
S. G. Gale was returned as pastor. Mr. Gale remained two years, 
when Rev. W. C. Shaw succeeded him. Mr. Shaw died in February, 
1874, and the Rev. M. O. M'Nift was appointed to supply the 
remainder of the year. September 14, 1875, Rev. W. H. Soule was 
appointed pastor and remained in charge until October 21, 1878, 
when the Rev. James Door succeeded him. October 11, 1880, the 
Rev. W. C. Miles commenced his pastorate, which continued until 
October 10, 1882, when the Rev. D. J. Higgins was placed in charge 
and is the present incumbent. This church was removed to its 
present site on Fourth street, lots 7 and 8, in 1870, the old lot being 
sold for three hundred dollars. The first stewards were : H. B. Potter 
and R. F. Morris, in 1855; James Crowley and A. Gibbs, in 1856; 
A. W. Weston and O. W. Collier, in 1860; J. S. Felton, J. W. Lus- 
combe and L. Emery, in 1861 ; J. R. Creighton and T. G. Bolton, in 
1862; M. H. Brown, in 1866; James Crowley and T. Roberts, in 1870; 
and Thos. Roberts and O. H. Porter, in 1878. The present stewards 



are John Lewis, O. H. Porter and H. Coval. The first trustees were 
James Ci-owlej, Thomas Roberts, J. R. Creighton, John Lewis, 
John W. Luscombe. In 1866 James Crowley, Thos. Roberts, 
George B. Downer and C. Piper were elected. In 1868 M. H. 
Brown, E. C. Crum and J. K. Benedict were elected to fill vacancies. 
In 1879 M. H. Brown, Y. R. Mace, Thos. Roberts and O. H. Porter 
were elected, and the present trustees are O. H. Porter, M. H. 
Brown and Y. R. Mace. The Sunday school has had various 
superintendents, the first one being R. F. Morris, then James Crow- 
ley, J. F. Creighton, T. G. Bolton, J. W. Howland, M. H. Brown, 
Y. R. Mace, J. M. Martin and O. H. Porter. The school now 
numbers some thirty scholars, and congregation, all told, about sixty 
members. 

SCHOOLS. 

The first school taught in Wabasha was a private school taught 
by Thomas Flyn. After the first school-district in the county 
was organized, which was that of Wabasha district No. 1, in 
1855, a school was taught in it by II. B. Potter, the building used 
for the purpose being the old log church mentioned in another 
chapter, which stood upon what was then called "The Point." Mr. 
Potter taught a few months in 1856, and then the school was discon- 
tinued. Miss E. Hogard taught a private school for a few months 
in a small building on Bridge street, erected by B. S. Hurd in 1856 ; 
Miss Hogard taught during the spring of 1857, but discontinued it 
on account of the public school being resumed by Miss A. Strickland, 
who taught for about three months. Mrs. J. J. Stone then opened 
a private school in her own house on Pembroke street, and taught 
more or less during the years of 1858 and 1859, removing her 
school to a small frame building on Main street, below Pembroke. 
During the summer and fall of 1858 a private school was taught on 
the west side by E. F. Dodge, in a building erected for that purpose 
by Mr. Jarvis Williams, of Saco, Maine, who then resided on that 
side. Meantime steps were being taken by the city for the erection 
of a schoolhouse adapted to the needs of the town, and lots were 
purchased in block 5 of South Wabasha for that purpose. A stone 
building was erected during the summer and fall of 1859, the corner- 
stone being laid with appropriate ceremonies on July 4, 1859. 
This house cost twenty-five hundred dollars, size 40x45, and a 
school was opened in it on January 3, 1860, taught by W. C. Bry- 
ant, assisted by Miss Henrietta Angier, of Toledo, Ohio, all private 



690 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

schools merging into it. Mr. Bryant was from Cincinnati, Ohio, where 
he had done much to establish a high grade of common schools, 
and his eiforts here were the very first made in Wabasha county 
toward the union or graded schools. Mr. Bryant continued his 
teaching until the close of the spring term. No other school was 
taught in the building as a schoolhouse, as the city donated the 
building to the county for a courthouse the same year, and the 
county offices were removed thereto in the fall of 1860. 

In the fall of 1860 Mr, Walter Gurley opened a private school in 
the courtroom of this building, teaching it until January, 1861, when 
Mr. Joseph Gates took the school and completed the term, teaching 
another term during the spring of 1862. The public school was 
taught very successfully during the winter of 1861-62 by Mr. H. I. 
Whitmore, his school numbering one hundred pupils. The next 
school was taught by Mr. Gates, during 1862-3, in the Baptist 
church building, which was rented for that purj^ose. A wooden 
structure at this time was in process of erection, by private enter- 
prise, for an academ}^, which stood on Third street, between Walnut 
and Allegheny streets. It was completed in November, 1865, and 
a ver}' successful school taught in it during the winter of 1865-6 by 
Mr. L. Jenness. A parish school had been instituted under tl.ie 
auspices of the Episcopal church, by the Rev. H. G. Batterson, in 
1863-4, which was first taught by Miss Kate Dougall, — afterward by 
Miss AVealtliy Tucker, of Winona, — in a building owned by Henry de 
Camp, corner of Bailly and Second streets, but as the other schools ad- 
vanced in character and course of study, it was given up, the teacher, 
Miss Tucker, accepting a position as assistant in the school of the 
academy. Mr. Jenness, having a better ofter in Minneapolis, left in 
the spring of 1865, and no school being taught, Mrs. Marian T. 
Bowditch opened a private one in the courtroom for the summer. 
Mrs. Bowditch continued her school, assisted by her niece. Miss E. 
Bowditch, in her own house the next winter, discontinuing it in the 
spring of 1866. Meanwhile the school in the academy was taught by 
Rev. Bonnel, a Baptist clergyman, assisted by his wife. The city 
needing a schoolhouse badly, finally negotiated for the academy 
building, and it passed into the hands of the city in 1865. Previous 
to that the public school had been taught in the Baptist chapel by 
J. Gates very satisfactorily, assisted by Mrs. J. J. Stone, Miss 
M. Staples teaching the summer term. After the ])urchase of the 
academy by the city, Mr. Hopper was emjjloyed as principal, Mr. 
Henry F. Rose succeeding him. Mr. Rose remained two years, and 



ARMY. 691 

was succeeded in the fall of 1867 by E. Hogle, who taught the 
school two terms, assisted by Miss D. Clark and Miss J. Lynch, 
Mr. E. A. Booth succeeded Hogle, and remained until the spring of 
1858, when he resigned the place, his position being filled the next 
term by Mrs. E. L. Douglass ; Miss Jennie Fyfe, teacher of interme- 
diate department ; Miss McCune, of primary. 

The academy building was now too small to accommodate the 
diiierent grades, and rooms were rented therefor in different 
parts of the city. In the spring of 1858 tlie subject of a more com- 
modious and central schoolhouse was agitated, which resulted in the 
erection of the present fine edifice in block 4, South Wabasha, and 
in the gathering of the different departments of the graded school 
under one roof. The board of education, after deciding upon the 
amount of funds needed for that purpose, and to issue bonds upon 
the credit of the school-district No. 1, submitted the same to a vote 
of the electors of said district on April 27, 1868, as required 
by law. The vote cast was for the issue of these bonds, and they 
were issued to the amount of twenty thousand dollars, redeemable 
between July 1, 1870, and July 1, 1880. The size of this building 
is 62^X82^ feet, is three stories high, including basement, and con- 
tains twelve rooms, besides the halls and wardrobes; four in the 
basement, four on the first floor, with a wardrobe to each room, and 
four on the upper floor, with wardrobes also. The high school 
department occupies the double room on the northwest side of the 
house. A belfry in the center of the building contains a bell of six 
hundred pounds, and it is warmed by three Lossing furnaces. 
Messrs. Gates, Brink & Harlow were the contractors, and the whole 
cost of building and seating the rooms amounted to twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars. Board of education at the time consisted of Eev. B, 
Wharton, S. S. Kepler, J. Satory, J. B. Davis and George Hall. 

The schot)l was opened in this building in December, with K. H. 
Sturgis, principal, and four assistant teachers. In September, 1870, 
S. L. Sayles, of New York, accepted the position of principal of the 
school, with five assistant teachers, and taught and regraded it very 
successfully. Mr. Sajdes resigned the position in 1872, and was 
succeeded by Mr. M. B. Foster, also an able and efficient teacher, 
who remained four years. Mr. E. Hogle succeeded him for one 
year, when J. B. Hawley was employed, together with six assistant 
teachers. In the fall of 1 880 Mr. Hawley resigned and Wm. A. Snook 
succeeded him, remaining two years. The present efficient principal, 
Horace Gibson, took charge of the school in September, 1882. 



CHAPTER LX. 

BENCH AND BAR. 

Minnesota was organized as a territory in Marcli, 1849. By the 
organic act the judicial power of the territory was vested in a 
supreme court, district courts, probate courts and courts of justice of 
the peace. 

The territory was divided into three judicial districts, and one of 
the supreme judges assigned to each district, and the three acting 
together formed the supreme court of the state. 

The judges appointed by the president, and comprising the 
supreme court in 1856, were William H. Welch, chief justice ; Moses 
Sherburne and A. J. Chatfield, associate justices. 

Wabasha county formed part of the lirst judicial district, and 
the Hon. William H. Welch, residing at Red Wing, was assigned 
to the first district, and held the ])osition of district judge for said 
district until superseded by the election of the Hon. Thomas Wilson 
as district judge under the state constitution in 1858. 

Although Wabasha county is one of the oldest counties in the 
state, it was not organized for judicial purposes nntil the winter of 
1856 ; prior to that time it was attached first to Washington and 
then to Goodhue counties for judicial purposes. 

In the winter of 1854 the village of WabaSha was designated, 
by legislative enactment, as the county seat of Wabasha county. 
Alexis Bailly was chosen the first justice of the peace of the county, 
and an effort made to establish law and order. 

It is related that Augustine Rocque, an old half-breed Indian 
trader, then residing at Wabasha, learning of the appointment of 
Alex Bailly as justice of the ]ieace, called his numerous progeny 
around him and admonished them that it now stood them in hand 
to be on their good behavior, "for," said he, "the law has come, 
and Alexis Bailly is the law." 

The first term of the district court for the county was held in 
what was known as H. S. Allen & Co's warehouse, in the spring of 
1856, Hon. William II. Welch presiding ; S. L. Campbell, clerk ; 
Blois S. Hurd, sheriff'; and Thomas Wilson, of Winona, district 
attoi'ney. No business of importance was transacted. The bar of 



BENCH AND BAR. 693 

the county was John McKee, J. W. Tyson and S. L. Campbell. 
No grand or petit jurors were in attendance, and after hearing a few 
motions and granting a few naturalization papers, court adjourned. 
At the next term of the district court there was a full attendance of 
jurors. Seventeen indictments were found, all of which were dis- 
missed for irregularity, much to the disgust of the then district attor- 
ney, Samuel Cole, and J. W. Tyson, acting as county attorney. 

Alexis Bailly applied for admission to the bar as a qualified 
attorney, but failed to pass an examination. He was subsequently 
admitted at St. Paul. Being asked by one of the attorneys of the 
county how he managed to pass an examination, he replied that he 
had a bottle of champagne under each arm and two in his pockets, 
and nary question asked by the committee. 

J. A. Criswell succeeded Alexis Bailly in the administration of 
the law, and was the principal judicial officer of the county, until 
it was organized for judicial purposes. Although his education 
was limited, he was an excellent judge of the law, having held 
the office of justice of the peace in Michigan and Minnesota for 
over twenty years. Seldom was one of his decisions reversed. 
He was a man of iron will and strong physical ability, which 
well fitted him for a frontier justice of the peace. The following 
incident will illustrate his manner of administering justice. At 
one time one of the leading physicians was before him, charged 
with an assault and battery upon one John Murray. During the 
trial the contestants engaged in a fisticuff, in which the learned 
justice immediately took a hand, sending each of the combatants 
to his respective corner. Saying as he did so, "I fine you twenty 
dollars each for fighting in my court, and you will pay it before 
you leave the room, or I will lick hell out of you." The doctor 
soon produced the twenty dollars, but Murray could only find 
ten dollars. Criswell very generously remitted the balance, say- 
ing, "The fine goes to the poor, and I would like to see any 
one poorer than I am," as he chinked the money into his pocket. 

The first attorneys to settle in the county and open offices were 
Frank Clark and John McKee, men whose characters were dia- 
metrically the opposite of each other. John McKee was open, frank, 
and generous to a fault ; the other was shrewd, cunning and dis- 
honest. He was arrested in the winter of 1855 for stealing and 
mutilating the county records, but succeeded in escaping from the 
officer who had him in charge, and fled the state. He subsequently 



694 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

abandoned the profession and ojiened up a doctor sliop in Chicago 
as a specialist of bad repute. 

In 1858, Minnesota, having adopted a constitution, was admitted 
as a state, and the Hon. Thomas Wilson, of Winona, was elected 
district judge, and held the position until he was appointed chief 
justice of the supreme court of the state in 1864. 

The first term of the district court for Wabasha county, under 
the state organization, was held in what was then known as Kurd's 
Hall, in Wabasha, in the fall of 1858, Hon. Tlios. Willson, ])residing; 
S. A. Kemp, clerk ; John W. Tyson, district attorney ; K. M. 
Finer, sherifl[ ; AVm. J. Jacobs, foreman of the grand jury. There 
was quite a strong bar present: John N. Murdoch, John McKee, 
John W. Tyson and S. L. Campbell, resident attorneys of the county, 
with quite a number of foreign attorneys in attendance. Among the 
most noted of these were Hon. William Windom (late United States 
senator) and Gen. Berry, of Winona, J. W. Brisbin, of St. Paul. 
Quite a number of civil causes were tried, — none of note, however. 
Seventeen indictments were found by the grand }ury, all of which 
were quashed on motion for informalities in the drawing of the 
indictments, much to the chagrin and disgust of the county attor- 
ney, J. W. Tyson. Judge Wilson, on being elected to the supreme 
bench, was succeeded by the Hon. Lloyd Barber, of Rochester, who 
held the position for one term (being succeeded by Hon. C. N. 
Waterman in the fall of 1872), and died February 18, 1873. He 
held two terms of court in Wabasha count}^ and presided at the 
trial of Hicks, Stacks aijd Farrell for the murder of one Elliott. This 
was one of the most exciting trials ever held in the county, and 
lasted for and during thirty-two days. W. W. Scott, of Lake City, 
then county attorney, assisted by the Hon. Thomas Wilson, of 
Winona, prosecuted these cases, and the Hon. S. L. Campbell, of 
Wabasha, conducted the defenses, assisted in the case of Stacks by 
Gov. Gorman, of St. Paul, on the trial of Hicks by L. S. Flint, 
Esq., of St. Paul, and on the trial of Farrell by the John Stew- 
art, of Wabasha. Strenuous efforts were made by the prosecu- 
tion to obtain a verdict with' the penalty of death attached, while 
the defense put forth their utmost endeavors to save the parties from 
hanging. The result of these trials was the finding of Stacks and 
Hicks guilty of murder in the first degree without the death penalty 
being attached, while in the case of Farrell it was guilty with the 
death penalty attached. The former two were duly sentenced 



BENCH AND BAR. 695 

to the state's prison for life, and sentence of "death" was passed 
upon the latter, but by the eflbrts of his counsel and others, his 
sentence was afterward commuted to imprisonment for life by Gov. 
Austin, The following is a brief summary of the facts attending the 
murder as appeared upon the trial. On the day of the murder one 
William Fitzgerald had drawn, as back pay and bounty money for 
services as volunteer soldier in the late rebellion, about seven hun- 
dred dollars. This he, during the day, had unguardedly exhibited in 
the saloons, especially to Patrick Stacks, who was a boon companion 
and was drinking with him. Stacks conceived the idea and laid his 
plans to rob Fitzgerald that night, and persuaded Hicks and Farrell 
to join him in his nefarious enterprise. Their plan was to visit the 
house in which Fitzgerald boarded, and which was occupied by one 
Nicholas Wagner, being situated directly opposite the cemetery 
between Wabasha and Read's Landing. Stacks was to spy out the 
location and situation. Hicks was to enter Fitzgerald's bedroom after 
he had retired and abstract the money, while Farrell was to stand on 
guard, and if need be to play the bully and bruiser. One Edward 
Elliott, a thin, spare man, in feeble health, boarded at the same house 
with Fitzgerald. Between one and two o'clock that night, he had 
occasion to step outdoors and was seized by Stacks, who put a pistol 
to his head, caught him by the throat and threw him on the ground, 
when one of the three jumped upon him. Another called out, it is 
not our man, do not hurt him. Another said, dead men tell no tales. 
Supposing Elliott to be dead, they carried him across the road and 
threw him into the cemetery. Reviving, he crawled on his hands 
and knees to a house about a quarter of a mile distant, and was able 
to arouse the inmates, and was by them taken in and cared for. He 
survived his injuries about three days, giving the facts, as to wliat 
took place at the time of the assault, in his dying declarations, 
although he was unable to recognize any one of his assailants. The 
inhabitants of Wabasha and Read's Landing were highly incensed 
at the crime, and strong efforts were made, and large rewards offered, 
by the county for the arrest of the murderers. Geo. Young, then 
marshall of Read's Landing, was successful in striking the trail ; and, 
by ingratiating himself into Farrell's good opinion, whom he found 
in jail in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and assisting him to regain his 
liberty, was able to get a statement of the facts in the matter from 
him, and to Young is due the credit of bringing all three of the 
murderers to justice. 



696 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Patrick Stacks was one of the most noted desperadoes of the 
upper Mississippi valley. On his way from Wabasha to the state's 
prison, in charge of the sheriff and deputies, and handcuffed to his 
mate, besides being otherwise heavily ironed, they jumped from the 
deck of a steamboat, while it was in motion, into the Mississippi 
river, and succeeded in swimming to an island, on which they were 
several days afterward recaptured in a half-famished condition, 
being unable to separate themselves or i-emove their irons without 
tools, or escape to the mainland by swimming, until they were 
removed. He afterward made several attempts to esca])e from the 
state's prison, in one of which he was successful, being again retaken 
after reaching the mountains in Nebraska, through the betrayal of 
his identity by an associate for the reward offered for him. Again 
he was incarcerated in the prison, and soon afterward put an end to 
his miserable existence by poison mysteriously procured. Before 
he died, but while on his deathbed, he made a declaration in which 
he stated that Farrell did all he could to save Elliott from harm. 
Influenced by Stack's confession and by the good record of Farrell 
while in state's prison, through the exertions of S, L. Campbell, of 
Wabasha, and others, Gov. Hubbard was induced to extend to him 
pardon after eleven years' imprisonment. Since his release lie has 
conducted himself in an upright manner and is well liked by his 
employers. Hicks still remains in prison. Nothing shows the fal- 
libility of juries and human tribunals more than the result of 
these trials. During their progress, and from the time of the arrest 
until iinal judgment it was the almost universal opinion that 
Farrell was the most guilty of the three. At the present time it 
is unanimously conceded that Farrell not only was not guilty of 
the murder, but that he did all he could to prevent it. 

The Hon. John VanDyke, of Wabasha, was appointed district 
judge to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of the Hon. C. N. 
Waterman, and held the position until the next general election, 
when the Hon. William Mitchell was unanimously chosen by the 
people to till the position and held the same until 1881, when he 
was appointed to the supreme bench of the State of Minnesota, and 
the Hon. C. N. Start, of Rochester, was appointed in his place, and 
now performs the duties of the office to the entire satisfaction of the 
bar and people, having been unanimously elected in November, 
1881, for a full term. 

Wabasha and the village of Reads are both situated near the 



BENCH AND BAK. 69T 

mouth of the Chippewa river, where its waters help to swell the 
tide of the "Father of Waters." Large quantities of lumber are 
annually floated in small rafts down the Chippewa river and along 
the banks of the Mississippi, near the mouth of the Chippewa are 
coupled or joined into larger rafts for floating down the Mississippi 
to St. Louis and other points. Consequently a large number of 
"floating population" congregated at these points in former years 
seeking employment in transporting lumber, as heretofore desig- 
nated. Very many of this class of men were persons of bad repute — 
thieves, gamblers and drunkards ; hence there has been a vast 
amount of criminal business in the county, and only a few years 
years ago Wabasha had the unenviable reputation of having had 
more murders committed within its borders than any other county 
in the state ; but of late years the lumber has been towed by tugs or 
steamboats and required but few raftsmen, that class having 
greatly diminished, and in fact have almost entirely disappeared, 
and with them the criminal calendar. 

Another source of litigation in former years was caused by the 
fact that nearly the entire Sioux half-breed reservation is located 
within the county and located with Sioux half-breed scrip, much of 
which belonged to minors. Titles to land could in such cases only 
be obtained through the uncertainties of a probate court, the prac- 
tice in which was formerly quite unsettled ; but while there has been 
frequent and persistent atttempts to disturb the titles to such lands 
in the county, courts and juries have almost invariably ignored 
technicalities and sustained the titles. 

For a number of years quite a strife existed between Lake City 
and Wabasha for the county seat of Wabasha county. In the winter 
of 18t)0 an act was passed to remove the county seat from Wabasha 
to Lake City, provided such removal should be sustained by a vote 
of the people. A vote was taken and the returns showed a majority 
against such removal. Lake City not being satisfied with the 
returns commenced proceedings to test the legality of the vote in the 
courts. Hon, Thomas Wilson, then district judge, declared the 
law under which it was taken to be unconstitutional, and this ended 
the matter for that time. 

Lake City still being dissatisfied, a bill was introduced and 
passed the legislature in 1868, again submitting the same question 
to a vote of the people. This time the blood of both places was up 
(as one may say) and they used their utmost endeavors to win. 



698 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Every town in the county was thoroughly canvassed pro and con, 
and rivalry was at white heat. The returns again showed a majority 
in favor of Wabasha. Lake City again appealed to the courts, and 
after a protracted investigation in the district court, before the Hon. 
Lloyd Barbour, he rendered a decision in favor of Lake City. 
Wabasha appealed -to the supreme court and the decision of the dis- 
trict court was reversed wholly on technical grounds. One remark- 
able feature of this investigation was, that while the census showed 
that Lake City and Wabasha each had a pojiulation of about two 
thousand people, the returns showed that Lake City had cast two 
thousand and thirteen votes ; the City of Wabasha, four thousand 
and fifty -two votes. Judge Barbour, at the next term of the district 
court for this county, instructed the grand jury that the statutes made 
it their duty to inquire into all irregularities and violations in and of 
the election laws, and if there was fraudulent voting it was their 
duty to indict all parties guilty thereof. For, said he, "On the 
purity of the ballot-box rests the foundation of our republic." 
The grand jury failed to bring indictments, and on his admon- 
ishing them that they must have failed in their duty, was coolly 
informed by the foreman that Wabasha county could not afford to 
send half of her best citizens to the penitentiary. 

S. L. Campbell was appointed in January, 1856, the first clerk 
of the district court of Wabasha county, and held the office until the 
admission of the state into the Union. In October, 1857, S. A. 
Kemp was elected clerk under the new organization, and held the 
office till 1861. N. F. Webb was his successor, and held the office 
for one terra. Charles J. Stauff was elected in 1869, and is the 
present efficient clerk, and likely to hold the position so long as he 
may desire to do so, as he has been twice re-elected by the almost 
unanimous vote of the people, and discharges his duties to the 
entire satisfaction of bench and bar. 

JUDGES OF PROBATE. 

II. P. Wilson was elected probate judge in 1S56 ; his successor 
was George F. Childs, elected in 1857, and held the office one year, 
when B. C. Baldwin, of Lake Cit}^ was elected and held the office for 
two years. A. Z. Putnam was his successor, elected in the fall of 
1859, and held the office for four years. G. C. Dawley filled the 
office in 1861:-5. E. Lathrop was elected in 1866. M. A. Fuller was 
his successor, and held the office for four years. A. Z. Putnam was 
again elected as his successor, and held the office one term. J. F. 



BENCH AND BAK. 099 

Pope was elected in 187-i, and lield for two terms ; be was succeeded 
by F. J. Collier, of Wabaslia, wbo beld tbe office for one term 
and was succeeded by A. Z. Putnam, who was for the fourth time 
elected to the office in 1 879. F. J. Collier was again elected in the 
fall of 1883, and is now the present incumbent. 

DISTRICT AND COUNTY ATTORNEYS. 

The Hon. Thomas Wilson was district attorney in 1856, suc- 
ceeded by Samuel Cole, of Winona county, who held the office until 
the organization of the state. In the fall of 1857 John W. Tyson was 
elected county attorney, and was succeeded by S. L. Campbell, who 
held the office one term and resigned ; he was succeeded by John B. 
Davis, who held the office for two years and was again elected in 
1865. J. D. Jacquith was elected in 1863, holding the office till 1865. 
W. W. Scott was elected county attorney in the fall of 1866, and 
held tlie position for one term. John B. Davis was again elected in 
1870, holding tlie office for one term, and was succeeded by J. H. 
Hahn ; elected in the fall of 1872, holding the office three terms. 
George H. Matchin was elected in 1878, C. H. Benedict in 1880, 
and John McGovern in 1882, and is the present incumbent. 

SHERIFFS. 

At the first election held in Wabasha county, at the residence 
of Augustine Kocque, in what is now the city of Wabasha, on the 
11th day of October, 1853, Levi Murphy was elected sheriffi He 
having failed to qualify, the board of county commissioners, on the 
13th of March, 1851, appointed Dr. F, H. Milligan sheriff of the 
county, and he gave bonds and entered upon the duties of his office. 
In the fall of that year Amos Wheeler was elected sherift" of the 
county ; he was succeeded in 1856 by Blois S. Hurd, who resigned 
his office and R. M. Piner was appointed to fill the vacancy, and 
was elected at the next general election and held the office till Janu- 
ary, 1860. H. W. Butts was his successor, holding the office for 
one term. Wm. B. Lutz was sheriff in 1862-3 ; his successor was 
H. H. Slayton, who held the office for two terms. S. H. Smith 
succeeded him and held the office two terms. William Box was 
elected in the fall of 1867, his successor was L. M. Gregg, who held 
the office for two terms, and was succeeded by the present incum- 
bent, Henry Burkhardt, who was elected in 1881 and re-elected in 
the fall of 1883. 



CHAPTER LXL 

thp: medical fraternity. 

The history of tlie medical profession of any county in any state 
bordering on the Mississippi river will refer us to a time antedating 
the occupation of any land by the white inhabitant. The various 
tribes of American Indians were advised by their medicine- 
men, from whom they expected relief no less signal than that 
required by their white successors. The lower the tribes remained 
in the scale of intelligence, as a tribe, the more they looked for cures 
from some irrational source, and so the medicine-man entered upon 
his duties with the flourish of trumpets and the beating of gongs, and 
continued the orgies until the disease had been driven out from the 
patient or the jiatient had died. The early citizens of the city of 
Wabasha will all remember the latter days of March, 1858, when 
for three long nights the wakeful ones could hear the assembled 
medicine-men on the op]3osite bank of the river, from dusk until 
daylight, curing a poor So, who for two years had been the victim of 
consumption. The poor fellow was shrouded and the trees bore his 
body before they bore leaves in that spring, even if the consump- 
tives did flock to Minnesota from all parts of the Union to escape 
death from that dreaded disease. But howling over the prostrate 
form of the sick or wounded to drive away some evil spirit which 
they imagined the cause of the disease, was not the only claim 
which the native medicine-man had to entitle him to the degree of 
doctor in medicine. 

There can be no valid denial to the claim that the Indians of 
North America possessed a knowledge of what roots were edible, 
before contacts either with the pilgrims or with the John Smith 
colony ; then why not go one step further and accord them some 
skill in selection of roots and bark that were medicinal ? There is a 
precedent in Wabasha for this acknowledgment, in that after the 
horsepower and threshing-machine had been domiciled in this 
county, an Indian, not knowing that it was loaded, put his foot so 
far into the gearing, that a consultation of graduates of Jeft'erson 
Medical College decided and informed him of the result of their 
council, which was that amputation was the only hope to save his 



THE MEDICAL FRATERNITY. 701 

life. The Indian declined the amputation and called another 
physician, who gave him every encouragement that he might still 
have a useful foot, vs^ith good treatment and care. He permitted the 
physician to dress the foot by the method which, previous to the 
date of "Listerism," gave promise of the best results attainable. 
Three days afterward the physician found his dressings all removed 
and the foot enveloped in about a peck of pounded barks and roots, 
from which the foot emerged to chase the deer before midwinter. 
The Indian surgeons of Wabasha county were not unskilled in the 
"lost art" of venisection, as the median basilic of many an Indian 
witnesses to this day. They were also skilled in the art of ' ' cupping, " 
or drawing blood by scarifying, and producing a vacuum with a cup 
of horn, and the mark of that on the temple or other parts of the 
body is a testimony to that claim. But the day will come when the 
medicine-man must give way to his more ambitious white brother ; 
and so the first man who announced himself as a practitioner of the 
healing art in the county of Wabasha took up his abode in the 
city of Wabasha and announced himself as Dr. M'Thurston. 
What medical lore he was master of he brought with him from the 
"Green Isle." His stay was short, for though he was temperate, 
law-abiding and kindhearted, he was a descendant of Adam, and 
the woman tempted him, and he, like the Arab, folded his tent and 
gave place to a successor, and in the autumn of 1853 the first 
physician upon whom had been conferred the degree of M.D. 
located in Wabasha to practice his profession in the person of 
Dr. F. H. Milligan. For two or three years he enjoyed the 
field alone, not only the whole of Wabasha county, but the whole 
region on both sides of the river, a territory almost equal to a New 
England State. In 1857 he left the county and located at Hastings, 
Dakota county, but returned to Wabasha in 1858, and has continued 
to practice his profession to the present time. 

In the winter of 1855-6 Dr. J. P. Bowen arrived on the 
ground and soon formed- a copartnership with Dr. Milligan, 
which continued for a year. Dr. Bowen remained at Wabasha 
until the spring of 1859, when he left for a less severe climate. 

In the year 1855 Dr. Geo. F. Childs and Dr. 'N. S. Teft 
located in the flourishing village of Minneiska, and continued in the 
practice of medicine, both in town and country, until 1860, 
when Dr. Childs went to Washington, D. C. ; and Dr. Teft 
removed to Plainview, where he has led an active and laborious life 



702 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in his profession, except when lie has been called by his constituents 
to sit in the councils of the lawmakers of the state. 

bi the early spring of 1856 Dr. O. S. Lont took up a residence in 
JVIazeppa. Of modest demeanor, genial and kindhearted, he did not 
claim to his compeers to be a graduate of any school ; his leaning 
was to the non-heroic in practice, and by a conservative practice he 
won many friends. The writer will never forget a case of fracture, 
maltreated in such a manner and degree that a loss of the limb was 
the result, which case might have been his but for his retiring mod- 
esty. The doctor told the parties interested that he did not profess 
to be much of a surgeon, and so the case fell into the hands of 
those who did profess, but whose services resulted in the loss of the 
leg. "VVe have always held the opinion that if Dr. Lont had taken 
charge of the leg his usual modesty would have ]irevented him from 
spoiling it. 

In the summer of 1857 Dr. W. L. Lincoln commenced the prac- 
tice of medicine in the city of Wabasha, and has devoted his life to 
his professional duties at the same place during the years as they 
have passed. 

In 1857 Dr. Chauncy Gibbs, of Painesville, Ohio, worn out by the 
practice of his profession, to renew his failing health and if possible 
to prolong his life, removed to a farm on the beautiful prairie where 
now is Plainview. He did not contemplate the practice of his pro- 
fession, but a noble soul can never know of suffering without offer- 
ing relief, so he was again in the harness for a few short months, and 
the "wheel was broken at the cistern." The exact date is not 
obtained, but not far removed in point of time, Dr. C. C. Vilas 
located at Lake City remaining a few years, and then removing to 
Michigan to return again to Lake City after the close of the war, 
which field he has constantly occupied to the present date. 

In 1860 Dr. Sheldon Brooks removed from Winona county to 
Minneiska; and while jie gave a large share of his time to business, 
he practiced his profession as the occasion demanded his services, 
and so he may be well among the men who have contributed their 
share to give honor to the profession of Wabasha county. At this 
stage of our citation the war of the rebellion was precipitated upon 
our nation, and young physicians went to the'field of strife from all 
parts of the land, and young men neglecting the halls of learning do 
not so fast obtain the title of doctor, save here and there a hospital 
steward who acquired the title by brevet. After the restoration of 



THE MEDICAL FRATERISITY. 703 

peace and prosperity the profession of medicine began to take on 
new life, and as the number of physicians in the county seemed to 
warrant, there was a movement toward the formation of a medical 
society, and a tacit understanding was indulged in by those who had 
been in the practice of medicine in Wabasha and Plainview as to 
the status of a county medical society ; but this arrangement did not 
carry. Dr. Yilas had left Lake City and it was not known that there 
was a graduate in medicine in active practice there at that time. 
The initiatory steps were, however, taken at Lake City, but no clue 
to the date is at hand or any official record of the society. The iirst 
tangible point as found in the records is that an informal meeting 
was held at Lake City on the 25th ult., when the permanent organi- 
zation of a county medical society was established. Dr. F. H. 
Milligan, president ; Dr. E. C. Spaulding, of Lake City, secretary. 
The slip cut from the local weekly newspaper was clipped of its date. 
Dr. Spaulding was not engaged in the practice of medicine, but a 
newspaper man of Lake City, which may account for the manner of 
the records. Dr. K. N. Murray, who was at this time engaged in 
the milling business, soon after tliis meeting entered upon a practice 
at Lake City. Dr. W. H. Spafford, of the same place, belonged to 
this organization until his death. Dr. Isaac J. Wells was also one 
of the charter members, as was Dr. P. C. Eemondino, a graduate of 
Jefferson College, Philadelphia, but a convert to the tenets of 
Hahnemann, and his advertisement was yet in the paper that pub- 
lished the organic transactions of the society. An important item 
of business at this meeting was a bid for medical attendance on the 
county poor, and it was resolved to propose to the county com- 
missioners to perform the duties of county physician and surgeon for 
one year for eight hundred dollars, and, if the proposition be accepted, 
to purchase with the same instruments and books for the benefit of 
the members. The proposition was accepted by the commissioners, 
but so far as can be ascertained there are now no books or instru- 
ments in possession of the societj^ 

In December, 1869, is a record of a meeting at Lake City, when 
a motion was carried to elect Dr. J. P. Waste and Dr. N. S. Teft, of 
Plainview, members, when they shall have signed the constitution 
and paid the membership fee. Who were present at the meeting 
does not appear there, and a future record would lead us to infer 
that Dr. Waste and Teft were not present, for we next find note of a 



70-i HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

meeting January 7, 1870, at the office of Dr. Teft in Plain view, at 
which meeting the two were unanimously elected members. 

On December 8, 1870, is a record of a meeting at the office of 
Dr. Milligan, and a more methodical secretary appears in the field. 
A list of the members present is recorded, among which we find the 
name of Dr. F. Lessing, a young man who went to the war fi*om 
Wabasha. He served as hospital steward ; at the expiration of his 
term he went to Philadelphia and graduated from the university of 
Pennsylvania, after which he located at Wabasha. The other name 
new in the record was the recording secretary. How or when these 
two joined does not ap])ear, nor when Dr. B. F. La Eue, of Lake 
City, was chosen secretary, but they entered at the "strait gate," 
for they were not the kind of men to "climb up some other way. 

June 20, 1871, records a meeting at Lake City with Dr. G. R. 
Patton's name added to the list of members, with no intimation 
when he became a member. Dr. Patten removed from Cincinnati, 
Ohio, and located at Lake City in 1871 ; and it is to be presumed he 
was elected a member then and there at the same meeting. Dr. J. C. 
Adams was elected an honorary member. Dr. Adams was at this 
time rector of the Episcopal church at Lake City, which accounts for 
the designation honorary member. The record here reads : "The 
second annual meeting of the Wabasha County Medical Society con- 
vened at Dr. Teft's office at Plain view, January 16, 1872. By vote of 
the society. Dr. Wm. L. Lincoln, of Wabasha, and Dr. Bacon, of 
Mazeppa, were elected members. Dr. Sj^afford was chosen presi- 
dent ; Dr. Lincoln, vice-president, and Dr. La Rue, secretary. On 
June 4, 1872, the society convened at the house of Dr. Lincoln, at 
Wabasha, with all the members present, and the records are com- 
plete ; papers and discussions on subjects of interest to the profession 
occupied the time until dinner was announced. Immediately after 
the repast, the following resolutions were passed : 

" Resolved, That we, the members of the Wabasha County Medical Society, 
would request the county authorities to jirocure a more suitable and central 
position for a county poor farm, the present building being totally unfit for 
such a purpose, and the distance from medical aid being too great." 

Another item of the records of this meeting is worthy of note, as 
follows: "Upon request the society then visited the county jail to 
examine it in reference to ventilation. They found upon the plans 
of the architect a complete system for ventilating the cells, which 
had not been carried out in the building. Alas for 'post prandial' 




x- 



'^''' 




WM L. LINCOLN 



THE MEDICAL FRATERNITY. 



705 



judgment in that matter, for the sanitarian knows that witli such a 
constructed jail there never could be a decently healthy condition 
of the cells by any system of ventilation." A break in the records 
brings us to June 7, 1875, when the meeting convened at the office 
of Drs. Milligan and Tupper at Wabasha. In the absence of the 
secretary Dr. Stone was chosen secretary pro tern. When he 
became a member does not appear, but there are good precedents 
for his membership without such record. At the meetino- Dr J P 
Davis, of Kellogg, and Dr. E. A. Tupper, a partner of Dit Milligan* 
and Dr. W. F. Adams, now of Elgin, were voted members of the 
society. 

On June 1, 1876, the society met at the office of Dr. J. C 
Adams, of Lake City, who, at some time since he was elected an 
honorary member, had retired from the pulpit and entered the no 
less important profession of medicine, and he was now the honored 
president at this meeting. Dr. F. W. Van Dyke was elected a 
member and was made treasurer of the society. 

The next record informs us that the society met at the office of 
Drs. Lincoln & Van Dyke, at Wabasha, when Dr. Low, of 
Wabasha, was elected a member and made treasurer. One of the 
trophies of the surgeon's art exhibited at this meeting was a codfish 
rib,, two inches long, removed from the "recto ischiatic fossa," and 
yet tlie patient never remembered to have swallowed a whole cod- 
fish. Another important item in the report of this meeting was the 
treatment, by the secretary, of a surgical disease "by instrumenta- 
tion." Whether the disease was cured does not appear from the 
newspaper slip containing the report of the meeting, but the secre- 
tary has the honor of seeing his case reported in print, and his 
word, which appeared in ])rint for the first time, there to await the 
coming lexicographer, to gather it into the spoken language of the 
future. Fortunately the disease is one which is as likely to fall 
under the observation of the " tyro " in surgery as into the hands of 
the grey-beard, and so will lead to no confusion. 

On the 10th of Jime, 1878, the report shows that the meeting 
was held at Alma, Wisconsin, and as neither president or vice- 
president were present. Dr. N. S. Teft was elected president pro 
tem. Dr. Charles W. Tinker, of Wabasha, now of Stewart, was 
elected a member of the society. A vote was carried to expel all 
members who were in arrears for dues. On October 1 a motion 
was carried that an order for eleven dollars be drawn on the 



706 HISTORY OF "WABASHA COUNTY. 

treasurer to paj the fare of the eleven who came to the meeting on 
the steamboat Sien ; but even then doctors, leaders in humanitarian 
measures, forgot to vote a half-peck of oats to the horses of those 
who came by that method of transportation. A motion was carried 
requesting the newspapers of the county "to publish those sections 
of the national code of ethics relating to quackish advertisements 
and handbills." Whether the press honored the request, the writer 
is not advised, but if such was the case, it must have had much the 
same effect as the pope's bull did on Martin Luther. The quack 
will reveal himself in or out of the profession, and the truehearted 
physician will labor for the love of humanity and the love of that 
God "in whose hands our very breath is," and both receive their 
coveted reward. 

In 1ST9, on June 12, at which meeting no new members were 
elected and the membership was reduced by the expulsion of Dr. 
Seller, of Alma, and Dr. Tupper, now of Zumbrota, Goodhue 
county, for neglecting to pay dues, the record of expulsion appears 
to be more methodical than most records. 

On September 14, 1880, the record shows the annual meeting to 
have convened at "Wabasha, at the office of Dr. Milligan, where the 
first item reads as follows: "Dr. Patton's resignation read and 
accepted ; *"' and next in order Drs. E. C. Davis, of Plainview, and H. 
]Sr. Rogers, of Zumbro Falls, were elected members. Dr. Davis 
was a citizen of Plainview, a student with Drs. Teft & Waste. 
After graduating in medicine he remained in the town where he had 
been reared, and entered upon a successful practice, in which he 
continued for two years, until removed by death. 

The annual meeting of the society was held June 14, 1881, at 
the office of Dr. Lont, at Mazeppa, and a motion prevailed to pay 
the expenses of those coming from abroad out of the current funds 
ot the society, and so by implication, and is in accordance with 
memory, that at some former period the society voted to receive into 
membership physicians living in the near towns in Wisconsin. Just 
why the physicians of Wisconsin should be paid for attending the 
meetings is not apparent. Dr. Boyd, of Millville, was elected 
member at this meeting. 

In 1882 the annual meeting was held at Plainview. Dr. A. E. 
Baldwin, a native of that place, a graduate of Chicago Medical Col- 
lege, and Dr. R A. Gove, of Millville ; also W. E. Taber, graduate 
of the Missouri Dental College, were elected members of the society. 



^ THE MEDICAL FRATERNITY, 70T 

Dr. Baldwin and Dr. Adams, of Elgin, were appointed a committee 
to draft resolutions of respect to the memory of our late brother, Dr. 
E. C. Davis. 

The annual meeting of 1883 was held June 12, at Wabasha, at 
which meeting no new members were elected ; but that fact does not 
indicate a loss of vitality in the society, but would rather suppose 
there were no new doctors in the held. Our brethren who affect 
the granula and attenuation theory are represented in the county, 
and have been for some years, by the "jolly medicine-man " Charles 
"W. Crary, who reports himself a graduate of Albany Medical Col- 
lege, in 1858, and also of Jefferson Medical College, in 1870, which 
fact does not look like attenuation in regard to diplomas. Any 
attempt at an e]3itome of history of the medical profession in our 
county would appear incomplete if the name of Dr. Curry were left 
out. A cultured, gentlemanly Scotchman arrived from Canada in the 
early years of the war, having brothers, friends and acquaintances 
of the same nationality in the county. He located at Lake City, but 
previous to his coming here disease had shaken his large and well- 
knit frame, and to bring relief from suffering he had resorted to the 
"drug which enslaves," and his days were soon numbered. The 
doctrine of heredity is exemplified in the medical profession of 
Wabasha in the person of Dr. E. A. Patton, of Minneapolis, son of 
Dr. Patton, of Lake City, and again in Dr. William H. Lincoln, of 
Chicago, son of Dr. Lincoln, of Wabasha. The Wabasha County 
Medical Society seems now to be on a firm basis and will undoubt- 
edly exert a good influence on the members of the profession, and 
will recommend its good work to the general public. 



CHAPTER LXII. 

COUNTY POORHOUSE. 

Prior to the admission of Minnesota as a state into the Union in 
1858, the care of the poor in the several counties devolved upon the 
county commissioners, who were empowered to appoint an overseer 
of the poor, and levy such taxes as were necessary for the relief of 
the indigent within their several count}^ borders. Upon the pas- 
sage of the township act in August, 1858, providing for the organiza- 



708 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. y 

tion of townships tliroughout the state, and presenting the number 
and duties of town otticers, a radical change was made in the poor- 
hiw, by which an overseer of the ])oor was to be chosen in each 
township, and tlie town authorities given the custody and cliarge of 
their own poor. By tliis same legislature (ISoS) the chairman of the 
several township boards in the county were made a county board of 
supervisors, and upon them devolved the management of the county 
business ; but the care of the poor was not included in the list of 
their prescribed duties, that matter being committed to the town- 
ships as such. By act ot February 28, 1860, the provision for a 
board of county supervisors, composed of the chairmen of the 
various town boards, was abrogated, and the present arrangement, 
dividing the county into commissioner districts, was adopted. By 
the new law two or more townships were to be united into one com- 
missioner district, according to population, one commissioner to be 
elected from each district, and the commissioners thus elected to 
form the board of county commissioners, whose duties were very 
largely the same as those formerly devolving upon the "board 
of supervisors for the county." By this act no change was 
made in the regulations for the oversight and care of the 
poor, each township having independent control and taking 
individual care of its own poor. Four years later, March 4, 
186-i, a radical change was made in the law for the support 
and maintenance of the poor, and since then the matter has 
remained almost at rest, so far as any change of method is 
concerned. By this act the care and maintenance of the poor was 
made a county instead of a township charge, and the county com- 
missioners, by virtue of their office, were made superintendents of 
the poor of their resi)ective counties, and to them was committed 
the management of any poorhouse, farm, workhouse, etc., provided 
for the comfort, support or employment of the poor, maintained at 
public expense, and by them the overseer of such poorhouse or 
farm was to be appointed. 

It was in accordance with the provisions of this act that the 
county commissioners of Wabasha county, after liaving made 
temporary provision for the care of the poor within the county 
for some time, purchased in 1867 the lirst poor-farm owned by the 
county. This was a tract of one hundred and sixty acres on Sec. 
11, T. 109, R. 13 W., of the P.M., lying in the town of Hyde 
Park, about one and one-half miles north of the Zumbro river. The 



COUNTY POORHOUSE. 709 

purchase price was four thousand two hundred dollars, and the 
county commissioners put the farm and the management of their 
poor under the supervision of George Bartholmew, who held that 
office until the county poorhouse was removed from Hyde Park to 
Wabasha in 1873. The county commissioners in 1873, recognizing 
the undesirableness of attempting to care for their poor on a large 
farm in a secluded part of the county remote from the county build- 
ings, where their meetings were necessarily held, exchanged the 
property in Hyde Park for that now occupied as the poorhouse 
grounds. This property comprises a tract of thirty-two acres of land, 
situated on the east side of the public highway running from 
Wabasha to Kellogg, the poorhouse standing about one mile from 
the court-house. The buildings at that time u])on the property were 
quite inadequate to the uses required of them. The main building- 
had been erected originally for a barn, and was afterward converted 
into a dancehouse. This building was rearranged at the expense of 
the original owner, and taken possession of by the county in 1873. 
In 1879 a comfortable hospital for the comfort of the county wards 
was built. This building, 20 X 30, two stories in height, of brick, in 
which is the dispensatory, stands near the north line of the poor- 
house premises, a little retired from the road, but as it interferes 
with the prospect from the new county-house, now approaching 
completion, it will very probably be moved to the rear. The old 
building contained twelve rooms, and in these, to date, August 1, 
1883, were seventeen persons, among them three insane, one idiotic 
and one blind. The county provides clothing and medicines, 
and the superintendent supplies food and care at a certain contract 
price per head. No attempt is made to work the land by pauper 
labor, but inmates are required to help themselves in all proper 
ways, and do such light work as the wisdom of the overseer considers 
fitted for them. The present cost of maintaining the indigent of the 
county at the county-house is about three thousand dollars per 
annum. George Bartholmew was succeeded by Samuel Demery, 
who had charge of the county-house from 1873 to 1876, when Mr. 
iBartholmew was reappointed, and remained as superintendent until 
the county-house was placed in charge of the present incumbent, F. 
J. Collier, who assumed his duties as superintendent Februar}^ 20, 
1878. 

The new county building now in process of erection under con- 
tract with Messrs. Alexander & Lutz, of Lake City, is really a 



710 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

credit to the county. The bnihUng presents a very imposing appear- 
ance ; architecturally it is well pro])ortioned, and the durability of its 
construction will not be questioned by those who have watched its 
erection, or carefully examined the materials of which it is built. 
The plans were drawn by E. Alexander, of Lake City, the original 
contractor, who afterward associated with him Mr. Wm. B. Lutz, 
also of Lake City, and by them it was erected. The extreme length 
of the front wing, tacing westward, is seventy-six feet eight inches ; 
of the side wing, facing north, sixty-four feet four inches ; the sides 
of the inner angle are forty-nine feet and thirty-two feet respectively; 
the walls rise twenty-seven feet above the water-table, and the roof 
will be of tin. There are porticoes over the two main entrances on 
the west and north, and a porch along the entire length of the 
southern side of the shorter wing. There is a solid stone foundation 
under all, in building which sixty-eight cords of stone were 
used, and the walls contain two hundred thousand brick. Ground 
was broken in the early summer, the first stone was laid in the 
foundation June 1, and work pushed so rapidly that the walls were 
completed August 4. The contract requires the completion of the 
entire structure September 15, and the work goes on with every 
prospect of accomplishing it within the specified time. The original 
contract was for seven thousand nine hundred and forty dollars, 
but some changes have been made in water-tables and other 
particulars, which will bring the total cost to eight thousand two 
hundred and fifty dollars. The building is lighted by seventy-two 
windows — those in the lower story having lights of 14x40 inches ; 
the upper story 14x36 inches, all four-light sash. The walls of 
basement are seventeen inches in thickness ; of superstructure, twelve 
inches. The basement contains the furnace and laundry, in addition 
to the usual cellar room, and there is an excellent cistern with a 
capacity of two hundred and thirty barrels. The window and door 
sills are of solid stone, and there is a very substantial as well as 
ornate appearance to the entire structure. J. Cole Bought}^ & Co., 
of Lake City, supply the furnaces and put on the roof ; Jewell & 
Schmidt, of Wabasha, furnish all other hardware. The su])erin- 
tendent's rooms and the kitchen are in the east wing ; the dining- 
room and quarters for the inmates in the main wing, fronting 
the public highway. The kitchen is 15x17 feet; the dining-room 
25 X 18 feet; the rooms for inmates are each 8x11 feet. The lower hall 
is ten feet four inches, upper hall six feet, and there are three stair- 



SOCIETIES. 711 

cases, varying in widtli from three feet eight inches to three feet. 
The building contains twenty-nine rooms, all told — thirteen down- 
stairs, twenty-six in upper story. The whole arrangement is such as to 
economize space and labor in caring for the county's wards, without 
confining tliem to cramped quarters or vitiated air. There are six 
inmates, wliose ages range from sixty-five to eighty-four years. 
Gertie Day, a simpleminded girl, is the oldest case of tlie poor- 
house, having been an inmate for ten years. 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

SOCIETIES. 

MASONIC FKATERNITY. 

The establishment of the masonic order in the city of Wabasha 
was effected at a very early date ; the organization of the first lodge 
of the A. F. & A. M. at this point antedating the incorporation of 
the city about a year and a half The population of the city at that 
time probably aggregated six hundred, among whom were 
several who, remembering the old daj's when tliey were wont to be 
called from labor to refreshment, determined to establish a lodge of 
the craft in the new home they had chosen for themselves in the 
then far northwest. Accordingly a petition for a dispensation to 
open and conduct a masonic lodge, to be known as Wapahasa Lodge, 
No. 14, of Wabasha, Minnesota, was forwarded to Grand Master 

A. T. C. Pierson. A dispensation was granted October 22, 1856, 
and on the 7th of January, 1857, a charter was issued, under the 
authority of the grand lodge, empowering S. L. Campbell, J. J. 
Stone, F. J. Collier, S. A. Kemp, Lindsay S^als, Wm. Pierson and 

B. A. Grub to open a lodge of A. F. & A. M., to be called Wapa- 
hasa, No. 14, of the State of Minnesota. The lodge was organized in 
due form with S. L. Campbell, W.M.; J. J. Stone, S.W.; and F. 
J. Collier, J.W. The original lodge room was in a new building 
on the corner of Walnut street and the Levee, which had been 
erected for general merchandising purposes by Campbell Gambler 
& Pendleton. This building was at that time the best store building 
in the city, and the new lodge room, in the upper story was a very 
creditable meeting-place for the craft. The site upon which this 



712 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

landmark of early times stood was the ground now occupied by the 
Midland railroad depot, and the old building is now used as a paint 
shop, corner of Main and Walnut streets. From their quarters in 
the upper story of this structure the Masons subsequently removed 
to the upper story of the brick building on Main street, between 
Alleghaney and Pembroke streets, at that time occupied by Luger 
Bros, as a furniture warehouse and salesroom. From Luger's, in 
1870 the lodge removed to the third story of the Campbell House 
block, since burned. The upper story of this building, which stood 
just west of the present Masonic block, comer of Main and Alle- 
ghaney streets, had been erected by special contract with the mem- 
bers of the masonic order, who had contributed six hundred dollars 
toward the erection of the block, in consideration 'of which, and a 
stipulated rental, a lease was executed for a specified term of years. 
In 1878 the craft removed to the third story of John Schirtz' build- 
ing, one block east of the Campbell House, and there remained until 
the completion of their own building. Masonic block, of which they 
took possession December 1, 1880. This building was the out- 
growth of a desire on the part of the fraternity in this city to secure 
a prominent location for themselves by erecting a building of their 
own. Accordingly, in 1880, the Masonic Building Association was 
organized, having for its object the erection of a suitable masonic 
building. The capital stock was placed at ten thousand dollars, shares 
ten dollars each. Only fifty per cent of the face value of the shares 
was called for. The building was erected, and care taken to regulate 
the issue of stock so as to insure its absolute control by members of the 
order. The conditions of the issue were such as provided for the 
gradual redemption of all stock certificates by the masonic lodge in 
its corporate capacity, and this result is being steadily reached. The 
rate of interest was fixed at seven per cent, Wajiahasa lodge taking 
one hundred shares, and of those outstanding all are held, with two 
exceptions, by members of the masonic fraternity. The annual 
rental of the lodge room is fixed at one hundred and fifty dollars by 
the board of directors. Masonic block is a substantial brick struc- 
ture, solid stone foundations, tin roof, and rises two stones above 
he basement, with side walls of thirty feet. It fronts fifty feet on 
Main, corners on Alleghaney street, and has a depth of eighty feet. 
Only the west half of the block is owned by the masonic fraternity, 
and of this they occupy only tlie second story, the main floor, 25 X 80, 
being occupied by the United States postofiice department, at a 



SOCIETIES. 713 

rental of one hundred and eighty dollars per annum. The lodge 
room proper is 24x50 feet within walls, with ceilings of 12|^ feet. 
It is very handsomely furnished and decorated, the symbols of the 
order duly displayed, and all the appointments in excellent taste. 
The anteroom 12x30, and the preparation-room, of same size, are 
also comfortably carpeted and furnished, and there are ample closets 
and cabinets for the regalia and other insignia and paraphernalia of 
both blue-lodge and chapter. The cost of building, in round 
figures, was five thousand dollars ; cost of furnishing, about nine 
hundred dollars. The whole number of master masons who have 
been connected with Wapahasa lodge from its institution, nearly 
twenty-seven years ago, to date, aggregates two hundred and 
four. The present membership is seventy, and twenty-four have 
gone out from the earthy portals at the call of the Grand Master, to 
lay the designs upon their tressleboards before Him and submit 
their work for inspection. 

The present officers of Wapahasa lodge are : J. A. Peck, W.M.; 
C. J. Stauff; S.W.; B. Florer, J.W.; Paul Miller, Secretary ; J. H. 
Evans, Treasurer; H. S. Elkins, S.D.; Pearl Roundy, J.D.; Thos. 
Roundy, Tiler; Chas. Hirschy, S.S. ; J. Geugnagel, J.S. 

The names of those who have been stationed in the east, west 
and south since the organization of Wapahasa lodge, twenty-seven 
years ago, are herewith appended. The list will awaken many 
memories among the surviving members of the lodge and recall 
many names almost forgotten. The list is official. 

YEAR. W. MASTER. S. WARDEN. .T. WARDEN. 

1856 S. L. Campbell J.J. Stone F. J.Collier. 

1857 S. L. Campbell J. J. Stone F. J. Collier. 

1858 S. L. Campbell J. J. Stone F. J. Collier. 

1859 J. J. Stone S. L. Campbell John Hitt. 

i860 S. S. Bnrlesson Wm. Pierson Wm. B. Lutz. 

1861 S. L. Campbell S. S. Burlesso'n J. J. Stone. 

1862 S. L. Campbell E. F. Dodge .S. S. Kepler. 

1863 S. S. Kepler A. S. Mills A. G. Foster. 

1864 A. S. Mills V.B. Shaver H. Beall. 

1865 A. S. Mills U. B. Shaver H. W. Rose. 

1866 A. S. Mills H. W. Rose J. W. Tyson. 

1867 H. W. Rose W. H. Robinson H. N. Smith. 

1868 W. H. Robinson H. N. Smith E. Bullard. 

1869 W. H. Robinson H. N. Smith Bradford Almy. 

1870 H. N. Smith Bradford Almy T. S. Van-Dvke. 

1871 H. N. Smith Bradford Almy R. E. Stearns. 

1872 H. N. Smith Bradford Almv R. E. Stearns. 

1873 Bradford Almy Wm. Green . . ." J. A. Peck. 

1874 Bradford Almy M. Kennedy J. H. Evans. 

1875 H. N. Smith E. J. Dugan W. H. Campbell. 

1876 J, H. Evans Jos. Buisson I. J. Pennock. 



714 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTi'. 

YEAR. W. MASTKK. S. WARDEN'. J. WARDEN. 

1877 R. E. Stearns I. .T. Pennock Wm. Box. 

1878 1. J. Pennock H. P. Krick C. J. Stauif. . 

1879 1. J. Pennock II. J. Smith R. E. Stearns. 

1880 J. A. Peck J. M. Martin H. S. Elkins. 

1881 J. A. Peck H. S. Elkins S. S. Nichols. 

1882 J. A. Peck H. S. Elkins S. S. Nichols. 

1883 Jos. Buisson C. J. Stauti' 8. Myrtetus. 

1884 J. A. Peck C. J. Stauff B. Florer. 

Relief Chapter^ No. 5J, R.A.M. — Wa])aliasa Lodge, No. 1-4, 
had been in existence twenty-four years, and the masonic building 
was just completed when the members of the craft deemed it wise 
to take steps toward the establishment of a chapter, that such as 
desired might receive instruction in the more advanced work of the 
craft, as exemplified in the higher orders of Masonry. A dispensation 
to form a chapter was accordingly petitioned for. This dispensation 
was granted December 12, 1880, and on October 11, 1881, a charter 
was issued by the grand chapter of the state, constituting Kelief 
Chapter, ISTo. 35, of Wabasha, Minnesota, naming the following as 
charter members : Jos. Buisson, C. J. Stauft, Francis Talbot, H. N. 
Smith, A. Campbell, A. J. Bent, W. H. Campbell, David Cratte 
and I. J. Pennock. The chapter has now had a successful and 
prosperous existence of over two years, during which time fifty-three 
members have been borne upon its rolls. Of these three have 
demitted, leaving a present membership of fifty. The work of the 
chapter is now conducted under the following official leadership : 
J. II. Mullen, M.E.H.; J. A. Peck, King; B. Florer, Scribe; 
Paul Miller, C. of II.; Kev. Jas. Cornell, Chap.; O. H. Porter, Sec; 
Francis Talbot, Treas. ; Chas. J. Stauff", K.A.Cap.; K.E.Stearns, 
G.M. of 3d v.; John Mealey, G.M. of 2d Y.; H. S. Elkins, G.M. 
of 1st v.; Thos. Roundy, Sentinel. 

Red Leaf Cliaptei\ O.E.8. — No sooner had Relief Chapter, 
No. 35, R.A.M., been instituted and the work of instruction begun 
in their camp, than the establishment of a chapter of the Order of the 
Eastern Star was decided upon by the wives and daughters of the 
members of the masonic fraternity in this locality. The organization 
was effected, and on January 12, 1881, Red Leaf Chapter, No. 10, 
Order of the Eastern Star, was duly instituted with the following- 
named charter members : Mesdames Franc. D. Clarke, Mary I. Stauff, 
Ellen L. Dugan, Anna L. Walton, Carrie E. Kiick, Emma S. Peck, 
Susan S. Robinson, Barbara Porter, Selma Oswald, and Messrs. 
W. A. Clarke, C. J. Stauff, E. J. Dugan, II. Oswald. Regular 



SOCIETIES. 715 

communications are held in tlie masonic temple on the first and 
third Fridays of each month. The chapter has had a healthy 
growth during the two years and a half it has been in existence, and 
there are now forty-eight members upon its rolls. One of the objects 
of the order being the promotion of the social life of its members, 
the ladies of Ked Leaf chapter have recently furnished their closets 
in the anterooms of the masonic temple with the necessary linen 
and tableware for the tables that are spread from time to time in 
their banqueting-room. The funds for this purpose were raised at a 
very enjoyable masquerade given by the ladies of Red Leaf 
on January 18th, 1883. The officers of the chapter for 1883 
are: Susan S. Robinson, W.M.; Chas. J. Staufi", W.P; Ellen L. 
Dugan, A.M.; Anna L. Walton, Sec; Mary J. Stauff, Treas.; 
Emma S. Peck, Cond. ; Mary R. Florer, A.C. The institution of 
Red Leaf Chapter has been a decided gain to the social life of the 
masonic order in this city. Its work in this direction, and in the 
care of the sick, and in such other ministries and helps as naturally 
fall within the spliere of the obligations of its members, is just such 
work as is everywhere needed to crown all fraternal association with 
the highest possible good. Red Leaf chapter is the only chapter of 
tl:e Order of the Eastern Star in the count}^ 

I.O.O.F. 

Teutonia Lodge, No. 19, 1. 0. 0.F. — The only subordinate 
lodge of the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows in this city works 
only in the German language, and is the outgrowth of the German 
Aid Society established in this city in 1860. This "aid" society 
was a local organization, having for its object the promotion of 
social relations among its members and the care of its members in 
case of sickness. It had a numerous membership and was in 
quite a flourishing condition for some years after it began opera- 
tions. But it was soon apparent that its benefits could not be 
extended beyond the limits of its own pale, and as its members 
removed from the city, they were thenceforth debarred from all 
benefit connected therewith. Accordingly, in 1867, a committee of 
five was appointed by the society to take the situation under consid- 
eration, examine into the workings of the various aid or fraternal 
associations having a national existence, and report which one, in 
their opinion, was the nearest allied in its objects and work to 
their own local aid society. This committee consisted of F. L. Riechter, 



716 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

L. Gintner, John Satori, J. T, Gintner and F. Kling, who, after 
due examination and consideration, reported in favoroftliel.O.O.F. 
as most nearly answering the ends sought. The report of the 
committee was ap])roved, and tliey were further instructed to pro- 
ceed to Plainview, Wabasha county, wliere tliere was a lodge of the 
Gdd-Fellows order, receive initiation into the same, and so be pre- 
])ared to take all necessary steps to secure a lodge of the order in 
Wabasha. The duties assigned the committee were duly ])erformed ; 
a paper was circulated among the members of the "Aid Society " 
to ascertain how many of the members were willing to enter an 
Odd-Fellows lodge when formed, and all things proving satisfactory, 
the five members forming the committee of the Aid Societ}^, being 
now members of the I.O.O.F. at Plainview, petitioned the grand 
lodge for permission to open and conduct a lodge of the I.O.O.F. 
in Wabasha. The petition was duly granted, and on September 25 
the lodge was organized as Teuton ia Lodge, No. 19, I.O.O.F., oi 
Wabasha, with F. L. Eiechter, J. T. Ginthner, John Satori, L. Ginthner 
and F. Kling as charter members. The first meeting of the lodge 
was held in the hall in the third story of Sehwirtz block, and con- 
tinued to meet there until 1876, when they removed to the second 
story of John Satori's building, northeast corner of Main and Pem- 
broke streets, which quarters they occupied till the completion of their 
own building in the fall of 1882. This is a solid brick structure, 
stone foundation ; window and door caps and sills also of stone ; 
two stories in height, fronting twenty-eight feet on Main street and 
running seventy-five feet to the rear. The lodge room is 26x50 feet 
within walls, thirteen feet between joists, and very pleasantly and 
comfortably furnished. The anteroom is 18x24, and is furnished 
with cabinets for the ensignia and paraphernalia of the encampment, 
and such other furniture as is necessary. 

The whole number of members that have been connected with 
Teutonia lodge, since it organization sixteen years ago, is one hun- 
dred and eleven, one-half of whom are members at this date, the 
present number being fifty-six. Of the original charter members, 
but three remain, one of the number dying while still connected with 
the lodge here, F. Kling. The whole number of deaths in the lodge 
has been seven. Teutonia numbers among its members some of the 
most solid business men of the city, and is in a fairly prosperous 
condition. The three ju-incipal chairs of the lodge have been tilled, 
as appears from the table herewith appended, since the institution 



SOCIETIES. 717 

of the lodge. The present officers of the lodge are : Carl Krebs, 
N.G. ; Hermann Oswald, Y.G. ; Jos. Ginthner, secretary; Lucas 
Kuehn, treasurer; Michael Kuehn, R.S.N.G. ; Peter Taverna, 
L.S.N.G. ; Henry Baumgartner, R.S.Y.G. ; Godfred Euckhaber, 
L.S. Y.G. ; J. T. Ginthner, ward : R. Eichenberger, cond. ; F. Baum- 
garten, O.G. ; Gabriel Loechler, I.G. ; Fred Below, R.S.S. ; H. S. 
Ammerland, L.S.S. Oriental Encampment, I.O.O.F., No. 24, of 
Wabasha, was instituted February 23, 1883, with eight charter mem- 
bers, the charter being countersigned by Grand Patriarcli Romaine 
Shire, and Grand Secretary J. Fletcher Williams. The names of 
the charter members, as they appear upon the charter displayed on" 
the walls of the lodge-room, are : Herman Oswald, John Schermully, 
C. H. Crause, Henry Burkhardt, F. H. Milligan, M.D., Paul 
Casparis, E. J. Dugan and Michael Kuehn. The work of the 
encampment is conducted in the English language, and the order 
has had a very satisfactory growth since its institution, about six 
months ago. The present membership is twenty-nine, and there is 
not a meeting of the encampment at which there is not one or more 
applications for membership. The stated meetings of the emcamp- 
ment are held on the second and fourth Friday evenings of each 
month, and are well attended, the interest in the work of the 
encampment being well sustained. The list of officers (elective) now 
fining the various chairs of Oriental, No. 21, are : Hermann Oswald, 
C.P. ; John Schumuly, S.W. ; F. H. Milligan, H.P. ; E. J. Dugan, 
J.W. ; Paul Casparis, scribe; Henry Burkhardt, ti-easurer. 

YEAR. NOBLE GRAND. VICE-(;RAND. SEC. 

1867 F. L. Riechter L. Gintner John Satori. 

1868 Then. Ginthner H. DieterlQ J. T. Ginthner. 

1868 H. Dieterle Anton Schnitzler Peter Kirsch. 

1869 .John Satori Frank Rhomberg Paul Casparis. 

1869 Frank Rhomberg Michael Kuehn Paul Casparis. 

1870 Michael Kuehn John Voelker Phil Grnb. 

1870 John Voelker L. p]. Hanemann John Satori. 

1871 Michael Kuehn Phil CTrub .John Satori. 

1871 Phil Grub Ferd. Lnger J. T. Ginthner. 

1872 Ferdinand Luger Felix Koelmel John Satori. 

1872 Felix Koelmel J. T. Ginthner John Satori. 

1873 J. T. Ginthuer Godfrey Waelty John Satori. 

1873 Hermann Dieterle Mathias Pesch John Satori. 

1874 Mathias Pesch Peter Clavadetscher. . . .Phil Grub. 

1874 P. Clavadetscher <Fred Below Phil Grub. 

1875 Fred Below Peter Taverna H. Dieterle. 

1875 Peter Taverna Joseph Ginthner Paul Casparis. 

1876 Joseph Ginthner John Schermuly Paul Casparis. 

1876 John Schermuly Lucas Kuehn John Satori. 

1877 Hermann Dieterle Henry Burkhardt Phil Grub. 

1877 Henry Burkhardt Paul Casparis Wm. Riggert. 



718 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

YK.VK. XOBLK GRAND. VICE-GRAND. SEC. 

1878 John Satori C. E. Hermann Joseph Ginthner. 

1878 C. E. Hermann Wm. Ri<.'jiert Joseph (iinthner. 

1879 Wm. Riggert Henry Baumgarten Joseph Ginthner. 

1879 Henry Baumgarten John Liiger Joseph Ginthner. 

1880 JohnLuger Hermann Lessing Joseph Ginthner. 

1880 Lucas Kuhn Lorenz Miller H. Dieterle. 

1881 Lorenz Miller Edmund Giebel H. Dieterle. 

1881 Edmund Giebel Tlieo. Klein John Satori. 

1882 Theo. Klein Hermann Maniuard John Satori. 

1882 Hermann ]\Iarquard Carl Crebs Jos. Ginthner. 

1883 Carl Krebs H. Oswald los. Ginthner. 

Read's Landing Lodge^ No. 81, I.O.O.F. This subordinate 
'lodge of the Independent Order of Odd-Fellows is of recent institu- 
tion, having been established about two years and a half since. It 
works in the Englisli language and several of its members are from 
the city of Wabasha, two miles distant, the lodge of the order in that 
city conducting its work in the German language. Kead's Landing 
Lodge was granted its charter February 26, 1881, and was duly 
instituted four days later, March 2, 1881. The charter members, 
five in number, were H. Burkhardt, P. Casparis, J. S. Walker, W. 

B. Mohler, S. B. Withrow. Of these W. B. Mohler was N.G., 
J. S. Walker, V.G., and Paul Casparis, Sec. The first meeting 
was held in the hall of Burkhardt's block, and this has continued to 
be their place of meeting. The hall is centrally located, easy of 
access, comfortably furnished, and commodious. It fronts -twenty 
feet on Water street and has a depth of forty-five feet, ten feet of 
which arc partitioned ofi', in the rear, for anteroom. The meetings 
of the lodge are held each Wednesday evening and are well atteirded, 
particularly after navigation closes, as several of the members are 
rivermen. Read's Landing, No. 81 , has had a regular stead}^ growth 
since its institution, and now numbers forty-eight members. One 
death has occurred since organization, that of O. A. Olsen. The 
chairs and stations of the lodge-room are filled for the present 
quarter as follows : 

W. C. Piers, N.G. ; Bruce Florer, V.G. ; Paul Casparis, Sec; 

C. H. Crouse, Treas.; Godfried Burkhardt, Ward. ; Peter Gibson, 
Cond.; Henry Burkhardt, R.S.N.G.; William Cady, L.S.KG.; 
John Sanborn, R.S.Y.G.; O. F. Cpllier, L.S.V.G.; R. Watkins, 
R.S.S.; G. Burkhardt, L.S.S.; P. Peterson, O.G.; J. Johnson, 
I.G. ; E. J. Dugan, P. Petersen, William Cady, trustees. Henry 
Burkhardt was the first P.G. and has been D.D.G.M. since the 
institution of the lodge. 



SOCIETIES. 719 

Officers filling the three highest chairs in Eead's Landing Lodge, 
'No. 81, I.O.O.F., since its institution : 

YEAK. NOBLE GRAND. VICE GRAND. SEC. 

1881 W. B. Mohler J. S. Walker P. Casparis. 

1881 P. Casparis C. H. Grouse W. B. Mohler. 

1882 C. H. Grouse Peter Gibson R. G. Burkhardt 

1882 P. Gibson William Palmer R. G. Burkhardt" 

1883 J. S.Walker H. W. Black G. A. Hamilton' 

1883 W. C. Piers Bruce Florer P. Gasparis. 

KNIGHTS OF HONOR. 

Waiasha Lodge, No. 577, K. of II., was organized here April 5, 
1877, with ten charter members, who filled the various offices of the 
lodge for the first term of its existence. Names of charter members 
and designated offices being: F. H. Milligan, P.D.; J. G. Law- 
rence, D.; J. H. Mullen, Y.D.; G. A. McDougall, A.D.; H. K 
Smith, Chap.; E. Hogle, Keporter ; H. P. Kriek^ Fin. Kep.; W. S. 
McArthur, Treas. ; Jos. Buisson, Guardian ; W. J. Dazell, Sen- 
tinel. 

The Knights of honor is a fraternal association of about ten 
years' standing, its avowed objects being the mutual improvement 
of its members, mutual assistance in case of need, and the establish- 
ment, maintenance and disbursement of a fund for the benefit of the 
widows and orphans of deceased members. By the terms of its 
charter five thousand dollars is the limit it may pay of beneficiary 
money in any given case, but according; to the regulations of the 
supreme body only two thousand dollars is to be paid upon any full 
rate certificate, and one-half that amount upon a half rate. Assess- 
ments upon members are graded according to age, and the order 
has had a reasonably rapid growth. There is but one jurisdiction, 
and the whole order is assessed to pay death losses, without reference 
to grand lodge lines or limits. 

The first meetings of the Wabasha Lodge, K. of IL, were held in 
Masonic Hall, over Schwirtz' store, but the following year, 1877, the 
hall over J. Satori's store was rented and has been their place of meet-, 
ing ever since. Two deaths have occurred among the members of the 
lodge here since its institution seven years since ; its growth, how- 
ever, has been slow, as the present membership indicates twenty- 
nine. Eegular meetings are held the second and fourth Mondays of 
each month. The aftairs of the lodge are managed by the following 
board of officers : W. S. McArthur, P.D. ; Peter Munroe, D. ; H. N. 
Smith, A.D.; Peter Gibson, Y.D.; Frank Stuetzel, Eep.; John 



720 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Satori, Fin. Rep. ; W. S. McArthur, Treas., Robert Yan Dyke, 
Guide ; L. Pfeilsticker, Guardian ; L. C. Malin, Sentinel ; H. K 
Smith, Peter Gibson and John Schmidt, Trustees. TJie medical 
examiner is F. H. Milligan, M.D., and "W. S. McArthur is repre- 
sentative to grand lodge, with Joseph Buesson as alternate. 

EQUITABLE AID UNION. 

Wahasha Suhordinate Union^ No. '215^ of the E.A.U. was 
organized January 14, 1881, by E. G. Manley, Deputy Supreme 
President. The order has for its objects tlie benefit of its members 
socially and financially, the watch care over them in sickness, the 
performance of earth's last sad rites in case of death, and the pay- 
ment of such moneys to the family of a deceased member as they are 
entitled to by the terms of membe;\ship. All persons between the 
ages of sixteen and sixty-five years, of sound bodily health, are 
admitted to membership, irrespective of sex. The Wabasha Union 
was organized with eighteen charter members, and up to date of 
August 10, 1883, had initiated eighty-one members, of whom sixty 
were in good standing and entitled to all the benefits of the order 
at the date above noted. The Union cares for its members in case 
of sickness, providing watchers and otherwise exercising fraternal 
care over those who are sick, but does not pay any stipulated sum 
in such case, only contributing, as the lodge may determine, to the 
support of those who really require assistance at such times. So 
also in case of death, while no burial fund is provided for the inter- 
ment of deceased members, the general fund is drawn upon for burial 
expenses of those who could illy afford to have such expenses taken 
from the benefit fund to which they are entitled at death of such 
member. Benefits are rated according to amount of individual 
assessment each member elects to pay, and his age at date of initiation. 
The payments vary from twenty-five cents to one dollar per member 
]ier assessment, which is levied whenever there is less than three 
thousand dollars in the treasury of the supreme lodge, and the 
benefits accruing in case of death are from two hundred to three 
thousand dollars, according to age and class of assessment. Yearly 
dues are three dollars per member, and the annual death rate calls 
for about thirteen assessments every twelve months. The order 
meets a want, among those particularly who can only afford a small 
amount of insurance, and doubles that benefit by extending the pro- 
visions without regard to sex. Wabasha Union holds its meetings 




SAMUEL DOUGHTY 



PRESIDENT OF THE LAKE CITY BANK 



BUSINESS. 721 

in the hall in Satori^s block, corner of Pembroke and Main, which 
thej rent jointly with the Knights of Honor. The present officers 
of Wabasha Subordinate Union, No. 215, E.A.U., are: H. A. 
Chad wick, P.O.; T. H. Roundj, C; Bruce Florer, A.;' m' W 
Doud, P.; J. H. Piper, V.P.; H. P. Paine, Sec. ; Julius Schmidt, 
Act.; H. P. Whiting, Treas.; W. T. Lackey, Chap.; Lucas Piper, 
Aux.; Erick Kovde, Ward.; Emil Eichenberger, Sent; August 
Balow, Watch. ; S. G. Smith, Trustee ; F. W. Yan Dyke M D 
Med. Ex. ^ ' • V 



CHAPTEP LXIY. 

BUSINESS. 

WABASHA BUILDING AND LOAN ASSOCIATION. 

This association, having for its object the saving and loaning of 
moneys, to enable its members thereby to purchase lands and erect 
buildings for themselves, was duly incorporated under the provisions 
of the statute of the state, in such cases provided, May 5, 1S83, and 
the articles of incorporation filed with the secretary of state four 
days thereafter. The incorporators were thirteen in number : Mal- 
colm Kennedy, C. Jellison, H. B. Jewell, John Stewart, John 
Schwirtz, E. J. Dugan, F. J. Luger, Andrew Campbell, Peter 
Monroe, C. L. Chamberlain, J. PL Evans, John Gardner and John 
Lakey. The incorporators composed the official board and the 
directory. Malcolm Kennedy was chosen president ; C. Jellison, 
secretary; IL B. Jewell, treasurer; John Stewart, attorney. The 
rest of the incorporators formed the board of managers for the first 
three years from date of incorporation, and were divided into classes 
of three each, Messrs. Schurtz, Dugan and Luger serving for one 
year, Messrs. Campbell, Monroe and Chamberlain for two years, 
Messrs. Gardner, Evans and Lakey for three years. The legal exist- 
ence of the association was fixed at thirty years, commencing May 
24, 1883 ; Wabasha was made the principal place of business, and 
the maximum liability of the corporation fixed at one thousand 
dollars. 

The capital stock of the association was fixed at five hundred 
thousand dollars, to be issued as called for in shares of two hundred 
dollars each, each share taken to be paid for in monthly installments 
43 



722 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 

of one dollar each. The first series issued was one thousand shares, 
no new issues to be made witliin six months of the date of first series. 
Of this thousand composing the first series, seven hundred shares 
were taken within sixty days of issue, and the stock rose to a pre- 
mium of four per cent. The first loan of six hundred and twenty- 
five dollars brought seventy-five per cent, bid, the second loan of 
four hundred and ninety-five dollars brought one hundred and one, 
and the third loan of six hundred dollars was taken at one hundred 
and twenty-five. 

The meetings of the association are held in the rear room of the 
bank building, and its benefits seem fully appreciated by the mem- 
bers. The tax for incidental expenses is fixed at thirty cents per 
annum per share. 

AVabasha Mill Company was organized in September, 1S82, 
with a capital stock of seventy-five thousand dollars. The incorpo- 
rators were James G.' Lawrence (president), Lucas Kuelm, W. P. 
Dugan, H. P. Krick, L. F. Hubbard, P. A. Kichards (secretary 
and treasurer), and J. E. Young (head miller). The business of 
the company is the manufacture of flour, at this point. This indus- 
try was started as a partnersliip concern, in 1872, by Downer & 
Lowth, who erected the mill and conducted the business about five 
years, when they sold out to Messrs. J. G. Lawrence, W. H. Camp- 
bell and A. G. Foster. Mr. J. G. Lawrence became the sole owner 
by purchase in 1878, and managed its affairs successfully until the 
formation of the joint-stock company as above stated. The mill 
property is on the east half of block seventeen, corner of Second and 
Arch streets, and connected by spur track with the main line of the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. The mill is a solid stone 
structure three stories high, 36x40 feet, and having an addition on 
the west 26x60 feet, one story in height, containing the boilers and 
engine, rated at seventy-five horsepower. The mill, erected in 1872, 
was originally a burr mill with six run of stones, and had a capacity 
of nearly eighty barrels a day. Various improvements were intro- 
duced from time to time until 1881, when the whole mill was 
remodeled and made a full roller mill. By this change the capacity 
was increased to two hundred and twenty-five barrels a day, and 
their average daily product raised to one hundred and seventy-five 
barrels. The supply of wheat is largely local and is supplied by the 
company's elevators at Lake City and Wabasha. Market for flour is 
a home one, the reputation of their brands being such that the 



BUSINESS. 



723 



demand exceeds the supply, orders being principally from the river 
towns m Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa and up the 
Chippewa valley. The whole force of the mill is eighteen hands 

Early in August, 1SS3, the mill company broke ground for their 
new elevator, which adjoins the mill on the south. This is a solid 
stone structure, 36x46 feet, with side walls rising 45 feet and the 
whole surmounted by a cupola 24 X 12 feet. The storage capacity of 
the elevator will be twenty-five thousand bushels, and in it will be 
placed the machinery for cleaning grain heretofore occupying needed 
space m the mill building. This will materially increase tlie room 
for handling flour and conducting milling operations generallv and 
add much to the comfort of the millers and their assistants who 'have 
been confined to quite cramped quarters hitherto. The mill has been 
most successfully run, and during the past twelve months there has 
been scarcely an hour's intermission of the actual running time of the 
mill for changes or repairs. 

BANKING. 

The true inwardness of the early history of banking operations in 
the city of Wabasha is by no means easy to determine The 
attempts made by early financiers were not particularly fortunate in 
results to themselves, and in some cases equally disastrous to the 
community. Whether this condition of things arose from lack of 
capital, business capacity, or other causes over which the bankers 
who attempted to established business had no control, we cannot 
now say ; the flicts alone remain, that prior to 1872 no really success- 
banking house was established in Wabasha. The first attempt in this 
direction was made in May, 1857, at which time H. Rogers & Son 
opened a banking ofiice on the corner of Pembroke street and the 
Levee. Mr. Eogers was a prominent business man of Zanesville 
Ohio, who came west in the flush times of 1856, and had made some 
investments in St. Paul before coming to this city, in the spring of 
1857. He purchased quite freely of real estate here, paying wild- 
cat prices for lots to which he could subsequently gain no tide on 
account of the vexed question of half-breed scrip, and being squeezed 
m the financial crises of ] 858-9 closed his banking house, aban- 
doned all his property here and departed for St. Paul, having per- 
manently invested about seventeen thousand dollars in this city from 
which he never realized a dollar. 

For several years after the withdrawal of Rogers & Son from the 
business circles of Wabasha, no attempt was made to do a banking 



72-i HIS'n^RV OF WAUASIIA COUNTY. 

business liere, although tlie mercantile firm of Kepler & Jackson 
sold exchange on the eastern banks when such paper was demanded. 
Matters were in this condition until the spring of 1864, when W. W. 
Prindle (county treasurer) and N. F. -Webb (clerk of the district 
court) formed a partnership under the firm name of Prindle & Webb, 
and opened a banking office in a wooden building on the corner of 
Main and Alleghany streets, where Lucas Kuehn's drygoods house 
now is. The bank location was subsequently changed to the south 
side of Main street, where they fitted up the small building now 
occupied by James G. Lawrence as an oflice (between Alleghany 
and Walnut streets), and in this they conducted business several 
years. The firm as it originally stood was subsequently changed to 
Webb, Prindle & Chase, and finally became Webb & Co. The 
amount of capital invested in this business cannot now be ascer- 
tained. It is the impression among those best fitted to form a 
correct o])inion, that while the individual members of the house had 
a limited capital available for banking purposes, tliey were able to 
command unitedly a considerable sum, but this of necessity was 
only conjecture. The business was strictly private, and there was 
no means of knowing, then or now, the amount of capital employed. 
Webb & Co. continued in business until April 12, 1872, when the 
bank suspended payment, too thoroughly crippled to even attempt a 
settlement. An assignment was made to E. M. Birdsey, who, when 
the bank was declared bankrupt, was appointed assignee in bank- 
ruptcy for the settlement of the estate. The creditors subsequently 
received fifteen cents on the dollar, the liabilities aggregating thirty 
three thousand eighty-one dollars and thirty-one cents ; and thus 
closed the second chapter of banking history in Wabasha. 

About two months after the failure of Webb & Co., a banking 
house was opened in the Campbell block (on Main, a few doors 
west of Pembroke), by A. D. Southworth and W. J. Florer, under 
the firm name of A. D. Southworth & Co.; capital, ten thousand 
dollars. This banking establishment soon gained the confidence of 
the mercantile community, did a successful business, was subse- 
quently removed to the north side of Main street, just east of Pem- 
broke, and continued in business until the fall of 1881. W. J. Florer 
having died in August of that year, and A. D. Southworth being 
unable to attend to business through ill health, the banking house of 
A. D. Southworth & Co. dissolved, and the bank of Wabasha was 
organized as its successor, September 1, 1881. This was the first 



BUSINESS. • 725 

bank organized in this city under the state law. The incorporators 
of the bank of Wabasha were C F. Rogers, C. F. Young, L. S. 
Yan Vliet, A. D. Southworth, James G. Lawrence, W. S. Jackson, 
Knud Johnson, Dr. J. J. Stone, J. H. Evans, H. P. Krick, Samuel 
Huschj, Henry Funk, Mrs. C. E. Krick, Mrs. M. A. Florer, Mrs. 
A. L. Hills, Mrs. M. E. Wetherbee, Loring Ginthner, H. J. Whit- 
more and Lucas Kuehn. The capital stock was placed at fifty thou- 
sand dollars, of which one-half was paid in. W. S. Jackson was 
elected president, and held that office until his death in February, 
1882, when he was succeeded by Lucas Kuehn, the present presi- 
dent. Mr, Bruce Florer, who had been for some time cashier of the 
bank of A. D. Southworth & Co. , was elected cashier of the bank of 
Wabasha at its organization, and still retains that position. The 
present board of directors are Messrs. Lawrence, Van Vliet, Young, 
Krick and Johnson. The annual deposits aggregate one hundred 
thousand dollars ; the bank has a surplus of three thousand live- 
hundred dollars, and the semi-annual dividend is six per cent. 
October 1, 1882, the bank removed to its present central location on 
the north side Main street, midway between Pembroke and Alle- 
ghany streets, in the new building which the Oddfellows had just com- 
pleted at that time. The bank occupies the main floor 24x90, the 
banking office being in the front with directors' rooms in the rear. 
The office is well provided with all the conveniences, and safeguards 
against fire and violence, having a good fireproof vault and safes, 
with HalFs improved time-locks. At a meeting of the stockholders 
of the bank held June 30, 1883, it was decided to make a change in 
the condition and character of the bank, making it a bank of issue as 
well as of deposit and exchange. An application for a charter as a 
national bank, under the general banking law of the United States, 
was applied for and granted. 



CHAPTER LXY. 

MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 

The credit of tlie first settlement within the limits of this town- 
ship is unanimously ascribed to Ira O. Seelej, now a prominent 
citizen of Appleton, this state. It is said that Mr. Seeley visited the 
locality in the fall of 1854, and being pleased with the valley where 
Mazcppa village now stands, decided to squat upon a claim there, and 
to that end erected a bark shanty on the west side of the river, not far 
from the present site of the milldam. Returning to Wabasha for liis 
family, he became convinced, on reflection, that the valley of Trout 
Brook aflbrded greater advantages for general farming purposes ; so 
when he came on with his family next s])ring he located on section 5, 
where Daniel Mack now resides. Immediately after Mr. Seeley 
came Enoch Young, Joseph Fuller and G. C. Sleeper, all making 
claims on sections 4 and 5. In April of the same year came Joseph 
Ford and his son, Orville D., and 'George Maxwell; the last two 
named are still residents of the village, where O. D. Ford located at 
that time. During the same season the following located within the 
township : Anson L. Carrier, Nelson B. Smith, Turner Preble, 
Francis A. Stowell, John E. Hyde, Elijah Lont, J. B. Miller, James 
H. Sandford, Lewis Blunt, George Duncan, Charles Fox, Isaac 
Nicholls, George Bailey, and possibly others. 

The advantages of the water-power and town site were at once 
perceived by the Fords, who made their claims thereon. All of the 
west half of section 6 lying east and north of the river was by them 
])latted for a village. They offered the water-])Ower to Mr. Nicholls 
if he would build a mill thereon. The ofler was at once accepted, 
and pre])arations were immediately made for the erection of a saw- 
mill. This was set in operation during the winter, and timbers were 
at the same time prepared for a gristmill. William Amsbry became 
associated with Nichols in the construction of the gristmill, and 
subsequently bought out the latter. Amsbry <Sz Barber completed 
it and began business in the fall of 1S56. They were succeeded by 
Augustus Ambler, and the latter by the Forest Mills and Mazeppa 
Mill companies. 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 727 

A sawmill was built in the fall of 1856 on the main river, half a 
mile above the mouth of the north branch, bv Alexander Somers 
and Rhoderick Drinkwater, and set in operation the next spring. 
It was kept busy night and day cutting lumber for settlers' shanties. 
In December, 1857, Somers' body was found in the river. The 
verdict of the coroner's jury was that he did not come to his death 
by drowning. Foul play was suspected, but there was no evidence 
fastened to any one and the matter was dropped. From that time 
the mill was neglected, and the dam subsequently washed away. 

In the spring of 1857 a sawmill was built on Trout brook by 
Ralph Frasier on Sleeper's claim, section 9. After the settlers 
began to seek for pine lumber, the dam was neglected and washed 
away. The mill was purchased by A. H. Bright with the land on 
which it stands, and is now used by Bright's sons for the manufac- 
ture of beekeepers' supplies. They use steam to drive their 
machinery. 

In 1858 a distillery was built about halfway between the present 
upper and lower bridges in the village by Loyd, Robi & Franklin, 
and the manufacture of whisky was carried on there till 1862. I. 
T. Nichols then built farther up the stream and removed the 
machinery thither, and the first distillery was torn down. Nichols 
shortly built a mill on Trout brook. Augustus Ambler bought the 
distillery and tore out its machinery, which he removed to his mill. 
He paid eight hundred dollars for the property in order to stop the 
manufacture of whisky here, and refused to sell it, lest it be turned 
to the same use again. Beside being an ardent temperance advocate, 
Mr. Ambler was a firm observer of the sabbath, and would not 
permit the operation of his mill on that day. The Trout brook mill 
changed hands several times, and has long since been swept away 
by flood. There are but two mills now in the town, both within the 
village, and described below. 

In June, 1855, J. E. Hyde began the erection of a log building 
for a store and residence. This was completed in September, and 
he returned to Galena for his family and a stock of goods. These 
arrived on October 1, and from that time supplies were kept here 
for the convenience of settlers. Hyde's original building still stands, 
on the corner of First and Walnut streets, but has been clapboarded 
and finished inside, and none would suspect it is built of logs. 

The need of postal facilities was soon felt among so large a 
colony, and steps were taken to secure a postoffice. John E. Hyde 



728 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

was appointed postmaster, his commission bearing date January 2, 
1856, and the Dubuque and St. Paul stages were made to pass 
through Mazeppa and take and supply mail. 

Schools and churches were also very early provided for. 

In the summer of 1856 a school was maintained in the claim 
shanty of Mr. Hyde, on the south side of the river, with Mrs. 
Sidney Munson as teacher. Here the first religious service was 
conducted in July, ] 856, by Rev. Christopher McManus, a Metho- 
dist local elder, residing south of Pine Island. During the same 
season Rev. A. E. Standish preached in the mill. The first 
church edifice was that of the Congregationalists, built in 1869. 

In 1858 a large two-story frame school house was built at a cost 
of about seven hundred dollars, most of which was secured by 
subscriptions. The preparation of lumber and timbers was begun 
in the fall of 1857, and J. A. Martin, then operating the sawmill, 
cut it as part of his share in the cost. Various additions have been 
made, and there are now four departments, in which are instructed 
one hundred and seventy-five pupils. The principal receives a 
salary of sixty dollars per month. 

Early in the summer of 1856 a Sunda}' school was organized, 
with Francis M. Skillraan as superintendent. This was also held in 
Hyde's shanty, and formed the nucleus from which grew a large 
school. The place has never been without a sabbath school since. 
During the year 1858 a school was taught by Miss Huldah McManus 
(now widow of G. W. Fowler, residing at Lake City), in a log 
building erected for that purpose by the settlers in the valley of the 
Zumbro, on its western side, about a mile above the site of Somers 
& Drinkwalter's mill. The flood of 1859 swept this building away 
and it was never rebuilt. 

Lewis, son ot Francis A. Stowell, was born here in the fall of 
1855, and Roxie H., daughter of Enoch Young, was born Decem- 
ber 14 of the same year. These were doubtless the first children 
born to white parents within the township. Zarah Cornish, Jr., 
passed away June 1, 1856, and thus furnished occasion for the first 
funeral. 

The first town meeting under the state organization was held at 
the residence and hotel of Elijah Lont, in tlie village of Mazeppa, 
May 11, 1858, in common with all other townships. John A» 
Marten was made chairman, G. Maxwell was elected moderator 
and Charles F. Fox and H. M. Stanton clerks. The next annual 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 729 

meeting was there fixed, by a vote of twentj-nine to thirteen, at the 
residence of C. R Fox. One hundred and three votes were polled. 
For chairman, C. F. Fox had 57 votes ; F. A. Stowell, 46. For side 
supervisors, James 11. Sandford received 102 votes ; K. W. Drink- 
water 60; C. F. Fox, 40; scattering, 4. For town clerk, Ansel F. Fox, 
57 ; H. M. Stanton, 45. For assesssor, George W. Fowler, 98. For 
collector, Ansel F. Carrier, 102. Overseer of the poor, William A. 
Preble, 57 ; Otis K. Gould, 43. Constables, A. F. Carrier, 102 ; 
W. A. Preble, 59 ; Orville Ford, 9. Justices of the peace, Corjdon 
Avery, 60 ; John Reimund, 69 ; James Bent, James L. Bent, Ladd 
Robi and G. Maxwell, received each a number of votes. In each 
case, the persons, first named under the respective oflices are the 
ones elected. 

At a meeting of the supervisors on July 10, following, the town 
was divided into three road districts, the main and north branches 
of the Zumbro river making the dividing lines. At that time the 
whole of the government township was embraced in the organiza- 
tion, and this was a fair division. 

Tlie following list includes all the principal town oflicers for the 
several years following 1858, down to tlie present : 

YEAR. CHAIRMAN. SIDE SUPERVISORS. TOWN CLERK. 

1859. . . .Wm. H. Amsbry . .J. C. Fifield, Jas. L. Bent R. F. Maxwell. 

ISno. . . .1. O. Seeley John C. Fifield, R. J. Lord Ladd Robi. 

18G1. . . .0. I). Ford J. H. Sandford, 0. S. Smith Ladd Robi. 

1862 J. H. Sandford Geo. W. Fowler, F. A. Burdett. . . . W. B. Emmons. 

1863 J. H. Sandford Geo. W. Fowler, James A. Henry John A. Martin. 

1864. . . .1. O. Seeley L. J. Fifield, 1). W. Drinkwater .". .Frank Shepard. 

1864. . . .0. D. Ford P. Robinson, F. A. Stowell John A. Martin. 

1865 P. Robinson Oliver Smith, M. Redfield John A. Martin. 

1866. . . .1. 0. Seelev A. F. Fox, J. H. Sandford John E. Hyde. 

1867. . . .A. W. Mathews. . . A. F. Fox, L. J. Fifield John E. Hyde. 

1868. . . .William Robi A. F. Fox, Jonathan Davis John E. Hvde. 

1869. . . .L O. Seeley B. E. Low, Ziba Boiighton E. Skillman. ' 

1870 1. O. Seeley Pratt Drinkwater, Ziba Bough ton. E. Skillman. 

1871 . . . .Z. Bou^hton Geo. W. Fowler, W. W. Black E. Skillman. 

1872 A. F. Fox R. F. Maxwell, P. Drinkwater Tie vote. 

1873. . . .A. F. Fox R. F. Maxwell, Jas. A. Henry J. E. Hyde. 

1874. . . .0. S. Lont Chas. F. Fox, J. H. Sandford J. E. Hyde. 

1875. . . -A. F. Fox O. S. Lont, J. H. Sandford J. E. Hvde. 

1876. . . -E. V. Dickey Z. Boughton, J. H. Sandford W. W. Black. 

1877. . . .R. F. Maxwell . . . .A. F. Carrier, D. L. Philley J. S. Huntley. 

1878. . . .R. F. Maxwell . . . . A. F. Carrier, D. L. Philley E. F. Hopkins. 

1879. . . .G. Maxwell Orrin Bough ton, J. H. Sandford. . .E. F. Hopkins. 

1880. . . .D. L. Philley Orrin Bough ton, L. J. Fifield E. F. Hopkin.s. 

1881. . . .D. L. Philley Orrin Bouehton, L. J. Fifield E. F. Hopkins. 

1882. . . .D. L. Philley Orrin Bough ton, L. J. Fifield George Sandford. 

1883. . . .D. L. Philley A. W. Mathews, L. J. Fifield W. B. Smith. 



730 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

On December 9, 1865, at a meeting of tlie board, O. S. Lont was 
ap])ointed chairman, and G. W. Judd supervisor, to fill vacancies 
caused b}' resignations of Prosper Robinson and M. Redfield. 

It is evident that several of the officers elected at the regular 
town meeting in 1864 fiiiled to serve, as a second election was held 
in the May following. Their names are shown in the above table, 
with the exception of A. IT. Bright, who was elected assessor in 
place of L. B. Matthews. 

In 1866 Lyman E. Thorp was appointed supervisor in place of 
J. H. Sandford, who failed to serve. At tins meeting it was decided 
that two days' labor be required to pay each poll tax. 

At the town election in 1872 the vote on clerk, treasurer and 
constable was a tie, and the following persons were appointed to 
those offices in the same order: J. E. Hyde, G. Maxwell, 
Adelbert Randall. 

On April 22, 1876, a special election was held to vote on the 
question of voting bonds to the amount of twelve thousand dollars 
in aid of the Minnesota Midland railroad. A majority of sev.enty- 
eight votes was cast, out of a total of one hundred and thirty-six, in 
favor of the proposition. The road was built and operated in 
accordance with tlie conditions, and the bonds were issued. The 
bonds were to run twenty years, with the privilege of earlier 
payment. Nothing has yet been paid except interest. 

Three bridges are now maintained across the north branch of the 
Zumbro, one over Trout brook, and a joint bridge between Zumbro 
and Maze])pa towns, over the main Zumbro river. The latter is a 
combination of wood and iron, and cost forty-five hundred dollars. 
Two of the former are within the limits of Mazeppa village, which 
corporation furnished most of their cost. 

Elections have been held, from and including 1860, at the village 
of Mazeppa. An entry in the town records says: "By notice 
given, a special meeting was held August 20, 1864, for the purpose 
of voting a tax as a bounty for the payment of volunteers, which 
gave a majority for bounty of ten." 

A meeting was held in due form on January 23, 1865, at which 
a majority of eleven votes was cast in favor of "issuing orders 
against town for the pur])Ose of raising moneys to pay volunteers." 

An entry made in the town records October 12, 1865, reads : 
"The amount returned to county auditor to be assessed for bounty 
purposes, thirty-five hundred dollars." 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 731 

On the organization of the county under territorial administra- 
tion, Moses Hall was appointed justice of the peace for this precinct, 
and Enoch Young constable. The precinct included Chestei*, then 
called Bear Yalley. 

This region abounds in natural curiosities. Near the junction of 
Trout brook with the Zumbo river is a cave in the side of the bluff, 
on the farm of A. H. Bright. This is probably fifteen feet high and 
nearly as wide, extending thirty or forty feet into the ground ; a small 
passage at some distance above the floor of the cave runs back as 
much farther. The side, roof and walls of the cave are solid lime- 
stone rock and are covered with Indian hieroglyphics representing 
the leading birds, fish, and game animals of the region. There are 
numerous other characters whose significance is known only to a few. 
It is said by some of the early settlers that the Indians who remained 
here after settlement were made refused to enter the cave, saying 
" the devil lives there." It served as a shelter for some of the early 
prospectors after claims, and their horses. It was walled up by Mr. 
Frazier, who shortly came into possession of the claim on which it 
was situated, and has ever since served as an outdoor cellar. 

In the fall of 18S3 a well was dug in the rear of W. W. Day's 
livery barn on Walnut street, Mazeppa, and well preserved pieces of 
wood were taken from it at a depth of over forty feet. They appear 
to be some kind of willow, and the circumstances clearly show that 
an immense deposit of soil has been made since they grew. Roots 
and pieces of timber were encountered at various depths. Several 
similar discoveries have been made in digging wells in the vicinity. 

Mazeppa township is not essentially an agricultural one. By far 
the greater part of it was covered with a natural forest growth, and 
it still furnishes fuel for a large tract of adjacent country. Almost 
the first enterprises, as above related, were the erection of sawmills ; 
these have now disappeared and husbandry is the chief occupation. 
A goodly proportion of the surface has been cleared, and furnishes 
the best kind of field for the husbandman. With the home markets 
now supplied, Mazeppa offers an advantageous prospect to the 
farmer. 

The experiences of the last five years have taught the people of 
this region that grain-raising is a delusion, as the farmers' sole 
dependence. Stock-raising is steadily growing in favor, and swine 
are being quite extensively grown. During the month of September, 
1883, there were three severe, successive frosts, which completely 



732 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ruined tlie corn crop, and those who were de])ending hirgelj on 
hogs were severely pinched. This will discourage some, but as this 
was the first total failure of corn ever known here, this branch of 
agriculture will receive only a temporary check. Mr. E. F, Hopkins, 
of Mazeppa, is quite extensively engaged in breeding pure Berkshire 
swine, and is doing much to encourage stock-raising among farmers. 

MAZEPPA VII-LAGE. 

By an act of the state legislature during the session of 1866-7, 
section 6 of Mazeppa township was incorporated as a village under 
the same name. The organic act appointed E. L, Ford and N. J. 
Majerus as judges of the first election, and fixed March 17, as the 
date thereof. Accordingly on that day the legal voters assembled 
at Huntley's liall and proceeded to ballot in due form. There were 
eighty-six votes, and the following officers were elected : O. D. 
Ford, president ; P. Robinson, D. Van Vliet and Wells B. Smith, 
trustees ; George JNIaxwell, treasurer ; Wesley Kinney, recorder ; 
J. S. Huntley, justice ; Alvin Kinney, constable. 

The next election was held on the first day of 1878, resulting in 
choice of the following ofhcials, eighty-four ballots being cast : O. D. 
Ford, president ; P. Robinson, D. Van Vliet and E. S. Hyde, trus- 
tees ; W. Kinney, recorder ; G. Maxwell, treasurer ; D. A. Gilbert, 
constable. 

For the ensuing years the following were elected : 

1879— President, W. W. Day ; trustees, P. Birkenfurth, A. J. 
Taft, F. L. Boney ; recorder, J. W. Kingsley ; treasurer, G. Max- 
well ; constable, William Richlag. 

1880— President, W. W. Day ; trustees, A. J. Taft, M. Olsen, 
Peter Birkenfurth ; recorder, John W. Kingslev ; treasurer, G. Max- 
well ; justice, (3. S. Lont ; constable, F. Kinney. 

1881 — President, trustees and treasurer, same as previous year ; 
recorder, D. Van Vliet ; constable, H. Robinson. 

1882— President, N. C. Elston ; trustees, R. F. Maxwell, M. 
Olsen, J. H. Clear ; recorder, D. Van Vliet ; treasurei-, G. Max- 
well ; justice, O. S. Lont. 

1883— President, R. F. Maxwell ; trustees, P. Birkenfurth, W. 
B. Smith, E. F. Hopkins ; recorder, D. Van Vliet ; treasurer, Wm. 
D. Angell ; constable, W. M. Rice. 

In June, 1880, there being a vacancy in the office of village con- 
stable, John B. Gregoire was appointed to fill it. 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 733 

Three vacancies occurred after the election of 1S83. D. Yan 
Yliet resigned the office of recorder in Ajjril, and A. J. Myers was 
appointed in his place. The death of W. B. Smith caused the 
appointment of M. Olsen to the office of trustee in July. In Febru- 
ary, Frank Kinney was appointed constable, in place of W. M. Eice, 
who failed to qualify. 

At the first meeting of the village council, March 21, 1877, the 
license of liquordealers was fixed at one hundred dollars per annum, 
and it was resolved that licenses should be granted for no longer than 
three months at a time. 

On March 31, the road poll-tax of each citizen was fixed at two 
days' labor or three dollars in lieu thereof, and a property-tax of one- 
half per cent be assessed. An appropriation of seventy-five dollars 
was made for improving the road leading north in the village, on 
what is known as "Cemetery Hill.'' 

The ordinances in regard to sale of liquors have undergone many 
changes. At one time the yearly rate was fixed at $150. The 
recoi^ds show quarterly payments of $35, $37.50, $27.50, $2S and 
$25, at various periods in the village history. 

On April 25, 1879, by official action, a village prison was located 
on the northeast corner of lot 1, block 24, where a comfortable build- 
ing is now maintained for that purpose. 

A village park was established early, and is still maintained, 
south of and adjoining the school grounds. Cherry street intervening. 
At a meeting of the council in May, 1883, an appropriation of thirty- 
five dollars was made for the benefit ot the Mazeppa brass band. 
Concerts are given by said band at the park on summer evenings. 

At the same meeting, last above named, it was decided to pur- 
chase two hand fire extinguishers for the use of the fire brigade. At 
the meeting in February, 1883, A. J. Myers was made chief of the 
fire brigade, and all its members exempted from poll-tax. 

As above noted, the village is on the extreme western boun- 
dary of the county. The flat was at first bounded on the west by the 
Zumbro river, but in 1876 an addition was made by Ford and Wells, 
carrying it to the Goodhue county line. This western addition con- 
tains many fine residence sites, overlooking the village and valley. 
It is sometimes called Coopertown, trom the fact that the Mazeppa 
Mill Company's cooper shops are located on that side of the river, 
and many of the men there employed reside in that vicinity. The 
center of a line drawn from Red Wing to Rochester will locate this 



734 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

village on tlie map, being twenty miles from either point. A line 
drawn from here to Lake City and thence to Ked Wing will, with 
the iirst line named, enclose a nearly perfect triangle. 

From a description of the village and its business, written by 
E. F. Hopkins, and published in the Lake City "Sentinel" in the 
spring of 1S77, we make some extracts-: " Whether you approach 
the town from the north, east or west, you see a valley containing 
about two hundred acres, and a handsomer one you might go far to 
find. We consider the view from the hill north of the town the best. 
As you round the point of the hill on the Red Wing road, a full 
view is offered of the main street (First), the churches and the 
north and west part of the village, while only the southeastern por- 
tion is hid by the rise of ground upon which the land reserved for a 
park is located, known as ' Schoolliouse Hill.' 

"At your right is the mill-pond, now almost a lake, and farther 
down all the buildings of the Mill Company and the suspension 
bridge. 

' ' Twenty-two ^-ears ago [now twenty-eight], when Joseph Ford, 
in compan}' with his son Orville, saw this valley from the brow 
of the hill east of town, he said, 'We will go no farther; this 
valley shall be our home.' And so it has been to this day. 
[Joseph Ford has gone to his reward, but his son still remains.] 
Though nothing but oak brush could then be seen on the east side 
of the stream, and heavily-wooded timber land on the west for fifteen 
miles, yet he saw the prospect of health, wealth and happiness in 
the useful combination of wood, water and protection from cold 
and storms which the timber would give to a home here. Since 
that time the bulk of the timber has been remcn^ed in the immediate 
vicinity of town ; yet still enough remains to satisfy the market, 
while probably not less than five thousand cords have been taken 
from these woods the present reason. Prices have ranged this 
winter from one dollar and a half to two dollars for hard wood, 
which does not show a scarcity of fuel at present. [The deep snow 
of 1882-3 interfered a great deal with the operations of wood-cutters, 
and at this writing — fall of 1883 — prices are about double those 
quoted by Mr. Hopkins. Many people, in both town and countr}-, 
are adopting coal as a heating agent.] 

"Not until the year 1870 did the village begin to attract atten- 
tion from outside the circle of its regular trade, and for this reason 
no great effort had been put forth by its citizens to attract attention 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 735 

and trade or promote its growth. The immense water-power, which 
all knew to be ot great vahie to the town, had never been nsed to a 
tenth of its capacity. The fact was apparent that much would 
depend upon the improvement of the Zumbro, and the success of 
the Mazeppa Mill Company was eagerly watched and talked of by 
all. During the winter of 1675-6 this was the theme of conversation 
by citizen and stranger, and all looked for business to revive and 
take a grand stride forward. Progress has been so marked and 
rapid that all must admit we have not looked in vain, and the 
Mazeppa of today is far in advance of the village of a few years ago. 
Our property holders are firm and do not seem anxious to transfer 
title, and we venture to assert that not more than five thousand dol- 
lars' worth of real estate has changed hands inside of or adjoin- 
ing the town plat during the year, while many inquiries are made 
for lots and lands by parties who could purchase for cash." At 
this time houses for rental are in great demand, and every boarding- 
place is full. Not an empty store or business stand can be found, 
and building operations are numerous and active. 

During the year 1876 the buildings and improvements of the Mill 
Company cost sixty thousand dollars, and those of other parties 
made a total of eighty thousand eight hundred and fifty dollars. 
During the same year a business of three hundred and forty-six 
thousand seven hundred dollars was transacted in the following 
lines ; drygoods stores, 3 ; groceries, 5 ; clothing, 3 ; boots and 
shoes, 4; drugs, 2; hardware, 2; furniture, 2; confectionery, 7; 
shoemakers, 2 ; blacksmith-shops, 2 ; tinsmith, 1 ; harness-shop, 1 ; 
wagon-shop, 1 ; lawyer, 1 ; hotelkeeper, 1 ; physician, 1 ; meat 
market, 1 ; livery stable, 1 ; millinery stores, etc. 

The business of the Mill Company alone furnishes one hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars of the above total. At that time the 
capacity of the mills was one hundred and fifty barrels per day. 
Eleven coopers were employed, and all flour was transported by 
wagon to Lake City for shipment. 

The principal business of the village is now transacted by the 
following establishments : Mazeppa Mill Company, making six hun- 
dred barrels of flour per day ; four general stores, where are retailed 
dry goods, clothing, groceries and boots and shoes ; three groce- 
ries, one of them also carrying footwear ; two drug stores, one com 
plete hardware store and tinshop, two shoeshops, two blacksmith- 
shops, one wagon-shop, one tailor, one hotel, one law office, 



736 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

one livery stable, two warehouses and grain elevators, and five 
saloons. A custom flourmill is in course of construction, and will 
be in operation with four sets of bulirs before this reaches the eye of 
the reader. There is also a stone-quarry and limekiln within the 
village limits. 

CHURCHES. 

The earliest church organization was a class of the Methodist 
Episcopal church, under the auspices of Presiding Elder N. Hobart, 
of Winona. Rev. J . W. Rogers had a circuit including this charge. 
A. E. Standish was the local elder, and F. S. Skillman class- 
leader. There were eight members in the first class, as follows: 
Francis S. and Julia Skillman, James and Mary Ann Jackson, 
James Standish, Mary McLeach, Alvin Stoddard and Thurza Fraser. 
While other sects harve multiplied in numbers, death and removals 
have diminished this flock of believers. Four communicants of the 
church now remain, namely, Mr. and Mrs. J. B. McManus and daugh- 
ter Loa, and Miss Salome Stoddard. 

To the Congregational society belongs the honor of erecting the 
first church edifice. This was completed in 1869, at a cost of 
thirty-five hundred dollars. Its dimensions on the ground are 
50 X 32 feet, and it has seating capacity for two hundred and fifty 
persons. The society was first organized under the ministration of 
Rev. Henry Willard, May 17, 1860, including the following per- 
sons : Ezra and Asenath Robinson, Anna Stowell, Charles H. and 
Rosina L. Goodell, Eliza J. Day, Nellie G. Ormsby, Eliza A. Hyde 
and Freeman Pearson. The first ordinance of baptism was admin- 
istered to Freeman Pearson and Rosina L. Goodell ; all the others 
being admitted on the recommendations furnished them by their 
respective churches from whence they came. Charles H. Goodell 
was elected deacon and treasurer, and Freeman Pearson clerk. 
Since Mr. Willard's pastorate the following have served as pastors : 
Warren Bigelow (died here), J. E. Burbank, E. P. Deeda, J. B. 
Ladd, S. H. Barteau, Wm. M. Weld, H. K. Painter, N. H. Pierce 
and Bradshaw. 

A Sunday school has been kept up, and now numbers about eighty 
members, presided over by S. H. Wyatt. 

The society now includes thirty resident members, and is steadily 
carrying on its work. The church stands on the southeast corner of 
AYalnut street and Broadway, fronting the latter and overlooking 
the business part of the village. 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 737 

The Catholic Mission Church of St. Peter mid St. Paul was 
organized as early as 1867 by Rev. Father Stariha, of Red AVing, 
and lie continued to visit the charge at intervals till the summer of 
1878. At this time the mission was attached to Belle Chester 
church (in Belvidere, Goodhue county), and the several pastors there 
have ministered to the spiritual wants of this people. From 1878 
to September, 1881, Father John Meyer presided, and was suc- 
ceeded at that time by the present priest, Rev. Jolm Tori. When 
organized, the flock was small and scarcely able to build a cliurch. 
During the same year of its inception, however, a small edifice was 
erected — the bulk of its expense being contributed by one member, 
Peter Clemens — and was used for public worship until 1870, when 
the present handsome structure was completed. Its cost was fifteen 
hundred dollars. It stands on the east side of and fronting First 
street, just north of the railroad track. Large grounds surround it, and 
it is thronged with people at the bimonthly services. Owing to 
demands upon his time at Belle Chester, Father Tori is able to hold 
only one Sunday service here per month, the otlier being on 
Thursday. The cemetery of this body is north of the village, on a 
bluff running down to the riverside. At the present time there are 
forty families in communication with this church. 

Free -Will Baptist Church. — In March, 1880, Rev. J. N. 
Haskell organized a society of Free-Will Baptists here, this faith 
liaving been cherished by a few for many years. The following 
persons formed the original class: Charles and Jane Troxell, Wilson, 
Mrs. Mary and Miss Jane Hutchins, Elmer and Flicebe Stotts, James 
and Angeline Oliver, W. W. and Eliza Dean, and Misses Emma, 
Minnie and Lydia Dean, Rosa and Flora Oliver and Martha Harrison. 
Services were held in the schoolhouse, where the first quarterly 
meeting was held in 1881. During this year a church edifice wns 
begun on the corner of Broadway and Chestnut streets, fronting the 
former, and was completed next season at a cost of about eight hun- 
dred dollars. It is a plain and neat appearing frame building, with 
room for one hundred and fifty people within its walls. Mr. Willard 
was succeeded by Rev. E. J. Keville, who remained a year. There 
is no pastor at present. A sabbath school has been kept up ever 
since the organization of the society. It was at first under the supei-- 
intendence of Miss Emma Dean, who was succeeded by the present 
superintendent. Miss Loda McManus. 



44 



738 niSTORV of wabasha county. 

SOCIETIES AND ORDERS. 

The first secret society organized here was the masonic. On 
January 11, 1871, this lodge was instituted with fourteen charter 
members. The organization was christened Tyrian Lodge, No. 86, 
and E. W. Kobi was designated as Master ; James Oliver, Senior 
Warden, and James Maxwell, Junior AVarden. The other members 
were as follows : E. Skillman, A. J. Taft, W. M. Evans, George B. 
Franklin, M. Skillman, Ziba Bonghton, G. W. Judd, O. D. Ford, 
E. W. Ford, W. W. Black, W. W. Day. Some work had been 
previously done by Masons resident here, under a dispensation from 
the grand lodge. During the existence of this organization eighty- 
nine persons have been in full membership, and over sixty now 
retain their standing. With the large number of removals that 
characterize this region, this is an excellent showing for thirteen 
years of work. In 1874 the lodge built a hall for its use, on the 
east side of First street, between Walnut and Chestnut. It consists 
of one story built above a store, and cost over five hundred dollars. 
Considerable furniture has been added to the room, and the lodge is 
in fine working shape. The ofHcers for the term closing December 
1, 1883, were: G. Maxwell, W.M.; G. W. Hall, S.W.; A. J. 
Myers, J.W.; H. Hallaway, treasurer; J. B. Gregoire, secretary; 
E.' S. Hyde, S.D.; A. J. Taft, J.D.; S. H. Wyatt, Chaplain; A. 
Marshall, Tyler. 

I. O.O.F.— On August 6, 1879, a lodge of the Independent 
Order of Odd-Fellows was instituted here, to be known as Mazeppa 
Lodge, No. 71. The following were named as charter members and 
held the offices of the lodge as here noted : S. Phillips, N.G. ; F. 
L. Boney, Y.G.; M. Schrani, secretary; G. W. Judd, treasurer; 
E. W. Black and James Hickox. At the second meeting other 
officers were installed as follows : C. C. Emery, Warden ; R. A. 
Johnson, C; E. W. Black, LG.; W. King, >v.S. N.G. ; Alvin 
Kinney, L.S.N.G.; R. Black, R.S.\^G.; J. B. Gregoire, L.S.Y.G.; 
William Ritschlag, R.S.S.; Daniel Macky, L.S.S. 

During the existence of the lodge twenty-nine persons have been 
connected with it, and twenty-two are now in active communication. 
A neat hall is rented and fitted up comfortably for lodge meetings, 
which occur every Tuesday evening. For its age and the popu- 
lation of the town, this lodge is doing well. 

I.O.G.T. — An organization of this order has been three times 
effected here, but it has twice died out through lack of interest. The 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 739 

present lodge is a very efficient and prosperous one. It was insti- 
tuted on January 31, 1883, under tlie auspices of Col. J. T. Long, 
state organizer. There were forty charter members, with officers, as 
follows: W. W. Day, P.W.C.T.; S. H. Wyatt, W.C.T.; Clara 
Preston, W.Y.T.; W. H. Day, W.K.S.; Murray Philley, W.F.S.; 
D. L. Philley, W.T.; J. B. McManus, W.C; Hazen Runnells, 
W.M.; Mary Marshall, W.I.G.; L. S. Judd, W.S.; Lodge Deputy, 
Lucy J. Bigelow. For a month the lodge meetings were held in the 
Baptist church, and ever since the lodge has met every Wednesday 
evening in Odd Fellows' hall. The membership has steadily 
increased until it now numbers seventy-two, with finances in excel- 
lent condition. The officers for the current term, ending January 
51, 18S4, are: Charles Woodworth, W.O.T.; Mrs. Cliff, W.V.T."; 
Rachael Phillips, W.R.S.; W. H. Day, W.F,S.; Julia Hyde, W. 
T.; Carrie Day, W.C; J. W. Turner, 'w.M.; I^ora Judd, W.LG.; 
Wilford McManus, W.S. 

Women'' s CJwistlan Tenirperance Union. — This was first organ- 
ized on April 15, 1878, with eighteen or nineteen members, and had 
at one time thirty-five. The last meeting under this organization 
was held in April, 1879. On September 2i, 1881, a new start was 
made, with the original number, and a good work is being accom- 
plished in the distribution of temperance literature, and upbuilding 
and fostering a right public sentiment. There are now twenty- 
'Cight members of the union, with the following officers : President, 
Miss Julia R. Hyde ; vice-presidents. Miss Lucy Bigelow and Mrs. 
J, E. Hyde ; recording secretary. Miss Eliza Hyde ; corresponding 
secretary, Mrs. Ed . JN^oonan ; treasurer, Mrs. W. W. Day. 

A reform club was at one time maintained here, but long since 
■disbanded, and its records have been destroyed or mislaid. 

A lodge of the Sons of Temperance also existed over two years, 
into which over a hundred members in all were initiated. No 
records of either v>f these organizations can now be found. 

On January 8, 1878, a lodge of the Ancient Order of United Work- 
men was instituted, and started off' under very favorable prospects, 
but so many of its members shortly removed as to very materially 
weaken it, and it was abandoned. 

MILLS AND WAREHOUSES. 

The leading industry of the village is the manufacture of fiour, 
carried on by the Mazeppa Mill Company, This corporation was 
organized under the laws of the state in 1871, with a capital of one 



740 HISTORY OF WABASHA COrNTY. 

liundrecl and seventy-five tliousand dollars. The water-power and 
buildings were purchased from a part of the cor})orator8, and large 
improvements were at once instituted. The companj^ was composed 
of four individuals, L. F. Hubbard (now governor of the state) was 
president and treasurer, O. D. Ford secretary, and W. S. Wells 
general manager. The other partner was W. P. Brown, and all 
save the secretary were residents ot Eed Wing. A dam of twenty- 
six feet depth was built in and upon solid rock, and a frame mill 
was built, 56x72 feet in size and four stories high. The Zumbro 
furnishes a steady supply of water sufficient to run eight sets of 
buhrs, and these were placed in the mill, with all the necessary appli- 
ances necessary for iirst-class merchant milling, and a capacity of 
one hundred and seventy-six barrels per day was thus secured. In 
1878 an addition 60x70 feet in size was made for engine and boiler 
rooms. A Hari-is Corliss engine of two hundred and twenty ho]-se- 
power and three boilers are now used in connection with the watei- 
power to drive the machinery. In 1881 the buhrstones were 
removed, and there are now in operation thirty-eight sets of rollers 
for making patent flour, of which all but one set are double, making 
really seventy-live sets. During the season of 1883 an elevator 
was erected east of and close by the mill, with capacity of one hun- 
dred thousand bushels. This is covered with sheet iron to protect 
it from sparks. About three thousand bushels of wheat are now 
daily consumed by this mill and turned into six hundred barrels of 
flour. The product of this mill is largely shipped direct to London, 
Liverpool and Glasgow. The principal home market is in the New 
England States. One hundred standard-gauge cars are owned by 
the company, which has ten elevators and warehouses along the 
valley of the Zumbro, and furnishes the bulk of freight traffic for the 
narrow gauge railroad in the shipment of grain and flour. 

During the season of 1883, a custom mill was built at the south 
end of the village by Turner J. Preble and Alonzo Comstock. This 
building rests on a S])lendid stone basement, and is 32x40 feet in 
area, with twenty foot posts. It is the intention to do only a cus- 
tom business, and four sets of buhr stones are being placed in 
position at this writing. Ground was flrst broke for the dam in 
March, 1883. It stands on outlot 1, of Hyde's addition to Mazeppa. 
The dam is seven and one-half feet high, and sufficient fall is secured 
in the flume to give a ten-foot head of water. The mill stands far 
above the level of the river, at the brow of a steep bank, and the 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 741 

power is conveyed from the wheel to the machinery by means of a 
wire cable. This will be a great convenience to the farmers of the 
vicinity, as the other mill does only a merchant business. 

In 18 78 Prosper Robinson built a warehouse for storing grain 
near the railroad track, south of the depot. This building was 
60X30 feet on the ground. In 1883 it was raised and elevating 
machinery put in, and it now has storage for thirty-five thousand 
bushels of grain. Mr. Robinson and the mill company purchased 
all the grain brought in, making business very lively during the fall 
season. Ever since the advent of tlie railroad in 1878, and in fact 
before that time, this has been a better market for the sale of wheat 
than Rochester, and has drawn a large trade from Olmsted county. 

BRASS BAND. 

In November, 1880, a musical society, or cornet band, was 
oi-ganized, partly for amusement and mutual improvement. There 
were twelve members at first, and, although changes have occurred, 
that number is still maintained. Under the leadership of George 
AVestphall and business management of John W, Kingsley, it has 
made steady advancement and is a source of gratification and pride 
to our citizens. Weekly practice is kept up, and aid and encourage- 
ment from the people is earned and received. 

NEWSPAPER. 

In the fall of 1877 the publication of the Mazeppa "Tribune" 
was begun by Schram & Clark, the first issue bearing date November 
3. In a little over four months Matthias Schram became sole pro- 
prietor, and has so continued ever since. From the beginning the 
paper has been an eight-column folio, one-half printed at home, and 
will compare favorably in appearance and ability with country journals 
throughout the land. Mr. Schram is a practical printer of many years' 
experience in Chicago, and when his ire is aroused by any of his 
contemporaries, they find his mettle has the true ring. The begin- 
ning of this venture was made with second-hand type, and has now 
been supplied with a neat dress. A building has been erected for 
an office by the proprietor, in which he is comfortably established. 

Some of the incidents related by early settlers may not be out of 
place here. 

The survey of the village plat of Mazeppa was begun soon after 
the site was located by the Fords. G. Maxwell was employed for 
this labor. During the summer the subdivision of the county was 



742 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

completed by government surveyors, and Mr. Maxwell's lines were 
found to vary but a trifle from the variation used by the United 
States survey, and they still stand. 

During the summer of 1855 Messrs. Ford and Maxwell staked 
out a road to Ked Wing. The stakes were made of saplings and 
peeled, so that one could be seen in daytime from the location of its- 
nearest neighbor. Thus it was comparatively easy to find the way 
across the prairie. In the succeeding fall, I. T. Nicholls set about 
the erection of a mill, and to this end employed Mr. Maxwell to go- 
to Red AVing after lumber. Maxwell reached Red AVing one after- 
noon in time to get a load on his wagon ready for a start in the 
morning. During the night a heavy rain fell, and next morning 
both load and roads were heavy. With two yokes of oxen he set 
out on the return to Mazeppa. At dark he had covered two-thirds 
of the distance, and found his wagon stuck fast in a slough. In 
making an extra effort to move the load the tongue of the wagon was 
broken, and no tools or material for repairs were at hand. In this 
dilemma Maxwell set out to reach home with the oxen, leaving the 
wagon and load. But now a new difficulty arose. The stakes that 
guided his course were not visible in the darkness, and he was 
several times at a loss as to directions, and nearly the whole night 
was consumed in reaching home. Next day he returned with means 
for repairs and succeeded in reaching Mazeppa with the load. Kot 
a house was to be seen on the way, and the traveler was obliged in 
those days to depend wholly on his own resources. 

G. W. Fowler was among the earliest settlers. On one occasion 
he killed a fine deer and proceeded to carry the carcass home. On 
the way he was pursued by wolves, and was compelled to abandon 
the venison to them in order to save himself. The first coffin made 
in the town was ])ut together for an Indian by Mr. Fowler. 

GOLD MINING. 

The famous ''gold diggings" that caused so much excitement 
along the Zumbro, in 185S-9, were located in this town. The base 
of operations was atOronoco, in Olmsted county, where a mining com- 
pany was formed. In 1856 gold was discovered on the river bank 
by Holden Whipple, who lived near the junction of the north 
branch with the main stream. Search showed the existence of 
minute particles of the precious metal all along the stream, and a 
considerable quantity was found to exist in the village of Oronoco. 



MAZEPPA TOWNSHIP. 743 

In the fall of 1858 a company was organized for the purpose of 
systematic mining, and sluices were erected on section 22. 
Here was found a large deposit of clay in the narrow river valley, 
which yielded a good percentage of "shot gold." By the time the 
works were ready for operation winter closed in, and a long period 
of impatient waiting was imposed on the sanguine miners. But their 
patience was destined to be still more highly taxed, for the melting 
of the snow in the spring following raised the river very high, and 
their handiwork was swept away by the remorseless Zumbro. Their 
courage was, however, unshaken, and the company was reorganized 
with additions to its membership and capital. ^More extensive 
improvements were at once planned and begun, and by the end ot 
June were ready for business. Everything was completed on a cer- 
tain Friday night, and most of the proprietors retired to Oronoco to 
rest and prepare for pushing the work on the following Monday. A 
few of the most enthusiastic or industrious remained over Saturday 
to set the work going. That night the sluices were cleaned up, and 
something over twenty dollars' worth of gold was taken out. Alas ! 
how mutable are earthly things ! 

" The best laid plans o' mice and men 
Gang Aft aglee." 

" On Monday morning the memorable flood of July 3, 1859, had 
arrived, and the works of the "Oronoco Mining Company" were 
swept entirely away. The courage and resources of most of the 
miners having now been exhausted, the work was abandoned, and 
has thus since rested. There is no doubt that a large deposit of gold 
exists somewhere on the Zumbro river, and could its original hiding- 
place be found, a fortune would be secured to the lucky discoverer. 
It is also quite certain that fair compensation could be wrung from 
the auriferous earth of Mazeppa township, by concerted labor with 
proper appliances. 

The great flood of 1859, above referred to, caused great sufl:ering 
and hardship all along the stream. Considerable manufacturing 
machinery was swept down from Oronoco. The approach of the rise 
was so sudden and rapid that many settlers along the river bottoms 
were unable to save anything. G. W. Fowler left home in the 
morning and returned shortly after noon. His house, which stood on 
a knoll, was entii'ely surrounded. The boat, moored by a chain on 
the river bank, was still there, but in a vertical position, the stem 



744 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

being just visible above the seetliing waters. After diving in 
vain two or three times to unfasten it, he succeeded in breaking the 
chain and removed his family to a place of safety. Numerous 
other settlers fared in a similar manner. 

A sad accident occurred in the fall of 1856, at the "Whipple 
Ford," a short distance below the mouth of the north branch, A 
stranger who was traveling with a gun was set over the river in a 
l)oat ; on reaching-the shore he seized the gun by the muzzle and 
drew it toward him ; the hammer caught on the edge of the boat, 
discharging the load into his body. The ferryman hastened to 
Mazeppa after Dr. Lont, but when the latter heard his description 
of the wound he declined to go, for the injured man would be dead 
ere they could reach him, and so it proved. 

An incident in the experience of Dr. Lont will illustrate the 
severity of the winter of 1856-T. One day he set out with a team 
to visit a patient seven miles away across the prairie. A furious 
snowstorm came on and he succeeded in going only four miles and 
was housed up four days. At the end of this time, with assistance, 
he was able to make his way througli the drifts back to Mazeppa. 
In the meantime he had not seen the patient, and the feelings of his 
wife, who was at home alone and knew nothing of his whereabouts, 
cannot be easily imagined. 



CHAPTER LXVI. 
c;hester township. 

This township is probably as ha})pily situated for the agriculturist 
as any to be found in the state. The Zumbro river crosses its south- 
west and southeast quarter- sections ; on theformer corner there is no 
timber save a small grove of second-growth. In the southeastern 
])ortion of the town there are several fine groves. The general con- 
figuration is quite uneven, the region being traversed by numerous 
valleys, but a rich prairie loam covers the whole and affords a hand- 
some return to the tiller of the soil. A deep valley tributary to the 
Zumbo, with its several branches, drains the whole surface. Through 
this valley a bear was pursued b}^ the early settlers, and the region 
became known as Bear Valley, a name by which the only i^ostofRce 



CHESTEK TOWNSHIP. 745 

is still known. When the town was organized, on the admission of 
the state, its present name was attached. The postoffiee was estab- 
lished in 1856, with Joseph Caswell as postmaster, and was sup- 
plied by the Wabasha and Faribault stage line for some time. Mail 
is now received twice a week by the Lake City and Mazeppa stage 
route. Mr. Caswell kept the office six years, after which it was held 
by the following persons in succession, the last having held it since 
February, 1879 : Silas Cross, James M. McMillan, C. M. Bontelle, 
E. H. Smith, William Morris, Charles E. Buckminster. 

A permanent settlement was made here" previous to any in 
Mazeppa. During the winter of 1851—5 a party of St. Paul gentle- 
men who were out on a trapping, hunting and fishing expedition, 
encamped on Trout brook in the southwestern part of the town. 
x\mong the number was James M. Kimble, who was so pleased 
with the stream, filled with fine trout, that he determined to settle 
there. On returning to St. Paul he secured tools and supplies and 
set out with only one companion to establish a claim. There were 
hundreds of men at Ked Wing waiting for the snow to settle, but 
Mr. Kimble and his companion pushed on. They lived two weeks 
in a cloth tent on the banks of the creek, while getting out material 
and building a cabin. Thus a claim was established in February, 
on the northwest quarter of section 30, and here Mr. Kimble 
brought his family in April following. The next settler was probably 
O. Maxwell, now in Mazeppa, followed by Peter Bouillard, an 
Alsatian Frenchman, who still lives on his original claim, on section 
28. He came in May, and during the same month came Joseph 
Caswell and four sons— Joseph, Jesse, Cyrus and Hiram ; Edward 
Hunt, William Washey, William Davis, and two sons — Robert and 
James ; Daniel Slayraaker and two sons— Reuben and Henry ; 
Greenberry Triplett. This year also saw the arrival of Francis 
Jerry, W. W. Day, G. W. Judd, Wells B. Smith and Thomas 
Cliff. 

Attention was early given to religion and education. There 
were two local elders of the Methodist Episcopal church in the town 
in 1856, namely, A. E. Standish and Greenberry Triplett. Meet- 
ings were held under the leadership of these gentlemen during the 
year 1856 in Joseph Caswell's house. About the same time, or 
early in 1857, Rev. Ralph Frasier, a local elder ]-esiding in Mazeppa, 
preached at the same place. To Mr. Standish is given the credit of 
preaching the first sermon in the town. During the winter of 1856-7 



746 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Sidney Cross taught a rate school in Caswell's house. During the 
following winter timbers were got out, and in the spring of 1^58 
Bear Valley schoolhouse was erected. It was a log structure and 
stood on the site of what is now known as Bear Valley schoolhouse, 
adjoining the cemetery. At the town meeting, April 5, 1864, an 
appropriation of thirty dollars was voted to establish this cemetery. 

Isadore, son of Francis and Elizabeth Jerry, was probably the 
first Caucasian child born in Chester, his birth dating May 13, 1857. 
He is now in Washington Territory. 

In June, 1857, a- daughter was born to Nelson B. and Margery 
Smith, and christened Lottie Ann. She is now the wife of John 
McCabe, and resides in the town. 

On July 14, 1856, Cyrus L. Caswell and Margaret Jenkins, of this 
town, were united in marriage at Mazeppa. This is the earliest 
marriage of Chester's citizens. In the fall of the same year two 
persons, Edward Hunt and Sarah Wasliey, agreed to live together 
as man and wife, and had a contract drawn up to that effect. I. T. 
Kicholls, of Mazeppa, executed and witnessed this unique document. 
The contractors lived an apparently happy life till Hunt entered the 
army, four children having been born to them in the meantime. 
On his return from the war Hunt was disowned by his quandam 
ostensible spouse, who subsequently married another man, and now 
resides in Missouri. 

The month of May, 1857, also dates the first death in the town. 
At tliis time a ten-year-old daughter of William Davis, named Agnes, 
passed away. 

The town was politically organized, under the name of Chester, 
May 11, 1858. The meeting was held at the house of Joseph Cas- 
well, Jr., and the following officers were chosen for the ensuing 
year : chairman, F. M. Skillman ; associate supei'visors, R. II. 
Davis and Jesse M. Caswell ; clerk, John A. Slaymaker ; he soon 
resigned and S. J. Buckminster was appointed November 11 ; 
assessor and collector, John Rawalt ; overseer of the poor, Wells 
Smith; constables, R II. Davis and E. W. Hunt; justices, Alfred 
Ambler and J. A. Skillman. N. B. Smith was appointed collector 
November 16. 

On April 5, 1859, the second town meeting was held at Bear 
\\alley schoolhouse, and thirty-two votes were cast. A committee 
was chosen to draft bj^-laws in relation to the restraint of stock, and 
report at the next town meeting. F. M. Skillman, S. J. Buck- 



CHESTER TOWNSHIP. 747 

minster and Joseph Caswell, Sr., constituted tliis body. Joseph 
Spaulding, T. J. Cliff and James O. Wilcox were made overseers of 
road districts 1, 2 and 3 respectively. The supervisors that year 
were F. M. Skillman, Henry Slaymaker and T. J. Cliff". S. J. Buck- 
minster was clerk until his death, which occurred May 3, 1861. 
Robert H. Davis was appointed to fill the vacancy for that year. 

At the third annual meeting, 1860, Y. B. Conklin was chosen 
school superintendent. The supervisors that year were R H. Davis, 
G. Maxwell and N. B. Smith. Fifty votes were found in the ballot 
box. 

In 1874 W. H. Campbell moved away and C. A. McKean was 
appointed clerk in his stead. October 10, 1876, W. C. Prescott was 
appointed clerk, and has held the office continuously since. 

At the presidential election in 1880 the republican electors 
received ninety-seven votes in the town, and the democrats had one 
hundred and three. This most nearly represents the present politi- 
cal feeling of the voters of any data now to be found. At the fall 
election in 1882 but eighty-seven votes were cast, of which the 
democratic candidate for congress received fifty-eight and the 
republican twenty-nine. Local prejudices affected this election. 

No draft was resorted to during the civil war to fill out the quota 
of Chester in the United States army, but some very high bounties 
were paid. On February 23, 1864, the town board appropriated one 
hundred and fifteen dolhirs and ten per cent interest to each volun- 
teer w^ho was accredited to the town. This move was made neces- 
sary to avoid a draft, and sufficed for the time. In the autumn of 
the same year, five more men were demanded of the town, and on 
September 5, the board appropriated fifteen hundred dollars of 
bonds drawing twelve per cent to secure then. On January 5 
following, the hoard offered four hundred dollars per man, and a 
special town meeting was held on the 28d of that month to ratify 
or annul the projjosition. By vote of thirty-six to four it was decided 
to pay four hundred dollars per volunteer. On March 4, 1865, a 
contract was made with L. J. Fletcher, W. II.. Amsbry and C. W. 
Hackett, by which these men agreed to procure four volunteers, for 
which they were to receive sixteen hundred dollars, and did so. 

On March 28, 1865, the board appropriated fifty dollars to cover 
a balance supposed to be due on bounties. It was found on investi- 
gation, in August, 1866, that the town had paid bounties for more 
men than were really recpiired of it, and was reimbursed by the 



748 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

county to the amount of eight hundred and ninety-five dollars and 
fitty-three cents. 

In 1880 the number of acres assessed in the town was twenty- 
two thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, of which nineteen 
thousand three hundred and seventy-seven were improved. The 
lands were valued at two hundred and thirty-four thousand one hun- 
dred and forty-five dollars, and buildings thereon at thirtj^-two thou- 
sand six hundred and twenty dollars. Personal pro])erty at this 
time was assessed forty-six thousand one hundred and ninety-nine 
dollars. In 1S70 but twenty-six thousand three hundred and eighty- 
eight acres were assessed, the value then ])laced thereon being one 
hundred and twenty thousand five hundred and twenty-two dollars, 
and ])robably included buildings. Personal property was valued at 
fifty-three thousand eight hundred and sixty -eight dollars. In that 
year eighty-two thousand four hundred and fifty-seven bushels of 
wheat were raised, and fifty-two thousand seven hundred and twenty- 
three bushels of other grains. 

The population of the town in 18S0 was one thousand and sixty- 
seven. Ten years previous it was eight hundred and thirty-five. 
The number of births from 1870 to 1882, inclusive, are recorded 
respectively, as follows : 32, 34, 12, 42, 36, 24, 47, 42, 44, 40, 34, 
40, 37. For the same period the deaths have been thus noted : 6, 
10, 6, 8, 10, 6, 14, 6, 10, 21, 13, 21, 8. 

An amusing incident is related in regard to the experience of the 
first constable, E. W. Hunt. Being required to serve a sunmions, 
he sought advice as to manner of procedure, and was told to read 
the summons to the defendant, and endorse it "personally served." 
When the document was returned to the justice who issued it, the 
endorsement read, "bodily served." 

A gristmill was built on the Zunibro in the extreme southeast 
corner of the town in 1866, and did a good business till it was de- 
stroyed by fire in the spring of 1882. 

No stores were maintained within the limits of the town until 
1877. During this year Anthony Cas])ar built a large store on the 
north line of the town, at Belle Chester, and has since kept a com- 
plete general stock there. In the spring of 1883 John P. Wagner 
and John M. Weimar built a fine store on the northeast corner of 
section 5, opposite Caspar's, and put in a large general stock. This 
building and its contents were totally consumed by fire on the morn- 
ing of November 22, the same year, causing a loss of seven thousand 
dollars. 



CHESTER TOWNSHIP. 749 

In 1873 E. and M. Skillman, brothers, built a gristmill on the 
west side of section 19 ; Trout Brook supplies the power, and two 
sets of buhrs are kept in operation, one for flour and the other for 
feed ; Evander Skillman is tlie miller and now principal owner. This 
mill is a great convenience to farmers of the vicinity, and is kept 
busy the year round. 

RELIGIOUS. 

Eev. Frederick Hill, a Baptist clergyman who settled in Zumbro — 
then Hyde Park — in 1856, soon after held meetings in this town and 
organized a class, but no records or reliable memories of any organ- 
ization of this sect can now be found. 

The first religious organization was a class of Methodists. This 
body came together under the efforts of Rev. Nelson Moon, a local 
elder who settled in Bear Valley in 186-1. He at once began 
preaching at Bear Valley schoolhouse, and the class was formed 
August 27, 1864. The following persons composed it : Nelson, 
Casandra and Emma Moon, R. H. Davis, Samuel -and Emeline 
Converse, Mrs. H. J. Crump, Huldah Cliff", Joseph and A. B. Spaul- 
ding, Susan Merrill, Hiram, Almira and Frances Stacy, Isaac 
Waters, David Jones, Margaret Caswell, James A. and Mrs. A. 
Davis, Philo Tenyke and wife. Of these twenty-one members three 
have died and many have moved away, and only four now remain. 
This class was assigned to Gilford circuit, and preaching has been 
maintained ever since the organization, save one year. A union 
Sunday school has been kept up with good results. R. H. Davis is 
its faithful superintendent. Meetings are now held in the grange 
hall near Bear Valley schoolhouse. 

A Roman Catholic mission was early established on the northern 
border of the town to accommodate the foreign population which was 
fast taking up that section. At this time fully two-thirds of the town 
is occupied by natives of Luxembourg, Hanover, Belgium, and parts 
of northern Germany. 

In 1865 the Catholic society purchased forty acres of land in 
Belvidere, adjoining the northeast quarter of section 5, this town, and 
next year erected a frame church thereon at cost of one thousand 
dollars. This is now used as a schoolhouse, to which has been 
added a residence for teachers, costing, with furniture, fifteen hun- 
dred dollars. Three sisters of the order of Notre Dame, from Mil- 
waukee, now conduct the school. Services \\iere conducted by Red 



750 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Wing priests until the fall of 1875, when Father C. Walters took u]) 
his abode here. The next summer he went away and this again 
became a mission station. In the summer of 1878 Rev. John 
Meyer became resident priest, and a parsonage was built at an 
expense of one thousand dollars. The present pastor, Kev. John 
Tori, succeeded Father Meyer in September, 1881. A handsome 
stone church, 90x50 feet in area, was finished and consecrated in 
1S77. Besides the hauling of material and windows, which were 
donated by the people, this cost eight thousand eight hundred dol- 
lars in cash.. An average of ninety families are communicants in 
this church, re})resented in Chester by the following heads : Phili}) 
and Nicholas Arendt, Dominick and Nicholas Bartholomc, Jacob 
Berend, Anthony Caspar, Peter Glad, Matthias Prom, John Wagner, 
John Weimar, Nicholas S. and Nicholas Schmitz, Peter Musty, 
John Del war, John and Hugh Darcy, Patrick Gillaspie, Michael 
Hart. William Hofschult, William Janti, Nicholas Kruer, Andrew, 
Nicholas and John P. Lifrige, John N. and Stephen Meyers. 
William Nardanger, Adam and Michael Poncelet, John Reiland, 
Michael Sullivan, Matthias and Stephen Schmieds, Nicholas 
Threner, Peter and Frank Weber, John Schuler, Michael Coffee, 
Frank and Paul Conrad, Charles Early. Under an act passed in 
tlie legislative session of 187S-9, incorporating Belle Chester church 
society, the following officers were chosen in the fall of 1879 : 
Councillors — Phillip Arendt, William Nardanger, Henry Straus; 
trustees — Herman Hofschult, secretary ; John Befort, treasurer. 

Evangelical Lutheran. — To this society belongs the honor of 
erecting the first church edifice in Chester. As early as the fall of 
1868, Rev. Rupert Weiser came here and held services in the school- 
house on section 2. Rev. Horst afterward visited the few 
Lutheran families in the neighborhood and held meetings here. 
The society was organized by Rev. Christ. Maeurer, of Belvidere, 
on Jamjarj' 24, 1875. It was named "St. John's German Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Congregation," and the following, with their fjimi- 
lies, composed it : Ernest Radke, Louis Winters ; Louis, Ferdinand 
and August Freiheit ; Louis and Jule Gray, F. W. Sprikes, Louis 
Kuh, Claus Luchan, Carsten Siems, Henry Feldman, Peter Niegers, 
Frederick Jette, John Webusth, August Radke — 16. In 1878 the 
membership included twenty families, and in 1883 it had increased 
to twenty-four. Services were conducted three years in the school- 
house, and it was then decided to build a church. Frederick Win- 



CHESTER TOWNSHIP. 751 

ters donated an acre and a half on the northwest quarter of section 
12 for a site, and a frame building was erected there under the 
supervision of the following trustees : Louis Gray, Louis Freiheit 
and Louis Winters. Beside tlie labor donated by the congregation, 
a cash outlay of fifteen hundred dollars was made to complete this 
structure. It is 32x45 feet on the ground, with a neat spire. It has 
a gallery, and will comfortably accommodate two hundred and fifty 
auditors. It was dedicated on September 29, 1878. The present 
board of trustees has one vacancy, caused by the recent removal of 
F. W. Sprikes, clerk. The others are Ernest Eadke and Louis 
Freiheit, treasurer. The spiritual wants of the congregation are 
now ministered through the labors of Rev. A. Krahn, of Belvidere. 

Bear Yalley Grange. — This organization of the Patrons of 
Husbandry began its existence about 1870, and over one hundred 
members have been connected with it. In 1874 a hall was built by 
the societj^ on the southwest quarter of section 23. It is 28x40 
feet in area, two stories high, the lower story consisting of a single 
room. In the second story are entry and anteroom at the south end. 
The "building cost about five hundred dollars. It is now used for 
religious meetings, town meetings, etc., but the organization that 
built it has gone out of existence. 

On section 12 of this town is a rare natural cave of large dimen- 
sions. It was discovered by Tyler Whipple, in the summer of 1856, 
and has been visited by numerous exploring parties. Almost every 
season it is entered bj^ people from Mazeppa and elsewhere. 
Numerous apartments exist, and several have been entered and 
examined. The exterior entrance is found on the side of a small 
mound, and the explorer is obliged to descend a narrow passage to 
gain admission. The passages leading to some of the apartments 
are so low that one must lie on the face and creep to reach them. 
The labor is, however, well repaid by a sight of the beautiful 
stalactites which depend from the roof. One of thege rooms is in 
the form of an inverted jug, the entrance being made through the 
mouth. In another place is found a well of limpid water ; in 
another a deep pit has been found, whose depth is shown to be very 
great by the time occupied by a pebble in reaching the bottom. 

Great changes must have taken place in this county at some ])ast 
time. On section 8, a few years since, a solid piece of wood was 
found at a depth of sixty-four feet, in a well dug on the farm of 
Philip Arendt. A part of this timber is now in possession of Mr. 
Arendt. 



CHAPTEli LXXVII. 
MOUNT PJ.EASANT TOWNSHIP. 



GEOGRAPHY, 



Mount Pleasant is a full congressional township, and is bounded 
on the north and west b}' Goodhue count}^ on the east and south by 
Lake and Guilford townships. Its surface is an undulating prairie, 
sloping to the east and but comparatively little broken by cooleys. 
At a point a little south of the center begins a ridge which runs 
westward into the edge of Goodhue county, and in its vicinity are 
several natural mounds, one of these, the Lone Mound, being the 
highest point in the township. 

The appropriate name was suggested by the magniticent view 
presented to an observer from the tops of some of the elevations in 
the south central part, and from the summit of Lone Mound the 
sight is truly grand. For miles in all directions stretches the 
expanse of prairie, whose fertility is attested by the neat and com- 
modious buildings everywhere present ; neat churches and school- 
houses add to the effect, while to the northeast the eye catches the 
river hills of the Wisconsin side, and a glimpse of the blue waters 
of Lake Pepin through the valley of Boodie creek. 

The northern part is drained by Sugar-Loaf creek, and in the 
eastern part Boodie creek begins its short course to the lake, amid 
wild and romantic surroundings. 

The underlying rocks here are Potsdam lime and sandstone, 
which appear as jucturesque walls along the valleys, with an occa- 
sional outcro]) on the prairie, and are covered wnth strata of till, 
sand, gravel, yellow and blue clay, and rich loam. 

A few birch, shrub-oak and poplar grow along the cooleys, but 
no timber of consequence is found. Wild grapes and plums are 
abundant in their season. 

On the prairie roads are good and usually follow section lines, 
but in the cooleys much labor is required to keep them passable, 
owing to the rains which frequently work destruction by washing 
away or covering with dehrh from the hillsides. These roads are 
mainly ke])t in repair at the expense of the county, and in the eastern 



MOUNT PLEASANT TOWNSHIP, 753 

part a small portion has been macadamized. An Indian trail from 
Central Point formerly ran through Gilbert valley, and one crossed 
the southern part of the township. The first road in the township 
was one from Central Point to Mazeppa, reaching the prairie at the 
. head of Bull's cooley. It was laid out by P. D. Martin and Robert 
Phillips, of Central Point, and used but a few years, the 
Mazeppa road, crossing the township diagonally, was early estab- 
lished and until late years saw a very heavy travel, being the main 
artery through which Lake City received its extensive trade from the 
southwest. 

At first the American element largely predominated in Mount 
Pleasant, but of late years the population is about equally divided 
between those of American and foreign nativity. Of the latter class 
the German and Irish are the principal elements. 

In production the township is ])robably not surpassed by any 
part of this rich county, grain, of course, being the main product. 
Stock-raising has lately received increased attention, the valleys 
being especially adapted to this industry. In tlie eastern part 
several attempts have been made to burn lime, but none very suc- 
cessfully. 

EAELY SETTLEMENT. 

In June, 1854, the settlement was begun by the location of O. A. 
Warren on the northwest quarter of section 1. He came with his 
family from Jo Daviess county, Illinois, and was a native of the 
Empire State. In 1866 he moved to Pierce county, where he still 
lives. The fall of the same year saw the arrival of Isaac Horton 
and William Bean, who settled on sections 12 and 1 respectively. 
Both of these have since left the county. In the spring of 1855 
William Walters and Alfred Hannings settled in the northeastern 
part, and the next summer brought Milo Bull and Joel Clark. Mr. 
Clark purchased William Bean's "right of settlement" for tw«> 
hundred and fifty dollars, and is still on the farm, being the oldest 
settler now living in the township. In the fall Sanford Gilbert 
settled on the farm where he now lives. The settlements above 
mentioned were all made in the valley, and in 1856 the prairie in 
the southeastern part was settled by William Mann, Benj. Taylor, 
E. P. C. Fowler, S. B. Clark, George Clark, E. H. Palmer, WiUiam 
Lewis, Jacob Rinus, Alfred Betterly, and perhaps others. Tlie 
year 1857 saw quite an immigration, and the townsliip rapidly 
filled up. 



754 HISTORY OF WAUASHA COUNTY. 

Those who came witli a supply of money got along well enough, 
]).ut many who lacked ready cash, experienced considerable hardship. 
During the "winter of the deep snow" (1856-7) markets were 
often inaccessible, provisions rather scarce, and trust was not to be 
had by the moneyless. Stories are told of those who lived for weeks 
on potatoes and salt, or a similarly scant diet, and one family is said 
to have existed four weeks on frozen rutabagas. Here, as elsewhere, 
the monotony of life was broken by visiting with ox teams, merry 
gatherings, getting lost on the prairie, hunting, etc., and as the 
settlement grew older, and the virgin soil bestowed successive boun- 
ties on the brave pioneers, population and prosperity rapidly 
increased, and this little spot, but yesterday the home of the buffalo 
and Indian, has become one of the most desirable places in the 
county. 

An independent, open temperance society has been in operation 
for about sixteen years, and the interest is yet unflagging. Monthly 
meetings are held on Sunday afternoons in the Methodist and Pres- 
byterian churcbes alternatel3\ Popular temperance speakers are 
secured occasionally, and readings, music and speaking vary the 
exercises. The life and prosperity of this society through so many 
years is rather phenomenal. 

The first birth in this township was that of a daughter to Mrs. S. 
B. Clark. In the spring of 1857 death first visited the town, taking 
from the little settlement the spirit of Mrs. Palmer. In March, 
1859, the Rev. Silas Ilazlett united in marrige Epliraim Selby and 
Adaline Clark, which was probably the first matrimonial knot tied 
in the township. 

POLITICAL HISTORY. 

In the spring of 1858 a meeting was held at the residence of 
E. II. Palmer to determine the name of the township about to be 
organized. Several names were proposed, among them "Hunting- 
ton," by Wm. Lewis, and "Greenfield," by Silas Gilbert, both seek- 
ing to honor places of former residence. After considerable debate 
the present name was adopted, as before mentioned, being suggested 
by the views the adjacent elevations commanded. Ma}'^ 11, 1858, 
the legal voters met at the house of Benj. Ta3dor, on section 32, 
twenty-three voters being present. The meeting was organized by 
choosing Stanton B. Clark, moderator ; James M. Knapp, judge ; 
and E. P. C. Fowler and Sidney Cross, clerks. Ko wirepulling or 
< x-^ited buttonholing characterized this election. The men elected 



MOUNT PLEASANT TOWNSHIP. 755 

were the onlj candidates, having been chosen beforehand by mutual 
<ionsent, and were voted for regardless of party. 

The result of the election is partly shown in tlie table given 
below, and besides these the following otiicers were chosen: J. W. 
Cross and Silliman Gilbert, assistant supervisors ; Harvey Seymour, 
•overseer of town poor; J. M. Knapp and Alfred Betterly,'^con stables' 
and S. B. Clark and Isaac C. Smith, justices. 

This township has always been characterized by an unusual har- 
mony, socially and politically. Party lines have never been closely 
drawn in local elections, there usually being but one ticket in the 
Held; and so free from domestic difficulties is the community, that 
the one the justice of peace us&ally elected is rarely called upon to 
exercise himself officially. 

Year. Chairman of Board. Assessor. Clerk. Treasurer 

}l^ E. H. Palmer. Toel Clark E. P. C. Fowler O. A. Warren ' 

1|^9 Be^ijamin Taylor F. A. Jolmson Sidney Cross O. A. {y ^°- 



arren. 



^o«, r> A T . ■^■^•J9-^P'^^^'^ SidneyCross Harvey Seymour. 

}^l l-^- Johnson J C. Sinclair Sanford (iilbert Harvey Seymour 

]^i l-j;- ?°i'"^°" 5° "-ecord Frank Tryon No record.^ 

.j'^V l:- A.Johnson No record SidneyCross No record 

]^i -^o^n Kramer UriahVeeder Sidney Cross Samuel Sherman 

.|f^? Jphii Kramer Joel Clark Sidney Cross ?:. p c Fowler 

18«5 F- A. Johnson W. P. Wills W. S. Townsend E P. c Fowler 

1^^7 Sanford Gilbert Joel Clark W. S. Townsend EP.C Fowler 

^f.^ W. A. Carson Sanford Gilbert V. Hevener E. P C Fowler" 

18^9 }l- J- Newton Sanford Gilbert V. Hevener E p c Fowler' 

IS'V W. J. Newton No record V. Hevener . No Vecnrd 

8-. f^.Toti"^^'"' ^°''"'^°^^ v.Hevenlr::::::::::No record; 

.l^iX T?^^.?i'^n •,•,-• ^o record V. Hevener No record. 

^t^, ^^™<^,^hy Collins No record Sidney Cross No record 

]tt ^Tr.?^l 2" ?"« NO record , Sidney Cross Joseph Townsend. 

}t2 o '^•'p,^;^!^'"^ ^,«°W^ Labbit S dney Cross Joseph Townsend. 

-l^^ S- S- ^^"^th Mr. O Egglestou . . . .S dney Cross Joseph Townsend. 

lljg R- I- S^r™ b .Joseph Fanse S dney Cross Joseph Townsend. 

iS^n X-^- S^"^|^ Jo^^eph Fansett Sidney Cross Joseph Townsend. 

]t^ R- ?■ Cam th Joseph Fansett S dney Cross Joseph Townsend. 

ii? 9,- 1- S^"^ ^ f^-^^??^'''"" -^ §^"^y <^''o«^ Louis Burden. 

lio ^-l- ^^"" ■ • ^- Church S dney Cross Patrick McCormick. 

-1880 X- 4- r^rr\fh .T. G. Church Sidney Cross Patrick McCormick. 

^*^8^ O. PCarruih J. G. Church SidneyCross Patrick McCormick. 

TAVERNS, POSTOFFICE, ETC. 

Until the building of the narrow gauge railroad through the cen- 
tral part of the county the Mazeppa road was the scene ofa constant 
stream of travel, many of the farmers coming long distances. For 
the accommodation of this portion of the traveling public, in the tem- 
poral matters of eating, drinking and lodging, J. Kramer, in 1858, 
built a small log hotel on section 26. It was run but a few years, 
owing probably to the competition of the Boston House about a 
mile down the road. This was a commodious frame erected in the 
fall of 1858, by Sidney Cross. For several years after it was built 
it was run by parties who rented the establishment, and in ISGe 
Mr. Cross himself became host and enjoyed a good patronage until 



756 HISTORY OF WAHASIIA COUNTY. 

1878, when tlie travel was materially lessened and tlie Boston House 
was closed to the public. 

During and for a time after the war a postoihce was run by Dr. 
\'eeder at liis house. 

But few tragical incidents in tliis quarter call for narration. Two 
or three robberies have been attempted in the lonely cooleys, and 
shortly after the war a negro, John Newsom by name, was found on 
the prairie by Patrick McCormick, rigid in the icyembrace of death. 
Going home on a cold winter's night, half drunk, he became lost and 
helpless and slept his last sleep in the drifting snow and bitter wind. 
July 5, 1872, a cyclone crossed the township, demolishing a house 
belonging to J. N. Williams. Two persons were in the house at the 
time, and an empty barrel and a grub-pile stood near the house on 
cither side ; the occupants escaped uninjured and neither barrel nor 
grub-pile were moved. Besides taking the roof from another house 
no further material damage was done. 



In the summer of 1856 the residents of the northeastern ]>art 
hired Miss Laura Eldred to teach a term of three months. The only 
shelter available for the work was a little claim shanty which stood 
across the road in the edge of Goodhue county. These were the 
first educational advantages enjoyed by residents of this township. 
The first term taught in the township was probably in the summer 
of 1857, in the northern part, by Mrs. Alexander Graham. Among 
the other pioneer teachers of that day were Alfred Hannings, who 
taught the first term in district No. 7 ; Mary Smith, who began the 
work of education in No. 12 ; George Sexton, of No. 10 ; Mrs. P. C. 
Tabor in No. 67, and Mary Burleigh in No. 8. The first schools 
were nearly all taught before the organization of the districts by 
private subscription, and usually in some discarded claim or log 
shanty. In some instances schools were held in private houses for 
several years, and the facilities enjoyed were necessarily very crude. 
Books from different states, and of many kinds, was one of the diffi- 
culties presented to the teacher. In district No. 12 tlie third term 
was held in a little log house in which Sidney Cross had formerly 
"bached it," and he again found himself master in that shanty, this 
time in a different capacity. In this instance each family provided 
a seat for its young hopefuls, the size of the family bench being regu- 
lated by the number of children. In one district a school was lield 



MOUNT PLEASANT TOWNSHIP. 757 

in a small granary about the time that very large hoops were the 
style ; as the teacher dressed in fashion when she entered the temple 
of learning but little room was left for much else. So the hoops 
had to be dispensed with, making an odd and noticeable change in 
contrast with her usual appearance. Usually the teachers of that 
day possessed a fair amount of pedagogical ability, but occasionally 
one aspired to rule whose capacity and qualifications hardly justified 
his pretensions. One teacher who didn't know the multiplication 
table ended his pedagogical career the second week, and another 
told his class to skip fractions, as they wouldn't have anv use for 
them. He probably didn't believe in doing things "by halves." 
But since that time the schools have partaken of the general pros- 
perity and progress, and now eight neat frame schoolhouses dot 
the township. 

CKUEOHES. 

Rev. Silas Hazlett, of Lake City, was the first to hold religious 
services in this township. In January, 1857, he met about a dozen 
persons at the log house of Stanton Clark and began the ministra- 
tion which he has ever since continued. Two weeks lat«r he 
preached at E. P. C. Fowler's, and for some time his services were 
held at private houses, or on the o])en prairie beneath an oak-tree's 
verdant roof. When the schoolhouse of district No. 10 was built 
services were there held, and the Presbyterian church was organ- 
ized with about six members. In 1867 the present frame church 
was erected at a cost of two thousand dollars. The strength of the 
church is now about thirty. For twenty-six years has Wr. Hazlett 
been pastor of this Httle flock, marrying and burying those whom in 
childhood he christened, and he still visits them once in two weeks. 

Methodist. — During the war the community in the southwestern 
part of the township was visited by Rev. Stillwell, who pi-eached a 
few times ; by Rev. Hill, a Baptist, who preached occasionally for 
about a year ; and also by Charles Hudson. In 1865 Henry Good- 
sell began preaching in the schoolhouse of district No. 10 ; he 
awakened considerable interest and organized a class. It was dur- 
ing his ministration that the church reached its period of greatest 
prosperity, and a church costing seventeen hundred dollars 
was built and dedicated free of debt. He has been followed by . 
Messrs. Richardson, McMiff, Matson, Lathrop, Wilfred and Rock- 
wood, the present incumbent. A union sabbath school has been 



758 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

running ever since the start of the church and is held alternately at 
the Methodist and Presbyterian churches. 

The first preaching in the northern part of the township was in 
the fall of 1865, by Rev. Birch, then a student at the Hamlin Uni- 
versity of Red Wing, Ho continued his visits about two years and 
organized a class in the spring of 1866 at schoolhouse No. 8. He 
was followed by Henry Goodsell, and during his incumbency the 
County Line church was built at a cost of nine hundred dollars. 

Rev. Richardson succeeded him, and during his stay this class 
and the one in West Florence, Goodhue county, united. This 
charge was visited successively by Messrs. McMiff, Phelps, Matte- 
son, Wright and Noah Lathrop, who saw the breaking up of the 
class through dissension and emigration. 

In 1880 Thomas Hartley, a Wesleyan minister of Greenwood 
Prairie, preached regularly in the schoolhouse, and the next year 
was followed by Mr. R. Balbridge, of the same denomination. A 
revival blessed his efforts and services were transferred to the 
County Line church. February, 1882, a church of thirteen members 
was organized by him, and afterward they purchased the church 
building of the Methodist Episcopal organization. A flourishing 
sabbath school has been running for many years. 



In 1870, T. A. Thompson, of Plainview, then state lecturer in 
the interests of the grange, visited this neighborhood and stirred up 
an interest which resulted in the establishment of a grange. Mount 
Pleasant Grange, No. 53, was organized at the schoolhouse of dis- 
trict No. 10, June 21, 1870, by D. K. G. Clark. It began with 
thirty-one charter members and the following officers were chosen : 
W. J. Newton, M. ; J. C. Fowler, Sec; N. F. Randolph, Chap., 
and T. W. Robinson, Lect. At first meetings were held at the 
schoolhouse and afterward for several years at the residence of J. 
C. Fowler. In 1874 the old schoolhouse of district No. 10 was 
purchased and fitted up for a hall, which was used until the dis- 
banding in 1878. Its greatest membership was forty-nine in 1872, 
and the interest was well kept up during its existence. The last 
meeting was held May 8, 1878. 

This community has long manifested an interest in temperance 
and temperance work ; and the influence of their work and efforts 
has been considerable. 



ZUMBRO. 759 

Good Templar Lodge, No. 121, was organized July 27, 1875, by 
F. C. Stow, D.G. W.C.T., at the Presbyterian church, with lifty-six 
charter members. Soon after this meetings were begun in the 
grange hall, and there continued until the sale of the building, 
which deprived them of a place of meeting and was the main ele- 
ment in the death of the organization, no regular meetings being 
held thereafter. October, 1877, the membership reached sixty- 
seven. 



CHAPTER LXXVIII. 

ZUMBRO. 

The territory now covered by Zumbro, Mazeppa and Hyde Park 
is just equal to two full townships and was originally known us 
Mazeppa and Concord. Concord was the name of the election pre- 
cinct, in which it was situated at the time of the government sur- 
vey. Afterward, in May, 1858, at a town meeting, the name of 
Troy was adopted by a vote of the people, by which name it was 
known till 1861 ; there being another town of the same name in 
the state, the legislature declined to endorse the action of the town 
meeting, and consequently it became necessary to call another meet- 
ing ; this time to consider the propriety of dividing the town as well 
as adopting another name. 

The river Zumbro entered the town of Troy from the northwest, 
in section 6, a quarter of a mile east of the town-line, and flowed in 
a southeasterly direction till it reached a point one mile south of 
the center of the town, where it turned and followed a northeasterly 
course, and finally leaving the town about on the line of sections 13 
and 24, it being the center of the north and south line. This river 
rendered it so inconvenient for the people to meet, and especially 
so in the spring, that it was finally decided (the consent of the 
county commissioners having been obtained) at a town meeting 
held March 19, 1861, to divide the town, the Zumbro forming the 
boundary, and also to call the new town south of the river, Zumbro. 

The first settlers in this town— at that time Concord — were 
the Baileys, Thomas, George and Andrew, who came in the. 
early part of 1855, and followed some time in the summer ot 



760 



HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTi'. 



1856 by the Jenkins family, father and two sons, and a Mr. 
Baker. The first school was taught in the late Isaac Jenkins 
claim shanty in the summer of 1859, by Miss Nellie "Walker,* who 
received twelve dollars for the term of three months, and boarded 
herself. This school, now known as district 49, was organized 
in 1861, and the first school after its organization was held in a 
shant}^ built expressly for that purpose by York and Jenkins, 
and which was used for that purpose till 1864, when the red school- 
house was built, being located on section 31. The first teacher in 
the red schoolhouse was Miss Hattie Ruber. In 1S63, a postofiice, 
called South Troy, was established, but at the end of two years 
was discontinued. The present postofiice is located at Hammond, 
a station of the narrow-gauge railroad. Agriculture was the occu- 
pation of the people, but little if any other kind of business 
being carried on till 1866, when a Mr. John Ralton brought on 
a stock of goods and opened a store for the accommodation of 
the people in that section of the country. 



May 11, 1858, when the following officers were elected — then known 
as Troy : George Fanning (chairman), George Eoberts, Edward 
York, supervisors ; John Kitter, clerk ; Isaac Jenkins, assessor ; 
Parish Dewitt, collector ; Francis W. Shaw, A. J. Jenkins, consta- 
bles ; George W. Fanning, Isaac Jenkins, justices. 

The following is the record s( i far as chairman of supervisors and 
town clerks are concerned : 



CHAIRMAN OF SaPERVISOliS. 

1859. Isaac Jenkins 

1860. J. R. Mcack 

1861. Henry Everett. .. 

1862. Hiram Hammond 

1863. Henry Dickman . 

1864. Henry Dickman . 
Henry Dickman - 
Henry Dickman . 
Henry Dickman . 
Henrj- Dickman . 
Henry Dickman . 
A. J. Anderson . . 
A. J. Anderson . . 



1865. 
1866. 
1867. 
1868. 
lS6i>. 
1870. 
1871. 



CLERK. 

.Jno. Hitter. 
. Jno. Ritter. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
A. J. Jenkins. 
. A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. .T. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 



CHAIRMAN OF STl'KRVLSORS. 



1872, 

1873 

1874, 
1875, 
1876, 
1877 
1878, 
1879 



A. J. Anderson 
A. J. Anderson 
A. J. Anderson 
A. J. Anderson 
A. J. Anderson 
A. J. Anderson 
Jonas Rogers . . 
Jonas Rogers . . 

1880. Jonas Rogers . . 

1881. Jonas Rogers . . 

1882. Jonas Rogers . . 

1883. Jonas Rogers . . 



CLERK. 

.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 

A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
• A. J. Jenkins. 

A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 
.A. J. Jenkins. 



At a town meeting held March 19, 1861, it was voted to divide 
the town, and all that portion l.ying south of the Zumbro to be known 
as the town of Zumbro, and all north of the river to be called Hyde 
Park, and the first election for the new town was held April 2, 1861. 



* Some say Miss Hellen Everet, Miss Nannie Walker, but the majority say 
jNIiss Nellie Walker. 



ZUMBRO. 761 

The schools of Zumbro are known as district No. 47, located in 
section 35 ; No. 48, located in section 34 ; No. 49, located in section 
P>1 ; No. 52, located in section 13 ; No. 53, located in section 24. 

CHUKCHES. 

The Wesleyan Methodist church was organized in 1856, by Elder 
11. E. Walker, William Perkins, A. W. Martin, Mrs. Martin, Francis 
Fryer and Mrs. Fryer, and the first services were held in the South 
Troy schoolhouse, Elder Walker officiating and preaching the first 
sermon preached in the town. 

In 1859 a branch of this society was organized by Elder Walker, 
and services were held in the Red School-house, district No. 49. 
On alternate Sundays, Elder Walker preached in the morning at the 
South Troy schoolhouse, and in the afternoon at the red school- 
house. . At the expiration of eight or nine years he was succeeded by 
Elder Pegler, who officiated for two years. Elders Baldridge, Hart- 
ley and Norton were the predecessors of Elder Cox, who is now the 
officiating preacher. 

Since the organization of the branch in the red schoolhouse, 
some thirty or forty members have been added to the society, render- 
ing their present quarters too small for comfortable accommodation. 
Accordingly a move was set on focrt to build an edifice expressly for 
church purposes. By the aid of the South Troy society and that 
extended by the Wesleyan denomination of the State of Minnesota, 
they were enable to accomplish their object, having now nearly 
completed a church edifice to cost about fifteen hundred dollars, and 
to be finished in time for fall services. 

The only other church in the town of Zumbro is that of the Ger- 
man Lutherans, who have a church located in the extreme south- 
eastern part of the town in section 36. 

Tlie only village in the township is Hammond, which is thirty- 
three miles west of Wabasha, on the Midland road. The village 
consists of about one hundred inhabitants, two general stores and 
one hardware store. The general stores are owned and conducted 
by E. N. York and Brucher Bros, respectively. The hardware 
store is owned by M. J. Maldoon. These stores do a very large 
business. 

The Minnesota Elevator Company has erected a very large grain 
elevator at this place, and it is said this is the largest wheat market 
on this branch of the road. The elevator is in the charge of M. J. 
Maldoon. 



762 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

A postofRce is kept in the store of E. N. York, who is also the 
postmaster. 

In 1883 the German Lutherans erected a chnrch for their use 
in Hammond, and this is the only church building in the village. 

The town dates its existence to the completion of the narrow- 
gauge road, but the locality was known as Hammond's Ford prior 
to that time. The name has its origin in Joseph Hammond, an 
old settler, and the original owner of the site. 

The Zumbro river divides the village into two nearly equal parts, 
they being connected with a bridge which s()ans the stream at this 
place. 

Some time after the division into Hyde Park and Zumbro, and for 
the same reasons, all of that portion of Mazeppa east of the south 
branch of the Zumbro river was set off and added to the town of 
Zumbro. This gives to the township nearly sixteen miles of water- 
front, and the land bordering on the river and its branch is extremely 
rough and broken, hardly fit for farming, and equal in extent to 
nearly one quarter of the whole township. 

The balance is very high rolling prairie, with an occasional 
growth of natural timbei". 



CHAPTER LXXIX. 

GLASGOW TOWNSHIP. 

This township was named in honor of the city of Glasgow, Scot- 
land, there being several Scotchmen in the township and the first 
settler was a Scotchman. Glasgow is bounded on the north by 
Pepin and a small portion of Wabasha, on the east by Wabasha and 
Greenfield, on the south by Highland, and onthewestby West Albany. 
The physical features of this township are very striking. The Zum- 
bro river enters the township through section 31 and runs a very 
roundabout way in crossing the township, passing through or touch- 
ing each of the following sections : 30, 29, 20, 21, 28, 27, 22, 15, 14, 
11, 12, and leaves the township through section 13. Many small 
streams bf)tli from the north and from the south flow into this river. 
All along the river the country is very broken, but is interspersed 
with beautiful valleys all along the little streams. For a greater 



GLASGOW TOWNSHIP. 763 

part the Zumbro is skirted oneitlierside with heavy forests of timber. 
In most of the hills is to be found plenty of limestone of an excellent 
quality, which is used to a very large extent for building foundations 
for houses and barns. The soil of the valleys is very fertile ; it con- 
sists of a blackish loam underlaid with a clay subsoil. 

Although well supplied with plenty of natural water, the wells of 
the township are not so very numerous. ]S"o water of any conse- 
quence can be reached much less of one hundred feet ; many fine 
springs, however, are to be found scattered through the township. 

EARLY SETTI>EMENTS. 

Wm. McCracken, in 1855, a native of Scotland, was the first to 
break the sod in the township of Glasgow. Very soon after Mc- 
Cracken came to the township Charles Foreman, Hugh McGowen, 
Hugh and Robert Cochrane, Fred Bernhart, Mm. Stowman, Henry 
Smith, and several others, laid personal claim to a portion of this 
township. The next year this number was increased by John and 
Wm. Cochrane, Hugh McGinnis, the Eing brothers, Henry Ash, 
J. B. Roone, and others. Soon after establishing themselves in 
their new home, in the fall of 1855, Mr. McGowen's wife gave birtli 
to the first white child born in the township. But the life of this 
child born in the wilderness was of but short duration, it and its 
mother both dying in a short time after the cliild's birth. They 
both were laid to rest within the bosom of mother earth in the same 
grave. They were the first to depart from this world in this town- 
ship. In the fall of 1856, Mr. A. Seafer being of the opinion that 
''he who taketh a wife taketh a good thing," was accordingly bound 
by that mysterious band which makes man and wife as one. A 
Catholic priest from St. Paul was called upon to make the two hajr 
py hearts beat as one and sent them on their wedded life rejoicing. 
The first sermon ever preached within the boundaries was preached in- 
the house of Robert Cochrane, in the spring of 1858, by the Rev. B. 
F. Wharton a Baptist minister. The Baptists still have a society in 
the townsliip built by the German Methodist society ; Rev. Wharton 
has remained their pastor since the first sermon. 

The first and only building built exclusively for religious services 
was built by the German Methodist society and stands in section 5 ; 
it was built in 1869. The first minister who preached in this house 
was the Rev. Lampbrecht. Rev. Schmitken is the minister who has 
charge of this society at present. 



764 



HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY, 



For many years the people of CT]asii;()w township were exclusively 
occupied in agricultural pursuits until lyOl, when Robert Cochrane 
and A. T. Lansing ])ut in o])eration a sawmill on Trout brook, and in 
1864 Herman Wing concluded to try his fortune among the people 
by setting up a blacksmith-sliop. The first and only postoffice in 
the township was at the house of Mr. Boyd Fetzer, and he was the first 
postmaster. After the narrow gauge railroad was built through 
the township the Wabasha Elevator Company put up an elevator in 
the township in 1878 ; Mr. William Foreman has had charge of the 
warehouse ever since it was started. The firm handles about thirty 
thousand bushels of grain from this place, and also deal somewhat 
in live stock. 

A very large portion of tlie 'population of this township are Ger- 
mans, with a few Scotchmen and a slight sprinkling of Irish, and 
now and then an American. 

Glasgow township contains an even thirty-six sections of land. 
Of this amount of land but seven thousand seven hundred and forty- 
three acres were in cultivation in 1882, with an increase of eight 
thousand and twenty-one acres for 1883. 

The following was taken from the crop reports for 1882 : 

Wheat 39,210 bushels, oats 36,325 bushels, corn 46,100, barley 
10,600 bushels, potatoes 8,765, hay 689 tons, apples 341 bushels, 
wool 451 pounds, cows 349, butter 21,370 pounds. 

It a])pears from the records that the first chairman of supervisors 
M^as Thomas Mateer, and the first town clerk was John B. Roome, 
and the following have held those offices respectively : 



YEAR. CHAIRMAN OF SUPKRVISORS. CLERK. 

1858. Thomas Mateer. .J. B. Roome. 

1859. Hujih McGowen.Jas. C.Burns. 
1860.*HufrhMcGowen. Wm. Perry. 

1861. J. F. Rose Wm. Perry. 

18B2. John E. Tuck. . . . Wm. Perry. 
1863. John E. Tuck. . . .Wm. Perry. 
18G4. Daniel Pickett. . .A. P.O. Fetzer. 

1865. Thomas Mateer. .John E. Tuck. 

1866. Hugh McGowen.JohnE. Tuck. 
1807. Hugh McGowen. John E. Tuck. 

1868. John Stewart. . . .John E. Tuck. 

1869. John Stewart. . . .John E. Tuck. 

1870. John Stewart H. McGowen. 



YEAH. CHAIRMAN OF SUPERVISORS. CI-ERK. 

1871. John Stewart. . . .H. McGowen. 

1872. John Stewart H. McGowen. 

1873. John Stewart H. McGowen. 

1874. John B. Roome. Wm. Foreman. 

1875. Hjagh McGowen. Wm. Foreman. 

1877. IliighMcGowen.Wm. Foreman. 

1878. Hugh McGowen. Wm. Foreman. 

1879. Hugh McGowen. Wm. Foreman. 

1880. Hugh McGowen. Wm. Foreman. 

1881. Wm. Cochrane. . .Jacob Howe. 

1882. Wm. Cochrane. . .Jacob Howe. 

1883. Wm. Cochrane. . .Jacob Howe. 



* Re.signed. Thomas Mateer appointed. 

Near the center of the town, and lying along the banks of Trout 
brook, is a field of some fifteen acres, known as "Indian field.'" 
The aborigines used a portion of this field for burying their dead. 



^ GLASGOW TOWNSHIP. Y65 

and the balance was planted to corn by the squaws. It was rudely 
inclosed by a brush fence, portions of which are still to be seen. 
There are in various parts of the town relics of the former occupants 
of the soil, reminding the passer-by tliat, like these now extinct 
people, they, too, must pass away and yield their loved land and 
the labor of their hands to others. In the pleasant valleys where 
the bold warriors with tireless feet pursued the panting deer, and 
where the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate, and where the hills 
once resounded with the savage war whoop, is now to be found 
happy homes and pleasant farms ; and as the old settlers sit by the 
roaring fires of winter, how well do their children love to hear them 
tell of their trials and hardships of the early times spent in this town- 
ship. 

SCHOOLS. 

The township of Glasgow is divided into districts as follows : 
Nos. 25, 27, 68, 87, 101, a part of 26 and 64, and the most of 102. 
Educational pursuits were first inaugurated in this township in the 
summer of 1858 by a Miss Mary Cosgrove. She taught school in a 
small log house which stood on section 9, near where the brick 
house now stands in district No. 25. (See district No. 25.) In 1858 
the people who lived in what is now district No. 25 met and resolved 
to build a schoolhouse, and in consequence of said meeting the 
])eople went to work with a will to build the house. The men 
turned out en masse, a«d as a result of their labors a log house was 
built and covered with home-made shingles, known as clapboards. 
There being no money to buy lumber for flooring and. finishing, each 
man took a few sacks of grain to Eead's Landing and traded it for 
lumber. And in the house thus constructed was the first school in 
district No. 25 taught, by Miss Mary Cosgrove, which was also the 
first in the township. Misses Aurora B. Albertson, Theresa Schmaus, 
Sparks, Darrigan, Lampbrecht,' Carrie Landgraff and Robert Monroe 
are some of the teachers who have taught in the old house. The 
old house gave way to the present brick liouse, which was built in 
1870, at a cost of eight hundred dollars, on land donated for the pur- 
pose by Hugh McGowen. Miss Darrigan taught the first school in 
the new house, and since then the following have taught there : 
G. A. Wanger, Miss Landgraff, Robert Wease, William Barry, 
Miss Olive Taylor, C. S. Mateer, J. E. Gray and W. J. Brown, who 
is the present teacher. First board of directors were William Coch- 



760 HISTORY OF WAHASHA COUNTY. « 

rane, clerk ; Charles Foreman and Hugh McGowen. The present 
board are as follows : William Foreman, clerk ; G. Walker and 
Thomas Mateer. 

District No. 26. A part of it is in Glasgow and the rest of it is in 
West Albany township. The first schoolhouse built in the district was 
in Glasgow township. The house was built of logs, in 1861, and stood 
on section 19. The present house was built in the summer of 1879, 
at a cost of five hundred dollars, and is on section 13 of West Albany 
township. The first school in this district was taught by Eliza 
Stohman, now Mrs. Gcoi'ge Albertson. Tlie school was kept in the 
house of George Hall, who then lived on section 18. Hariet 
xVlbertson was the iirst person who taught in the schoolhouse. J. E. 
Tuck, liev. Sturgeon, George Miller, Lesslie Gray, Susan Fetzer, 
Jennie Durand, Ellen Brown, Jennie O'Neal, James Smith and 
'C. M. Hilliard each have taught in the old house. Ellen Brown 
taught the first school in the new house, and she was followed by 
0. M. Barry, J. E. Gray, C. S. Fox, Harry Thornton and Miss 
Ellen Patten. 

District No. 27. The first school in district No. 27 was taught 
about forty rods west of the present schoolhouse, in an old log 
house owned by John Bricker, who was also the first teacher. The 
seats which they used were boards with legs in them. The next year 
a log schoolhouse was erected on the farm of Adam Peters, near 
where the present house stands, but before it was finished another 
terra of school was taught. This term was tRught by Dora O'Neal 
in a barn owned by John Schouweiller. After the log house was 
finished the following were the persons who wielded the birch : John 
Bricker, Miss Albertson, Frank Ilamlen, John B. Murray, G. C. 
Dawley. The present house was built in 1875, at a cost of eight 
hundred dollars. The first teacher in the new house was G. C. 
Dawley, and he was followed by John Bricker, Mary E. Calhoun, 
J. J.Barry, Katie Darrigan, J. T. Corry, Bridget Costello, Coleman 
Barry, Nettie Brown, Michael Conroy and Maggie Keating, the 
])resent teacher. Each of the above have taught one or more terms. 
The first board of directoi-s were John Schoeweiller, clerk, Frank 
Graff and Antony Schuoweiller. The present board are Peter Peters, 
clerk, Antony Schouweiller and Adam Peters. 

District No. 68. The first school taught in district No. 28 was 
taught by Miss Emma Goodrich in the schoolhouse now in the district. 
The house was built in 1868, and the first school was tauiicht the same 



OAK WOOD TOWNSHII*. 767 

year. The following have taught in this district since Miss Good- 
rich taught the first school : Charles Mateer, Miss Halahan, Miss 
Webster, Mr. Wharton, Giles Roome, Nancj Rose, Miss Fancher, 
Miss Hadley, Miss Lampbright, Miss Champine, Carrie Higgins, 
Miss Brown, Mary A. Rouine, Mr. Barry, Mr. Scott, Emma John- 
son, Patrick Ryan, Katie Enright, Mary Enright, Mary Durand, Ida 
Bunn, Miss Wilder, Miss Wheeler, Miss McKune, Miss Brown. ■ 

District No. 101 w^as organized in 1875, and schoolhouse was 
built same fall at a cost of two hundred and fifty dollars. 

Miss Clara Rose was the first teacher who taught in this district. 
She now lives in Kellogg. The following have taught in houses : 
Levi Emery, Margaret Patten, Marion Sullivan. The first board of 
directors was M. K. Wolfe, J. S. Harncame and Geo. Licen. This 
board has been continuously in office since the district was organized. 

Districts Nos. 64 and 102 have their schoolhouses in other town- 
ships. For their history see townships which contain them. 



CHAPTER LXXX. 
OAKWOOD TOWNSHIP. 

"I cannot but remember such things were, 
And were most dear to me." 

Lying in the south part of the county, surrounded by West 
Albany, Highland, Plain view, Elgin, Zurabro and Hyde Park town- 
ships, is a township which on account of the necessity for a name 
rather than to show some prominent feature, has been called Oak- 
wood. A rolling prairie, bordering on Greenwood's prairie, it is 
cut by the rocky Zumbro valley, separating the several north- 
western sections from the main part ; by the Middle Creek ravine, 
separating the several northeastern sections ; and lastly, by the 
Long Creek ravine, which winds through the center from south to 
north, and opens into the Zumbro vallej' not far from the opening 
of Middle creek. Along their route smaller valleys and ravines 
open into these. The Zumbro valley, with its rocky cliffs varjang 
from two hundred to three hundred and seventy feet in height, 
overhanging and winding its rocky and wooded sides about in a 
bewildering manner, affords some very picturesque and romantic 



768 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

scenery. The rocky headlands protrude as if the elements in 
their attempt to cover the once limestone surface of this region 
with clay, sand and loam, had failed to brina: enough. While the 
northern part of the township is chiefly clay, the southern is more 
black loam and clay mixed, making a fine soil. The oak, hazel/ 
etc., underbrush that once covered the j)rairie more or less, is now 
confined to the bluifs, valleys and ravines. In the northern part 
of the township, in the coolies, there is more timber-oak, elm, 
Cottonwood and maple. Along the Zumbro River valley are river- 
terraces about half way up the bluffs, some of the larger of which 
are of sufficient size for a village. The valleys and ravines on quiet 
days are cooler than the prairies above, but in winter the valleys 
are much warmer than the uplands, making fine places to winter 
stock. The limestone cliffs furnish material for limekilns, a few 
ruins of which ornament the sides of the valley, but are seldom 
worked at ])resent. The large fall of the Zumbro river, with its 
narrowness, makes, many fine sites for water-power, which, so far, 
have not been occupied. With the excellent facilities for water in 
the township, Oakwood makes a fine place for stock. Some excel- 
lent springs burst out along the base of the cliffs, one of which, 
near Ole Fremo's, is said to be among the best. 

Let Father Time tell us how Oakwood fared before civilization 
began to rear it — the kidnapped child of barbarism. Plere was 
the underbrush on the prairie, through which the cunning fox and 
the lank, grey wolf prowled. Wigwams dotted the valley. Numer- 
ous fleet deer roamed the gorges and ])rairies, ever wary, often in 
vain, of the stealthy Sioux Indians of Wa-pa-shaw's band, who 
came to camp and hunt in Zumbro's beautiful valley. The beaver 
made his home in these waters. The snow, wind and rain were as 
wild as the country and its dusky sons. Over the encrusted snow, 
four feet a not uncommon depth, the Keoxa braves chased on snow- 
shoes the deer until the breaking crust exhausted it. The heavy 
rains, falling on the tough, unbroken soil, quickly reached the 
Zumbro, swelling its floods to heights unknown at present. The 
annual rise of the river, not noticed now, was called the "June 
race." 

But Father Time points to 1856, and now comes the ox-team 
and white-covered wagon — the advance-guard of civilization — to 
startle this wild scene, and flglit, if necessary, with the elements, 
Indians and animals, for a home such as his prospective eyes selected. 



OAKWOOD TOWNSHIP, 769 

He lives in his wagon until he can make a hut. These first settlers 
were : Mathew Kinsella and his son Mathew, David and James 
Foley, Patrick and Lawrence Tracey, the latter now in "West Albany 
township, and William Tope, who came in June. Henry Powell, 
it appears, came in 1855, but whether he was the first settler is not 
quite definite. It is said Lyman Gregg visited the township earlier, 
but did not settle. Also came Barnard McNultj^, James McPike, 
Michael Campbell, Patrick McQuigan, Henry Martin and Patrick 
Fleming, Many of these came prospecting, selected homes and 
built huts, then in the fall returned to Wisconsin, Lake Superior, 
and a few other parts, to get their families. A Mr. Crozier was also 
here, living in his wagon. The bachelor life led by many of these in 
their wagon or hut was not enviable. Patrick McGuigan brought for 
his winter supply seven barrels of flour ; the Indians were difficult to 
convince that his house was not an agency. One of the heaviest 
snows fell that winter, about four feet on a level. The Indians, 
with snow-shoes, killed deer extravagantly ; finding them in the 
valley in an open place corralled by the deep snow, they would kill 
them merely for the skin, so. it was said, that the whites might not 
get them. About seven hundred were camping in the valley that 
winter ; they were not troublesome, and not many months later left. 
It is said they used to get whisky at Mr. Tope's. 

Mat. Kinsellas, Sr. and Jr., Charles and Patrick Fleming, 
Eichard Leighart and James Perkins kept bachelor's hall on Mr. 
place for nearly three years. They had five yoke of oxen, and all 
worked together, each helping the other. Mr. Kinsella, Sr., relates 
that the ai-rival of the first woman caused the oxen to take to the 
woods in flight. 

When John H. Pell first drove his cattle before him into these 
wilds to seek a home, before he ever imagined he would represent 
his district as senator, he turned his cattle loose in the valley, and 
sought rest for the night in one of the caves that are found in the face 
of the bluffs. 

The township had been surveyed and named Pell, in honor 
of John Pell of this township, who was a state senator. The way 
neighboring townships taunted them with the similarity of Pell and 
another word ending in "ell" was too much for the sensitive settler. 
In 1868 the legislature gave it the honorable name of Sherman. 

Among the oldest houses is Mr. Tope's, now standing, and Mr. 
Foley's. Mr. Langer also has a very old one. The first roads were 
46 



770 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

across the prairie toward Plainview, the nearest way. The first 
bluff-road was worked by 'a Wabasha landowner, between Millville 
site and P. G. Dickman's. The first surveyed road was laid out 
about 1859, along the south side of section 25, and south and 
west sides of section 26, north, entering the Long Creek ravine. 
It was known as the Long Creek road. The second laid out 
was probably that from Bremen, passing Messrs. QuiseFs, Grove's 
and Pratfs, about 1S60. On account of ravines few of the roads 
follow section lines. The Zumbro Valley Railway Company 
organized and prospected some in the township, but failed to do 
anything. James Chapman, on northeast part of section 22, built 
the first and only sawmill of the township, about 1860, but soon sold 
it to Abner Tibbets, who continued it for but a few years. The first 
and only gristmill was built on Middle creek in 1868 by Samuel 
Irish. The first blacksmith-shop was built by Henry Powell, probably 
in 1856 ; the only one until Peter Ilolstein built his in Millville a 
number of years later. The first store was started in 1864 by John 
Behrns, at Bremen, continuing a few years. The first birth was 
Patrick Tracy's daughter, Elizabeth Tracy, in February, 1 857 ; and 
Anna Tracy, daughter of Mr. Lawrence Tracy, was born in March 
following. The first marriage ceremony was performed by Father 
Tissot, a Catholic missionary, when he gave Mathew Kinsella, Jr., 
a wife. Henry Powell was married quite early, too, and in a 
romantic manner. It is said he and his intended stood on one bank 
of Long creek, while the justice stood on the opposite shore and 
performed the ceremony. Death made his first visit in the spring 
of 1858, taking a babe of William Tope, and one of George Martin. 
The first (private) school was taught either by Mrs. Louis Evans or 
Mrs. J. H. Bernard, at their homes, in the winter of 1850-60 — 
probably the former. Mr. Evans also taught. The first schoolhouse 
is No. 24, near Patrick McGuigan's, built in about 1861. The old 
log house, now used for storing hay, still stands near the new one. 
Mr. McGuigan says they carried logs on their shoulders from the 
ravine to make it. Dr. James Chapman, the builder of the first 
sawmill, was the first "healer of the sick" in the winter of 1858 
and after. He also preached some, holding services now and then 
at his home and Mr. Powell's. 

Li 1858 Father Tissot first held mass in Mr. David Foley's house. 
From then until 1867 it was held about five times per year at Mr. 
Kinsella's. During 1866 the church now known as Oakwood 



OAKWOOD TOWNSHIP. 771 

church, a frame building 20x60 feet, with an addition built in 
1878, was built. It was started by Father Tissot and finished by 
Father Trobec, who followed him. The priests since Father Trobee 
are Fathers Jeram, from 1880-2 ; Beinhardt, to April, 1883, and 
Murray at present, who lives in Highland township. The church is 
well furnished, and mass is held once a month. A cemetery lies near 
the church. Since the organization children have been confirmed 
once, in 1881, by Bishop Ireland. 

The first postofiice, called Millville, was located on Ole Chris- 
topher's place, about 1869, with Charles Flemming as postmaster. 
After its removal to the present site of Millville, in 1870, John Huny 
was made postmaster, and held it until his death, since which his 
widow has officiated, keeping it in the same house ever since. 
When first started its income was but about eight dollars per 
quarter ; now it is two hundred. 

The first hotel began with the birth of Bremen, in connection 
v^ith the store in 1864. This was the founding of Bremen, the 
first village in the township, by John Behrns. 

Millville, probably so named from the postofiice, began with one 
store and postofiice combined, John Huny's, and a blacksmith-shop, 
by Peter Holtein, about 1870. The narrow-gauge railway, in 1878, 
gave it new life, and soon there was two stores, J. B. Miller and 
Mullen & Leonard (now Mullen) ; next two hotels, J. Behrns and 
Mr. Plath ; then John Behrns ran a store for a time ; a wagon- 
shop ; a small grainhouse, in which was the warehouse and tele- 
graph otiice ; next year the depot and addition to the grainhouse ; 
then a fancy-store ; shoeshop. In 1880 McGuigan Bros., drygoods 
and groceries, and J. S. Bisby, hardware, was started, and in 1881 
the first permanent physician, Dr. Gove. From about 1879 to 1881 
Claus Behrns run the Midland brewery, but it was accidentally 
burned, and its ruins still remain. ^Millville controls the trade for a 
radius of several miles. It has splendid water-power waiting to be 
occupied. 

Kegan, named from the owner of the land, J. Kegan, was 
started in 1879 as a station. A saloon, blacksmith-shop and store, 
the last mentioned kept by J. Judge, comprised its business until 1880, 
when the depot and grainhouse was added. The following year Mr. 
Judge was made postmaster of the new postoffice. A fine bridge 
crosses the Zumbro here, which, with the Millville bridge, includes 
all Zumbro bridges in the township. 



HISTORY OF WA15ASHA COUNTY. 



After the organization in 1859 down to the present there has 
been a sh)vv and varied growth. Many of the records are destroyed, 
so that the chief resource is the okl settler's memory. The first 
election was held at the residence of Patrick McGuigan, by order 
of the commissioners. The first clerk was Dr. James Chapman ; 
supervisors, James Foley and John Behrns. Mr. Pratt thinks J. 
K. Smith was chairman. They held their first meeting in Chap- 
man's sawmill. Claus Behrns was probably the first assessor. One 
of the early assessors, who had acquired but little English, missused 
the word piano for plow, in his report of assessment, so that from 
the number of pianos listed in Pell township, the county officers 
thought it a remarkably musical region. 

The township clerks after Dr. Chapman were : John Behrns, J. 
C. Eand, George Bairey, William Harlan, M. A. Grove, Collins 
Pratt, M. Bailey and James McGuigan. The first justices were : J. 
Evans and John Behrns. Mr. Behrns says his first legal operation 
was to marry Orson Yeon and Ann Winter, in 1S59. Louis Stein- 
born, William Harlan, E. Poison and J. Bisby have been justices 
since. Before organization they voted in Zumbro township (now 
Hyde Park). 

Mr. Lawrence Tracy was the first representative of the township 
in the county board of supervisors. The population of the township 
at this time was probably between twenty and fifty. There was 
found to be another township of the same name, so the name 
Sherman was replaced in 1872 by the present name, Oakwood. 

Lyman Gregg was the first county commissioner and sheriff from 
Oakwood. M. A. Grove, of this township, is at present a county 
commissioner. 

The present township officers ai-e P. G. Dickman, chairman ; 
M. McGillion and Emric Poison, supervisors ; James McGuigan, 
town clerk ; Ole Christopher, a|^essor ; J. Behrns, treasurer ; jus- 
tices, J. S. Bisby and E. Poison ; constables, Nels Christopher and 
P. H. Anderson. 

In the winter of 1858-9 the several northwest sections cut off by 
the Zumbro were joined to West Albany ; but in 1867 the legisla- 
ture, at the request of the people, made a part of Pell again. The 
"Half-Breed Treaty" tract, elsewhere explained, includes all of 
Oakwood north of a straight line running from the southeast corner 
of section 18 to near the same corner of section 26. The land scrip 
that was given each Indian, deeding him a certain amount of this 



OAKWOOD TOWNSHIP. 773 

land, has caused the settlers a little trouble and some probably 
unfounded anxiety. The " adult scrip " was sold to settlers along 
with minor scrip. The point seems to be that the minors' scrip 
may have been unlawfully sold. The Oakwood church land was 
paid for twice on account of this trouble. The trouble continued 
during about fifteen years. There has been none lately. 

The township feeling the great need of an outlet for its produce, 
encouraged the Minnesota Midland railroad by giving twenty- 
two thousand dollars in bonds, which were j^laced in the New York 
Trust Company's hands to await the completion of the road. 
During the war the records show numerous special town meetings, 
held for obtaining money for volunteers. 

It is related of a certain "copperhead,"" who chanced to have 
his leg broken in an affray, that the physician compelled him to take 
the oath of allegiance before he would set his ]eg. 

The town meetings, before held in sawmills, shops and resi- 
dences, were after about 1875 held in the new town-hall on section 
15. The hall was sold in 1880 to G. D. Allen for one hundred and 
ten dollars, and the Millville schoolhtjuse was chartered for the next 
twenty years for town purposes. The eifect of the cattle law of 1873 
has been to remove nearly all the fence except that enclosing pasture. 
However the increased raising of stock will probably soon make a 
l^arbed-wire network of fences over the township. One of Oak- 
wood's citizens, John K. Smith, was representative in 1873. After 
the new school law of 1862, abolishing the township superintendent, 
James Hayes, of Oakwood, was the first county superintendent 
through election by the people. The state change of text-books in 
the schools, adopting A]3pleton's publication, was effected quite 
speedily in this township. The schools have increased until there 
are now seven, numbered apparently in the order of their age, 
with county numbers, namely, No. 75 on section 23, No. 24 on 
section 5, No. 41 on section 1, -No. 43 on section 26, No. 44 on 
section 28, No. 78 on section 16 and No. 89 in Millville. The 
teachers of No. 24 have been Michael McGillion, M. Kedmond, 
Mary Hayes, Hugh Galliger, Mary Harlan, Miss York, and, begin- 
ning with 1872, James Hayes ; 1873, Mrs. Galliger ; then James 
Hayes, until 1875 ; John Quin, 1876 ; Bridget McCuUough, 1877 ; 
Mary A. Keliber, 1878 ; Hannah Sweeney, 1879 ; Scott Foster, 
Sophia McGillion, 1880 ; Michael Powers, 1881 ; Charles Disney, 
Maggie Ryan, 1882 



774 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 

Marv Galliger. Mr. Hayes says the largest attendance has been 
about seventy-seven, but is quite small now. 

Mrs. Bernard held private school, in 1858-9, in school district 
No. 41. They then sent to Highland township until 1871. Annie 
Mullen, the first teacher, was followed by Fannie Calvin, 1872 ; 
Bridget Costello, 1873-4 ; Annie Calhoun, 1875 ; Michael Powers, 
1876 ; Katie Baker, 1877 ; M. Powers, 1878 ; Hannah Sweeney, 
1879 ; Bridget Costello, 1880-1, and Thos. H. Lutz, 1882-3. 

In school district No. 43, Mrs. Rand taught an early school. 
Mrs. Susan Carpenter was probably the first teacher. She held a 
term in an old blacksmith-shop, in 1867. The teachers since then 
have been Mrs. M. E. Cooper, R. N. Smith and Ella Rising, 

1869 ; G. C. French, Miss Sprague, Mrs. Lucy French, 1870-72 ; 
Lavina Smith, 1873 (no school in part of 1874, when the new 
schoolliouse was building. The old house was moved from High- 
land township) ; Lavina Smith, 1874-5 ; Lucy J. Smith and Frank 
Fowler, 1876 ; Ellen McClaren, 1877 ; Matt Hanc}^, 1878 ; Nettie 
Goss, 1879 ; J. M. Bates and Miss Goss, 1880 ; Eliza DePuy and 
Mattie Darrow, 1881 ; Hanora Sheilds and Mary Huntoon, 1882 
(no school in winter of 1882-3, as they could get no teacher) ; and 
Teressa B. Hall in the summer of 1883. School district No. 78 lies 
near the center of the township. 

The records of school district No. 75 furnish the following 
teachers : R. N. Smith and Pat. Hagerty, 1869 ; Annie Mullen, 

1870 ; Meril A. Robeson, 1875 ; Mary McClernan, 1877-8 ; Henry 
McClernan, 1879 ; Hellen Slattery, 1880 ; Margaret Ryan, 1881 ; 
Teressa Hall, 1882 ; L. M. Kimball, 1883. 

The school in district No. 44 was organized by Geo. Bairy in 
1869, and the first teacher was probably Miss Taylor. The present 
building is an enlargement of the first one, a small frame which has 
been moved about considerably. The teachers beginning with 
Cliristina Mitchell in 1869-70; Frank Langer, 1S73-4; and 
William Bairey and Olive R. Taylor, 1875 ; C. A. Pheifer, Mary 
C. Christopher and Francis Fomler (?), 1876 ; Miss French, 1877 ; 
Bertha French, 1878-9-80; Geo. French and Anna French, 1881 ; 
John M. Bates and Mary Bchrns, 1882 ; Maggie Potor and Mattie 
Darrow, and in 1883 Mariah Paine. The Millville school was at first 
private, taught by S. E. Thoresen, in 1878, and in 1879 organized 
as No. 89, with a good frame building. The teachers have been, 
beorinninoj in 1880, A. Darrow and Lizzie Leonard, 1881 ; C. L. 



GARWOOD TOWNSHIP. 775 

Woodworth, Mattie Darrow, L. Leonard and Sadie Cathown, 
1882 ; Mattie Darrow, 1883 ; Minnie Gibbons and Rosa Dickman. 

The physicians located here have been Drs. Beaufort and Boyd, 
who remained but a sliort time, and Dr. Gove, who is at present 
the only doctor of medicine in the township. 

In 1868 the Norwegian Methodist Episcopal church, on section 
20, was organized by A. B. Burtcli, of Grand Meadows, Minnesota, 
who had preached here previous to this. With few at first, the 
largest membership reached thirty-five, in 1871, and has fallen 
off since, on account of many Norwegians going to Dakota. A 
good frame church, 32x24 feet, was -built in 1873. It is valued at 
nine hundred dollars. The Norwegian Lutherans since 1874 have 
used this building more or less, also, but have had no services for a 
few years past. The ministers, since 1869, have been : Rev. Olson ; 
Rev'. Knudson, 1872-4; Rev. A. Johnson to 1877, Rev. E. 
Arveson to 1879, Rev. J. Peterson to 1882, when Rev. A. Knud- 
son became the first resident minister of tlie township. Services 
are held regularly on Sunday at 10:30 a.m., with a sabbath school at 
12 M. The sabbath school, Supt. M. A. Grove, was organized some 
years ago. The church belongs to the Plainview circuit. The 
trustees are E. Poison and M. A. Grove. A cemetery for Scandi- 
navians lies near the cliurch. The Swedes, in 1874, organized and 
built a church in Millville. The building is of limestone from the 
blufis and about 30X40 feet in size. At first there were about 
thirty families, with a minister from Lake City, but Dakota's rising 
wealth lias reduced the number to but five families, who have had 
no services for several years. The Norwegian Lutherans, not 
organized, used this building some also. Near the building is 
Millville cemetery. Services in these churches are occasionally held 
in English. M. A. Grove has preached some in the Norwegian 
church, filling the place of the regular minister in his absence. 

On account of the peculiar characteristics of the Scandinavian, 
German and Irish churches, and their diff'erent languages, there has 
never been any revivals in the township. Some temperance work 
has been done, however, and with such effect that in atteinpts to 
abolish liquor license, about 1876, they came within four and six 
votes of having her territory unspotted by saloons. The temper- 
ance sentiment is not that high at present, as four patronized bars 
witliin her borders would indicate. 

The Grange society organized in about 1872 on Lyman Gregg's 



776 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

farm, and continued in their hall tliere for about one year and a 
half, then with a few meetings at sehoolhouse No, 43, they sold 
their effects and disbanded with an oyster supper and dance. 
Lyman Gregg was worthy master. Clark Champine, Eben Farns- 
worth and A. Darrow were among their officers. 

About 1880 the Good Templars were organized at the Nor- 
wegian Methodist Episcopal church. It continued actively about 
on'C year. The first, second and third worthy chiefs were, E. 
Poison, C. Christopher and M. A. Grove, respectively. They talk 
of reviving it again. 

Debating clubs were quite numerous from 1879-81, and attended 
by old and j'oung. • 

In the eastern part of the townshi]), in 1874, was organized 
Father Matthew's Total Abstinence Society, which has held meet- 
ings once per month since. John Harlan was its first president, 
and the office has since been held by either Matthew ivinsella or 
him. Mr. Kinsella occupies it at present. In 1878 about fift}^ 
members started by subscription a temperance library, and now 
have over one hundred volumes. J. Powers is librarian, and the 
books are kept in the church. 

There are but five events in the history of the township that may 
be called tragic. Three men were drowned: one at Millville, while 
swimming ; Mr. McBride, some distance below this, while crossing 
this river on the ice in 1880 ; and a miller from Potsdam who drove 
in the river at high water. Two suicides have occurred. The causes 
were probably monomania causedby sickness. P>()th were Gernums. 
One hung him&elf by a suspender, and the other choked himself with 
a bag string. 

The immense crops of wheat in early days caused an extrava- 
gance in trading, that resulted in a reaction a few years later, that, 
combined with the overworking of the land, caused many failures. 
Men traded on credit for years, and when a settlement was neces- 
sary, a mortgage was necessary, and finally they had to give up 
their homes. So extensive was this trouble that the population was 
very materially decreased. The settlement of the Wilcox estate 
was the occasion of one severe blow to the township. Buying 
extravagantly in machinery was one cause of these troubles. 

The wheat crop for four or five years, beginning with 1877, has 

nearly failed, so that many farmers contemplate, making stock a 

_ specialty. It may be a question whether stock as a specialty will 



WEST ALBANY TOWNSHIP. ~ (J 

be a success any more tlian wheat. Those who have tried a rotation 
of crops with a fair amount of stock find but little to complain of. 

In 1869 there was 17,529 acres of farm land. The value of the 
improvements, $63,199, and the personal property, $26, 041. The 
number of acres cultivated was 4,862, from which 60,693 bushels of 
wheat was raised, beside other grains. 

In 1880 the number of acres under cultivation was 7,598. The 
population, 946. The productions were as follows: Bushels of 
wheat, 30,943 ; oats, 30,470 ; corn, 33,800 ; barley, 22,281 ; pota- 
toes, 5,755 ; and apples, 1,961. There were 500 tons of hay, 200 
pounds of wool, 189 cows, 5,415 pounds of butter and 200 pounds of 
honey. 

Stating them in the order of their number beginning with the 
largest, the population is composed of Irish, Germans, JS'orwegians, 
Swedes, Americans and Austrians. The mass are German and 
Irish. 



CHAPTER LXXXI. 

WEST ALBANY TOWNSHIP. 

PHYSICAL FEATURES AND PRODUCTION. 

West Albany township lies nearly in the center of the county, 
being a full congressional township, and consisting of fine rolling 
prairie, considerably broken in the southern part by eroded valleys 
and gorges. The streams all lie at a depth of from one to two hun- 
dred feet below the surrounding country, affording perfect drainage, 
and swamps are entirely unknown. Through sections 34, 27, 26, 
25 and 36 in the southeastern part, winds the picturesque Zumbro, 
with its limestone cliffs, wooded banks and fertile bottoms, receiving 
the united waters of several smaller streams, which take their rise in 
the central, western and southern parts. These deep valleys or 
canons, which are the result of ages of erosion, appear to hav^e been 
at one time considerably deeper than at present. The rock strata, 
which consist of Potsdam limestone, lie at an undiscovered depth 
below the streams, overlaid by a deposit of sand, clay and loam, 
which is rapidly increasing, and which indicates a long continued 



778 



HISTORY OF WAIJASHA COUNTY 



reversal of the process of erosion. The drift, which on the prairies 
overlies the rock to a depth of from five to fifty feet, consists of clay, 
topped by a layer of rich clay loam, which twenty-five years ago 
nourished a thick growth of buffalo grass and grubs, now sui)planted 
by the products of intelligent industry. 

Nature here spreads riches for the artist and poet, as well as 
broad acres for the practical husbandman. The picturesque valleys, 
bounded by perpendicular, moss-grown walls and steep hillsides, 
broken by glen and gorge and covered with blooms, shrubs, oaks 
and conifers, and the winding streams which flow by mill and 
meadow, hemmed by vine-hung elms and willows, challenge the 
admiration of the lover of Kature, and invite the artist's pencil, 
l^eaving the valley, the vision sweeps miles of 

" Unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, 
For which the speech of England has no name, — 
The Prairies. 

Lo ! they stretch 
In fairy undulation^ far away. 
As if the ocean in his gentlest swell 
Stood still with all his rounded billows 
Fixed and motionless for ever." 

In the earlier days of the settlement, wheat was the staple pro- 
duct, and the abundant harvests which in those days invariably 
rewarded the settler's trust to this crop, soon made a prosperous 
community and gave this grain a monopoly of the farmer's attention. 
Corn was supposed to be ill adapted to this climate, and barley was 
yet to be introduced to any considerable extent. Passing years 
brought a decrease in the wheat production, with an occasional fail- 
ure, and barley, corn and oats soon claimed a large share of the 
acreage, though wheat is still king and is likely to be for many years 
to come. Within the past few years increased attention has been 
given to stock-raising, owing to partial failures in grain, and the 
indications are that this industry will grow to considerable import- 
ance, though scarcity of water will always be one drawback to com- 
plete success in this line. The statistics given below are from the 
assessment rolls for for 1882. 



ACRKAGE. BUSHEL. 

Wheat 0,780 81,570 

Oats 1,240 39,090 

Corn 900 24,700 

Barlev 1,190 23,400 



VALUE. 

Horses .? 10,531 

Cattle 5,510 

Real estate 189,750 



WEST ALBANY TOWNSHIP. 779 

EARLY SETTLEMENTS. 

In June, 1855, the liitherto undisturbed reign of nature and tlie 
Indian, in what is now West Albany townsliip, was broken by the 
appearance of Samuel Brink, who erected on the southwest quarter 
of section 21 a two-story log hotel 24x46 feet. A few weeks later 
John McCollom settled on section 28, accompanied by a Dr. Spaf- 
ford who left shortly after the death of Mrs. McCullom in August 
of that year. This was the first visit of "that grim ferryman" that 
poets write of, — a visit that has too oft been repeated. In the 
summer of 1855 came also Abram Lyons, followed in the early fall 
by Leroy, Eugene, and Cornelius McCollom, These settlements 
were all made in the valley near the future site of the village of 
West Albany, the first comers being attracted by the supposed 
superior fertility of the soil and the advantages of water and wood 
not found on the prairie. In the spring of 1852 Abram Lyons took 
unto himself a iielpmate in the person of Miss Jane McCollom ; this 
first marriage of the township was blessed by the appearance of a 
daughter the following spring, Laurii Ann Lyons, who was the first 
child born in West Albany. 

The summer of 1856 brought several new comers ; their names, 
as far ascertainable, being as follows : Wm, Wright, of England ; 
Frederick Jacobs, of Hanover ; Andrew Hook, of Baden ; Charles 
Wise, of Baden ; John M. Welsh, of Ireland, and Patrick Cronan, 
of Ireland. This summer saw the destruction of Brink's tavern by 
fire ; he had remained but a short time after liis location here, and 
when he took his departure he left the hotel in charge of a Mr. 
Smith. At the time of its burning it was occupied by Frederick 
Jacobs. For some time afterward the settlement was designated as 
"the Burnt Tavern." 

In the spring of 1857, Lawrence Tracy, of Irish nativity, who 
had previously settled in what is now Oakwood, moved to West 
Albany. In the same year came Sylvester and William Applegarth, 
of Canada ; Henry Schmuser, of Holstien ; Wm. Funk, and some 
others. In 1858 began the establishment of the Scotch settle- 
ment in the northeastern part of the township. In this year came 
George and William Wilson, William Dufi'us, Henry Glashen, Geo, 
and William Perry, Charles Forest, Alexander Thoirs, William 
Sterling, David Munro, and William Corry ; these have since been 
followed by many others from Scotland and Racine county, Wiscon- 
sin, some also from Canada. Many of these came here poor, but all 



780 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY, 

are now successful farmers, and the Scotch settlement will be found 
a christian, iiospitable community where peace and prosj)eritj 
reigns. 

Thus we see the early establishment of three nationalities in this 
township, Geriiian, Irish and Scotch, and to these tliree the popu- 
lation still mainly belongs, but very few being of American descent. 

Like the early pioneers of every part of the country the first set- 
tlers of West Albany saw their share of hardship and privation, and 
here as elsewhere bitter cups were often sweetened and brooding 
clouds lighted by the merry meetings which varied a life of toil, 
and a generous spirit of equality and neighborly kindness, over the 
departure of which many an old settler will be seen to shake his 
head regretfully. Money was scarce, and settlers were sometimes 
in actual want of food or reduced toadietof johnnycake or potatoes. 
The abundance of game was often a great advantage, and the 
numerous flocks of praii-ie chicken and grouse, and the occasional 
deer that haunted the valleys, frequently increased an otherwise 
slim bill of fare. Sometimes the men would devote a day to ball or 
"shinny," and braking and hauling bees were quite common, often 
being a necessity, as teams were rather scarce. In the winter, 
sleigh-rides, singing-schools, lyceums, spelling-schools, donations, 
etc., varied the monotony and will always be remembered with 
pleasure by the participants. 

An Indian trail from Wabasha to Blue Earth ]^assed through this 
township, over which the Indians often passed, frequently stoi)]jing 
along West Albany creek to fish for the brook-trout that haunted 
its deeps. Winter sometimes saw them camped in the valleys, 
generally along the Zumbro, and though they often visited the 
settlers, to beg or bring in a little game, they gave no serious annoy- 
ance. Mr. Tracy's cabin, which then consisted of one room, was a 
favorite resort, and on cold winter evenings they would invade this 
warm retreat, lay around on the floor, in the way, and play cards, 
sometimes until midnight. In 1S62 the settlers were badly fright- 
ened by the rumor that the hostile Indians from the north were 
coming, and many wakeful nights were passed on this account. 
Some left temporarily, some would go to neighbors' houses to spend 
the night, and some talk of fortifying a retreat was indulged in, but 
the Indians never came and no scal])s were lost. 

Having taken this brief glance at the planting of civilization from 
a social standpoint, let us return to the year 1857 and consider other 



WEST ALBANY TOWNSHIP. 781 

matters which time and change have given to the historian's pen. 
About this time the first road in the township was establislied. 
This was a road from Read's Landing to Oronoco and Mazeppa, 
passing tln-ough the vilhige of West Albany. In the spring of 1857 
Leroj, Eugene and Cornelius McCollom bought of George II. Fari- 
bault the W. i of N.W. i of Sec. 28, on which they laid out a 
town, naming it West Albany. William Applegarth built a store, 
which he stocked with a small sup]3ly of general merchandise, and the 
proprietors erected a sawmill. Upon the petition of the McCollom s a 
postoffice was established, being located at Applegarth's store, with 
E. B. McCollom, postmaster. The future prospects of the town 
seemed very flattering, but the plat was never recorded, and this was 
the extent of its growth. The store was sold, about 1866, to K. Barry, 
who carried on the business until within two or three years, and was 
postmaster until 1878, when the ofiice passed into the hands of 
Thomas Smith. The mill was run a few years, when it was aban- 
doned, and in 1874 it was sold to Hiram Fellows, who removed it 
to the present site of Brandt's flouring-mill. In the same spring 
(1857) John McCollom platted the town of Union on the W. ^ of 
N. W. J of Sec. 27, but agriculture was tlie only business ever carried 
on within its limits. 

On the first Monday in May, 1858, the township was organized 
as West Albany, though to whom the credit of naming the town is 
due, could not be ascertained. The election was held at William 
Applegarth's, resulting as follows : E. B. McCollom, chairman of 
board ; William Applegarth, clerk ; Leroy McCollom, justice of the 
peace ; and Cornelius McCollom, constable. 

In the spring of 1859 Sylvester Applegarth laid out the village 
of Albany, on section 29, about a half-mile west of the town started 
two years before. The plat was recorded May 3, 1859, and the 
place soon became the metropolis of the township. Richard Daw- 
son erected a hotel, Sylvester Applegarth a gristmill, S. Mclntyre a 
store and saloon, and Jacob Fister a blacksmith-shop. About this time 
a small land oflice was run by E. Foster, who did business of various 
kinds for the settlers, but upon his election as auditor he left this 
part of the county. July 4, 1861, the blacksmith-shop was burned. 
Its destruction was the result of a quarrel about the possession of an 
anvil with which the inhabitants intended to demonstrate their 
patriotism. The same year saw the burning of the hotel. Both 
were soon rebuilt. In 1862 the hotel passed into the hands of 



782 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY, 

Frank Ryan, who ran it as a hotel and saloon for a few years. 
This place became a favorite resort, and dances wer(! often held 
under its roof, with their attendant mirth and uproar. 

These were the hamlet's palmiest days, though to those most inter- 
ested in its progress hope whispered that these were but beginnings. 
In the minds of the i)roprietors and others this location was destined 
to become the capital of Wabasha county ; and eligible sites for the 
county buildings were pointed out with confident predictions as to 
the bright future of West Albany. But shortly after the war its 
star began to wane, and now business of all kinds has entirely 
deserted this part of the township. 

In the early days of the settlement the leading spirits in this 
part of the township were the McColloms and the Applegarths, all 
of whom are now gone. Perhaps more than casual mention is due 
to some. Leroy McCollom is remembered by those who knew him 
as an "odd genius," and his influence in ""affairs of state'" was 
considerable in those days. He was rather a successful pettifogger, 
a justice of the peace several years, and always took a great interest 
in local squabbles. He was a good neighbor and a man of shrewd- 
ness, but his time was largely passed, with legs crossed, whittling a 
stick and discussing the various topics of conversation that pi'esented 
themselves. About 1867 Charles Nunn put a good-sized stock of 
general merchandise in the house now owned by Thomas Smith, 
and did a flourishing business for two or three years. In 1867 
Ryan's hotel was purchased by the Catholic congregation, who used 
it as a church several years. Besides the business institutions men- 
tioned, shoe and blacksmith shops have been in operation at diflerent 
times ; but all have now departed, and the little vitality left at the 
time was extinguished by the advent of the railroad in 187S. 



In the establishment of a new community schools are, of course, 
a matter of early consideration. The condition and advantages of 
society are in a measure reflected in the schoolhouses and attendant 
educational facilities, and the best educational means available are 
often very crude. Such was the case in West Albany, and the flrst 
terms in the different districts were generally taught in abandoned 
claim shanties and cabins, or perhaps in a private house. The first 
term of school in this township was probably taught by Augustus 
Applegarth, in the summer of 1858, in a building owned by William 



WEST ALBANY TOWNSHIP. 783 

Haines. Farther than this nothing could be learned. Good frame 
schoolhouses now dot the townshij), and the schools are generally in 
a prosperous condition. 

CHUECHES. 

Baptist. — The majority of the members of the organization are 
residents of AYest Albany ; but meetings were for many years held 
in the schoolhouse of district 26, which, until 1878, was located in 
Glasgow township. At that time a new schoolhouse was erected in 
West Albany, where services were afterward held. The first Baptist 
preacher who ministered to this community was Benjamin Wharton, 
a native of Virginia, and at that time a resident of Wabasha. This 
was in 1858. His first services were held in the log house of John 
Owens of this township, and until the erection of the schoolhouse 
of district No. 26, in 1861 or 1862, he held meetings at intervals of 
two or three weeks, here and at the residences of William Corry and 
B. B. Fetzer. July 14, 1861, he organized the church at the log 
schoolhouse. Eight were enrolled as members, viz: Isaac Corry, 
William Corry and wife, Charles Forest, John Owens and wife, by 
letter from the Baptist church of Wabasha ; B. B. Fetzer and Martha 
Fetzer, from Clarion county, Pennsylvania. The first officers chosen 
were B, B. Fetzer and Isaac Corry, deacons. Wharton was suc- 
ceeded by William Sturgeon, who preached about one year, when 
Wharton returned, remaining several years. He was followed by 
Eev. Cummings, and one year later by Levi Eoss, under whose 
charge the church saw its season of greatest prosperity, the member- 
ship reaching thirty-three. After a ministration of two and a half 
years he was succeeded by T. F. Babcock, who remained but a short 
time, and was the last to visit the church. About this time the 
ranks were greatly thinned by emigration westward ; so much so that 
services have been discontinued about two years. In 1859 a sabbath 
school was organized, and was kept up until the breaking up of the 
church. 

Catholic. — In the early days of the settlement the Catholics were 
favored with occasional visitations by Father Tissot, of Wabasha. 
He repeated his visits until 1866, when he was succeeded by Father 
Trobec, also from Wabasha. In 1869 Father Herman divided his 
time between this charge and Lake City, and was followed by 
Father Quinn. In the fall of 1879 Father Jacobs took charge of the 
church, being the first resident priest, and remaining four years. 
In the spring of 1883 the present priest, Father Boland, began his 



784 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ministnition. About 1803 the congregation ])urcliased sixty acres 
of land near the vilhige of West Albany, and two years later they 
bought twenty additional acres, with Frank Eyan's hotel, which 
they used for a church several years. The new church was begun 
during the ministration of Father Herman, and will be completed in 
1884, at a cost of about twenty-two thousand dollars. A com- 
modious parsonage was begun in 1881 and will be finished at an 
expense of fifteen hundred dollars. The church is prosj^erous, and 
has a membership of seventy-nine. A (catholic school at this place 
is one of the probabilities of the near future. 

United Preshyterlan. — At the request of a few persons, residents 
of West Albany township, they were visited in September, 1860, by 
Rev. James McCartney, who preached at the house of William 
Sterling on the evening of September 13, 1860, and in schoolhouse 
No. 21 on the 14th. Though preaching was earnestly desired, other 
engagements prevented him from returning until January, 1861. 
From this time until July he preached here half the time. The 
Caledonia congregation of the United Presbyterian church was 
organized March 19, 1861, with nine members. Seven of these were 
by letter, from Yorkville, Wisconsin, — William Wilson, Jeanette 
Wilson, Henry Glashen, Jane Glashen, William Sterling, Lucretia 
Sterling and George Perry ; and two joined on profession, — 
AVilliani Perry and Martha Perry. In the summer of 1861 Rev. J. 
K. Black visited them a few times, and July, 1862, A. B. Coleman 
was sent by the general assembly and preached half the time 
for a year. He was followed by H. McHatton, James P. Rait, 
James M. Wallace, J. Tate, James Rogers, and perhaps others. 
July, 1882, A. Y. Houston, the present incumbent, took charge. 
The present membership is about thirty. The year 1884 will 
probably see the erection of a frame church, at a cost of fifteen hun- 
dred dollars. A sabbath school has been in progress at various 
times since the organization, and is now in a prosperous condition. 

Lutheran. — About 1863 Prof. Moldenke, of Milwaukee, made 
this section a visit and preached at the house of Henry Schmusei", 
on section 16. Through his influence the few adherents to the 
church in this neighborhood were visited in 1S64 by William Vom- 
hof, of Olmsted county. During the fiill of that year he organized 
a church of six members, as follows : John Dankwart, Henry 
Sclimuser and wife, John Haase, Fritz Lange, Henry Lange and 
John Schmidt. The succession of ministers since that time has 



WEST ALBANY TOWNSHIP. 785 

been as follows : F. Seifert, A. Hoffman, M. Stulpnagel. P. Eub- 
reih, and P. Bechtel, the present incumbent. Their church, a neat 
frame, was erected in 1868. At the same time a parsonage was 
erected. A sabbath school has been running eight years. 

German Methodist. — The exact date of the first preaching was 
not ascertained, though it was probably in 1861,. by Kev. Grechten- 
meyer at C. Furhman's house. The following are the names of 
ministers who have followed him : Wm. Schreiner, Philip Funk, 
August Lamprecht, Adam Wilier, Frederick Hermsmeyer, Frederick 
Hogrefe, Louis Thoele, Henry Sclmitker, and Frederick Herms- 
meyer, of Wabasha, who still preaches to the congregation. A 
frame church was built in 1866 at a cost of about eight hundred 
dollars. 



July 26, 1875, Good Templar Lodge, No. 120, was organized by 
F. C. Stow, G.W., secretary of LO.G.T., with forty-one charter 
members. The first ofiicers were : J. P. Owens, L.D,; A. G. Sul- 
ton, P.W.C.T.; John Munro, W.C.T.; Jennie Ritchie, W.Y.T.; 
John Brown, Secretary. Meetings were held regularly in the 
schoolhouse of district No. 26 ; then in Glasgow township. Through 
dissatistaction, carelessness and emigration, the organization was dis- 
banded April, 1878. The greatest membership (73) was reached 
April, 1877. 



West Albany creek offers the advantage of good water-power 
to industries of this kind, and its hurrying course was fii-st checked 
by a water-wheel in 1857, when the McColloms' sawmill was put in 
operation. 

In 1859 Sylvester Applegarth built a gristmill, in his town, with 
two run of buhrs. Three or four years after he sold it to Patrick 
McNamee, and after passing through different hands and experienc- 
ing several changes, it was destroyed by fire and never rebuilt. 

In 1867 Wm. Applegarth built a feedmill on this stream. It 
was soon sold, and in 1877 it passed into the hands of its present 
owner, John J. Hoffman. He reconstructed the mill at a cost of 
about two thousand dollars, putting in a new dam and machinery, 
and now has three run of buhrs, —two for flour and one for feed. 

As before mentioned, the sawmill built by the McColloms was 
purchased in 1874 by Hiram Fellows and moved farther down the 
47 



*IS() HISTORY OF WAHASIIA COUNTY. 

Stream. In 1877 it was purchased by the Brandt brothers, who re 
moved the machinery and erected their present flouring-mill at a 
cost of twenty-four hundred dolhirs. In the fall of 1882 improve- 
ments were made to the extent of one thousand dollars, and more 
are contemplated. They have a turbine wheel, three run of buhrs, 
with lirst-class machinery, and are doing a prosperous business. 

We must not omit mention of the Gopher Prairie postoffice, es- 
tablished about 1860, on section 2, with Benjamin Dodge as post- 
master. This became a favorite place of resort for the neighbors to 
gather in, tell stories, discuss politics, or read the newspapers of 
which Dodge always had a plentiful supply. In the course of two 
or three years it was moved to the house of AVm. Wilson and shortly 
after to the town of Lake. 

The only practicing physician who has resided in this township 
was Dr. Miller, who located on section 14 several years ago and re 
mained about two years. 

RAILROAB. 

In 1878 the Minnesota Midland railway was completed, following 
the course of the Zumbro river through the southeastern part of the 
township. The history of the road will be found elsewhere, and 
only one thing need here be mentioned in this connection. Before 
the building of the road, agents of the company went among the 
farmers and got a majority of the voters to sign a petition for the 
road agreeing to aid the company to the extent of five thousand dol- 
lars in case the road was completed. This afterward created con- 
siderable dissatisfaction in the township, and when the road was 
completed they declined to grant the bonus. The case was carried 
to the supreme court w^here the law under which the petition was 
gotten up was declared unconstitutional, thus relieving the township 
of their obligation to pay the amount. 

TOWNS. 

Since the advent of the railroad two little towns have sprung up 
in the township. 

Tracy was so named by Mr. Lakey, superintendent of the road, 
in honor of Lawrence Tracy, on whose farm the station was estab- 
lished. Since 1878 the Mazeppa Mill Company has been buying 
wheat at this place. In the summer of 1879 P. J. McGinn built a 
two-story frame building and put in a stock of general merchandise, 
valued at about five hundred dollars. He met with fair success, 



HYDE PARK TOWNSHIP. 78 7 

increasing it from time to time, and in the spring of 1863 he sold to 
P. J. Fox, who continues the business. In 1880 the postoffice was 
moved from West Albany to Tracy, McGinn assuming the duties of 
postmaster. In 1883 he was succeeded bv P. J. Fox, the present 
incumbent. The postoffice is called Lakey, there being another 
Tracy in the state. 

Theilmanton is on the railroad in section 36, pleasantly located 
on a terrace in the valley, and about forty feet above the Zumbro 
river. It was named in honor of Christian Theilman, through 
whose influence the station was established, and by whom the town 
was platted in 1877. In January, 1878, Peter Hall completed and 
occupied the commodious two-story frame, wliere he still holds forth, 
putting in a stock of general merchandise, valued at about one 
thousand dollars. He was the tirst to locate on the site of the town, 
and his stock is now worth about four thousand dollars. In the 
spring of the same year he was followed by jSTicholas Reil, who 
erected a good frame building, which he has since occupied as a boot 
and shoe shop. During the same season William Morris built a 
blacksmith-shop, and Henry Sommerholder a wagonshop, which he 
jet occupies. In the fall two saloons were started by William 
Colegraif and Nils P. Christian son respectively. The latter after- 
ward sold to John Will. Upon the petition of Peter Hall a ])ost- 
offiee was established, December, 1878, with the petitioner as post- 
master. During 1878 a commodious grainhouse was erected by 
C. Theilman, who then began buying grain. In 1882 it passed into 
the hands of the Wabasha Elevator Company. About forty thou- 
sand bushels of grain were shipped from this place in 1882. The 
population numbers about sixty, and is now almost entirely German. 



CHAPTER LXXXII. 



HYDE PAKK TOWNSHIP. 



In the early part of May, 1855, Paris Devitt and Samuel Parker 
settled in the district of country now known as Hyde Park. The next 
day after their arrival came John Ritter, Charles Holzman, AVilliam 
McCloud ; and it was but a very short time until George and Seymore 
Fanning and the Baker families arrived and took up homesteads. 



788 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

It was the rolling farm-hnid, dotted with poplar groves, which 
attracted these men, some of whom came from northern Pennsyl- 
vania, while others from Maryland. The close of the summer of 
1855 found almost every quarter-section "claimed," and a log cabin 
erected to shield the pioneer from Minnesota's wintry blasts. The 
winter of 1855-6 is a notable one in the history of the country as 
the "cold winter," and the early settlers suifered greatly since they 
were so far from mill and market, besides their means were very 
scanty. Many tales of hardship are related of that "cold winter,'' 
When the snow became so deep and the weather so cold that it was 
impossible to get "the grain to mill, the old coffee mill w^is used, and 
the words " Flannigan's Mill" bring back to many old settlers 
recollections of pioneer life in the winter of 1855-6. 

At the time of the government survey the tract of land now 
included in the townships of Zumbro and Hyde Park was called 
Concord. This name, however, for some reason, did not suit the 
people, and at a meeting held in May, 1858, the name Troy was 
chosen. The legislature would not accept this, however, as another 
town in the state held the same name, so it was named Zumbro, 
after the river which divided it. The larger part of the population 
lived on the south side of the river, and all township elections and 
meetings were held on that side. This was a source of trouble to 
the north side people, for at the spring and fall elections the river 
was swollen so much with the rains that they could not cross but 
with a risk of their lives, so a general feeling of dissatisfaction arose, 
which culminated in the spring of 1802, in dividing the township 
by the river, the south part retaining the name Zumbro, At the 
first meeting held north of the i-iver the name Hyde Park was sug- 
gested by an Englishman, So that tli^ township is named after one 
of the most famous places in London. This is only a fractional 
townshij) containing about ten thousand acres, four thousand and 
eighty-nine acres being under cultivation. 

The land is varied. Along the Zumbro river, and extending two 
miles northward from its banks, the land is very rough and hilly. 
Dense forests of heav^- oak cover the ground, and even at the 
present day the fox, wolf and deer are found, with an abundance of 
smaller game. In the north part of the township may be found tine 
rolling farms suitable for grain and corn. The present population is 
largely Irish, They are kind and hospitable, and their appreciation 
for learning is shown by the character of the schools. They are 



HYDE PAKE TOWNSHIP, Y89 

hardy and industrious, caring more for an abundance of the neces- 
saries of life than for superfluities. 

The first settlers of this township coming from centers of chris- 
tian influence, were not unmindful of spiritual things in their new 
homes, and with the fonndations of their log cabins they erected altars 
of prayer and praise. As early as 1856 religious services were held 
in the cabins of the farmers, and j)eople old and young came to the 
meetings. The first preaching services in the township were held 
at the home of John Ritter, and the minister was the renowned 
pioneer Jas. McArdell. These meetings were continued for several 
years, but no Protestant church has ever been established, and at the 
present time there are but few Protestant families in the township. 
There is a Roman Catholic church at Hammond. It was erected in 
1881, and is a frame structure 26x36 feet, with a wing 12x16 feet, 
and twenty-two feet high. The membership consists of about eighty 
families, and services are held every two weeks, at which a priest 
from Lake City oflficiates. At a very early day Sunday schools 
were established, and through the earnest efforts of some good 
ladies the work still goes on. 

Agi-iculture is the chief occupation of the people. Minnesota 
has always been called the great wiieat state, and as good crops have 
been raised in this township as in any part of the state. The past 
four years have been rather unfavorable to wheat-growing, and the 
farmers are now turning their attention more to corn and barley 
growing and to the rearing and feeding of stock. The following is 
a summary of the products of the year 1882 : Wheat, 16,271 
bushels; oats, 23,223 bushels ; barley, 20, 525 bushels; corn, 19,773 
bushels; potatoes, 2,950 bushels; apples, 203 bushels; hay, 427 
tons ; butter. 9,550 pounds; wool, 152 pounds. 

Hyde Park has an I.O.O.F. of which she is justly proud. The 
first movement toward organization was begun in the summer of 
1877, and public interest in the lodge became so intense that before 
the summer was half over it was organized and started with a large 
and effective membership. It is generally conceded that Scot Foster 
was the prime mover in the organization of the lodge, largely aided 
by the venerable John Ritter, who held the first office of Noble 
Grand. The name of the lodge is the Hyde Park I, O. O. F. , although 
many of its members are residents of Gillford and West Albany 
townships. The place of meeting is in Gillford township, at a place 
called "Grange Corners," where they have a pleasant room 18x22 



T90 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

feet, and comfortably furnislied. The lodge holds weekly meetings 
and is in a very promising condition. The following is a list of its 
charter members : Scot Foster, Fred Foster, Albert Foster, Clarence 
Foster, Geo. A. Roberts, Joe Eoberts, Wilson Roberts, Albert Rob- 
erson, Louis OTIarra, L. A. Doty, Robert Disney, John Disney, 
David Williams, J. Clark, E. D. Southard, Russel Warren, Frank 
Warren, Samuel La Mont, Ed. Clifford, John Ritter. 

TOWXS. 

This township has two small towns which furnish a market for 
not only the people of Hyde Park but also for the townships 
adjoining it. 

eTarretts is a thriving little village, situated in the southeastern ])art 
of the township, on the C. M. iSz St. P. narrow-gauge railroad, just 
thirty miles from Wabasha. Before there was an inhabitant near the 
present site of the town, there was a ford in the Zumbro where the 
old settlers in an early day crossed, and since the nearest dweller 
was Mr. Jarrett, the place came to be called "Jarrett's Ford,'' and 
when a postoffice was established it received the name of Jarretts. 
The village consists of one general merchandise store with postoffice, 
one fiouring-mill, one grain elevator, a sugar mailufactory and about 
one dozen dwelling-houses. The town really had its birth in 187^, 
when the narrow-gauge railroad was built. The flouring-mill, run 
by water-power, was built in 1878 b*^' Kimball & Kitzman, and is 
the only mill in the townshiji. The elevator is a frame structure 
with a capacity of five thousand bushels, and is used as a feeder to 
the large flouring-mill at Mazeppa. 

Hammond is a village of about two hundred population, situated 
three miles west of Jarretts, on the C. M. & St. P. narrow-gauge rail- 
road. The place derives its name from a Mr. Hammond who owned 
the land where the village now stands. The town is divided into two 
parts by the river Zumbro, and the two parts are connected by a large 
bridge of wood and iron work, mounted on stone basements. The 
tirst building was erected in 1877, and from the increase in the past 
the prospect is encouraging for its becoming a town of more than 
county reputation. The elevator owned by the Mazeppa Mill Co. is 
a large wooden structure, erected in 1879, with the dimensions 
40x80 feet, eighty -live feet high. It has a ca])acity of seventy-five 
thousand bushels. This is the largest elevator in the county, and its 
erection and operation has greatly benefited the citizens of Hyde 
Park and the surrounding country. 



HYDE PAKK TOWNSHIP. 791 



There are three schoolhouses in the township all of which have 
a large attendance and which are well conducted. It has always 
been the desire of the people to have good schools, and the trustees, 
realizing this desire, have aimed to secure able teachers. The re- 
sults of good training are attested by the fact that now men and 
women educated in these schools are teaching in all parts of the 
county, some even holding the responsible positions as principals 
of the high schools of Elgin and Plainview. 

The first schoolhouse in the township was built in the summer of 
1856, on the northeast corner of section 3, on the land now owned by 
Kobert Fish. This schoolhouse was in the district now numbered 
45. The first teacher was Miss Mary Shaw, who received twelve 
dollars per month for her services. There were three families in 
the district : Shaws, Parkers and Yorks. 

The first school held in what is now known as district 46, was 
taught by Unus Potter in 1857 at a private house. The next year it 
was held in a barn owned by Mr. Peter Kelley, and the next year 
a log schoolhouse was built by the settlers. The first school in 
district 84 was taught by Miss Lucy Koberts, the date being uncer- 
tain, probably about 1859. 

MISCELLANEOUS FACTS. 

In 1866 the county bought of John F. Koss one hundred and 
sixty acres of land in this township to be used as a county poor- 
farm, but for convenience it was exchanged for a farm near the 
county seat. 

In 1856 Wm. Parker opened and stocked the first store in the 
township, which he operated until 1865. He was the first post- 
master in the township. John Keller was the first blacksmith, and 
he opened the first shop in 1858. Francis Shaw had the first shoe- 
shop, which he opened in 1857. 

The first birth was that of Effie Woodward, born February 14, 
1856. The first marriage was that of Jacob York and Mrs. Jane 
Shaw, June 22, 1856. 

At the time of the construction of the narrow-gauge railroad 
through the township, the question whether the township should 
bond itself was voted upon. At the first election the ''bonding" 
was defeated, but after a few days the decision was reversed and the 
people agreed to pay six thousand dollars, giving seven per cent 



792 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

payable semi-annually. This was a large amount for so small a 
township to i)ay but they have gained great benefit from the road, 
since now they have a good market close at home, whereas, ]jrior to 
the construction of the road, the grain and marketing had to be 
taken by wagon twenty to twenty-five miles. 

The year 1883 is the first year liquor license has ever been 
granted in this townslii]>. 

Politically the township is strongly democratic. The townshi]) 
has a population of about four hundred and eighty-five, of whom 
ninetv-one are voters. 



CHAPTER LXXXIII. 



GILLFORD TOWNSHIP. 



Ix the early part of May, 1855, Messrs. Wm. McCloud, George 
and Seymour Fanning came to this township, and after taking claims 
and working through the summer season, they returned to Illinois 
for the winter and in the following spring they returned here with 
their families. The same year, 1855, Jos. Fuller took a claim near 
Mazeppa, but being discouraged by a heavy frost in June was about 
to return to Illinois when his brother-in-law, Mr. Gill, dissuaded him, 
and they both settled in Gillford. In the fall of 1855 Mr. Gill re- 
turned to Illinois for his family ; after spending the winter there 
and when returning here he was taken sick and died. Mrs. Gill, 
however, settled in this township, and on account of her amiable 
character the township was named for her. Much might be said in 
commendation of all those old settlers, but one deserves particular 
notice here. Mr. McCloud was a man of very great worth to county 
and township. He laid out the roads in the township ; he was a great 
patron of schools ; he did his utmost to promote religious interest 
in the community ; as regards hospitality he could not be sur- 
passed. In' the spring of 1856 Messrs. E. M. Hoyt, E. F. Hoyt, 
W. F. Green and F. Lamb came to this township and took claims 
in the northwestern part. 

The first town meeting was held at the house of L. W, Manning 
on May 11, 1856. The result of the first election was as follows : 
E. M. Hoyt, L. W. Manning, David Fanning, sujjervisors ; E. M. 



GILLFORD TOWNSHIP. 793 

Rider, town clerk ; James Morehead, William McCIoud, justices of 
the peace ; S. Tysdel, assessor ; William Green, overseer of poor. 
The number of v^otes cast was thirty-four. 

LAND. 

The land of this township has a gentle roll, and is exceedingly 
suitable for grain-growing. It is situated midway between the 
forests and rough land, bordering on the Zunibro on the south, and 
the similar land along the Mississippi on tlie north. There is an 
abundance of clear-running water, which renders stock-raising com- 
paratively easy. 

PEOPLE. 

In the early history of the township the people were mostly 
natives of New England, Xew York or Pennsylvania, but the last 
ten years has seen quite a change. A lai-ge number of the old 
settlers having moved farther noi'th and west, their places are now 
occupied by Germans. A careful investigation has shown that 
more than one-half of the present population are German, who 
occup}' the eastern and northern parts of the township ; of the other 
half, quite a large number are Irish, who reside in the southeastern 
part, and the rest living in the western part of the township are 
for the most part natives of ISTew York and Pennsylvania. The 
present population numbers about two thousand, and the largest 
vote cast was two hundred and six. 

TOWNS. 

There is but one town in the township, Zumbro Falls. It is 
situated in the extreme southwestern part of the township and has a 
population of about two hundred people. The river Zumbro divides 
it, the dwelling-houses being on one side, in Chester township, 
while the business-houses are in this township. A large bridge 
connected the two divisions until recently, when a storm, which did 
much damage to the village and surrounding country, completely 
destroyed the bridge. A new one will soon be constructed. A man 
by the name of Tuttle first owned the land where the town now 
stands. Mr. Tibbitts owned it next, and then Mr. Whaley, who is 
still a resident of the place and owner of considerable property in 
that vicinity, purchased it. The town really began to exist in 1 STS, 
w^hen the narrow-gauge railroad was laid through this township. 
Mr. Haradon is the present postmaster. 

There is a postoffice in the northern part of the township with 



794- HISTORY OF watbasha county. 

which is connected a general mercliandise store. Mail is received 
and taken twice a week by stage. The name Oak Centre was 
given to this postoffice by Mr. C. C. Lowe on account of the abun- 
dance of oak-trees in that vicinity. 

RELIGIOUS SKRVICKS. 

Until the summer of 1859 no religious services were held in the 
township, the principle reason being there was no leader. In that 
summer Haradon organized a Sunday-school at Oak Centre, and 
after that was in successful operation, two more were organized. As 
yet there was no preacher or preaching. In the spring of 1S60 a man 
by the name of Stillwell came into the township and took a claim. 
It was soon rumored around that he was a Methodist exhorter, so 
he was waited upon and asked to preach at Oak Centre the following 
sabbath. He preached, and the people were so well pleased tliat 
he made several appointments, and thus the work continued through- 
out the summer. In the course of several months a great revival 
took place, which was so widespread that three new churches were 
organized, which still exist. 

Mr. Stillwell was one of those quiet, modest men, with little self- 
confidence, but he won the respect and admiration of all the people 
with whom he came in contact, and the good he was the means of 
accomplishing cannot be overestimated. 

There are three churches in the township. A Methodist E[;isco- 
pal church, on section 16, which was built in 1862, but which has 
no regular services at present. There is a large cemetery connected 
with this church, where many of its members and others are laid to 
rest. A woman's mission organization hold regular sabbath ser- 
vices in the schoolhouse, district No. 19. The German people have 
a Lutheran church at Jacksonville. It is a handsome frame structure, 
30x16 feet, comfortably furnished and surrounded by one-half Jicre 
of land covered with beautiful shade-trees. About twenty-five 
families attend this church, Mr. Mire having been the pastor since 
the church was organized in 1878. All these churches sustain large 
Sunday schools, and an annual union picnic is held, which is one of 
the grandest occasions of the year to all. 

There are two Good Templars lodges in the townshi]j, one at 
Zumbro Falls, with a membership of eighty-six, and the other at 
Oak Centre, with a membership of forty-five. They are in a pros- 
perous condition, holding weekly meetings, at which literary exer- 



GILLFORD TOWNSHIP. < 90 

cises form a part of the evening's programme. Games and social 
pleasures are also indulged in, and many pleasant as well as profit- 
able evenings are spent together by the young people in uniting 
themselves against the common foe, intemperance. 

SCHOOLS. 

There are five schools in the township, Nos. 15, 16, 17. 19 and 
20. The first teacher in the township was Miss Lizzie Green 
(Bartlett), who taught a select school in a "claim shanty,'' 10x12 
feet in dimensions, in the summer of 1858, in the bounds of the 
district now known as ]^o. 15. The second school was established 
on section 12, near the present schoolhouse No. 19, and the first 
teacher was Miss Rosa Montgomery. It is a lamentable fact in 
connection with the schools of this township, that the records, 
iincludng names of teachers, number of pupils, salaries, dates, etc., 
have not been preserved. 

GJENERAL FACTS. 

The first marriage was Mr. E. S. Fanning and Miss Hannah 
Fanning in the spring of 1865. The first birth was Miss Mary 
Fanning, a daughter of the above. 

The first death was that of Mr. Samuel Fanning, in the fall of 
1§56. 

A liquor license has never been granted in this township. Dur- 
ing the war there was not a man drafted from this township ; a 
suflicient number enlisted. 

At the time of the construction of the narrow-gauge railroad 
through the township a" vote was taken whether tlie town should 
bond itself. It was lost by a few votes. There are six thousand 
two hundred and sixty-nine acres of land under cultivation. Politi- 
cally the township is republican. 



CHAPTER LXXXIV. 



LAKE CITY 



The citizens of that section of Wabasha county lying along the 
shores of Lake Pepin and contiguous to the county of Goodhue on 
the north, did not aspire to corporate responsibilities, honors 
and burdens at a very early date. That portion of the county, 
for years known as the town of Lake City, had been organized 
as a township for nearly thirteen years before any attempt to in- 
corporate a village or town within its territory was attempted, 
and it was more than seventeen years from the date of the perma- 
nent settlement of the town before any effective attempt at incorpo- 
ration was made. During those years there had grown up here an 
intelligent and thriving community of twenty-five hundred souls. 
Under no government other than that of the township organiza- 
tion, effected on the admission of the state into the union in 1858, a 
prosperous mercantile and shipping trade had been developed and 
successfully fostered ; churches had been organized and built ; 
schools established and well provided with all necessary appliances 
of buildings and apparatus ; streets had been opened, graded and 
furnished with sidewalks ; police and sanitary regulations adopted, 
and in short the whole paraphernalia of village organization intro- 
duced and successfully manipulated under that old township oi'gani- 
zation of May 11, 1858, supplemented by some special legislative 
acts to which specific attention will be necessary in order to arrive 
at a true understanding of the status of this city, which was only a 
town ; and of this portion of the town of Lake City, which was so 
much more than a township, as was only too apparent when the 
city of Lake City was carved out of the old township of Lake 
City, which one year thereafter received by legislative enact- 
ment the curtailed name of "Lake," as it now is. The state 
census returns for 1865 give as the population of the town of 
Jjiike City for that year, fourteen hundred and eleven souls. De- 
ducting the ])opulation of the township outside of the corner occu- 
pied by the afterward city, and making allowance for the increase 
of population during the year ending March 31, 1865, and it will 



LAKE CITY. 797 

not be far from the actual figures if we place the population of that 
section of Lake City township, now included with the incorporated 
limits of Lake City, at about eleven hundred, in the spring of 1864. 
By special legislative enactment, of date March 3, 1864, the super- 
visors of the town of Lake«City were given special powers, which 
special powers were equivalent in general terms to those usually 
exercised by the board of trustees of an incorporated village, or the 
common council of an incorporated city, but these special powers 
were only made applicable to a particularly specified section of the 
town of Lake City, to wit : The S.W. J of S.W. J and lots Nos. 1, 
2, 3 and 4 of Sec. 4 ; and the E. ^ and N.W. J of S.E. i of Sec. 5 ; 
the E. i of N.W. i and the S. ^ of N.E. J and lots Nos. 1 and 2 of 
Sec. 5 f and the E. i of N.W. J and the KAV. Jof N.W. i and lots 
Nos. 1 and 2 of Sec. 9, all in T. Ill K, of K 12 W., according to 
United States survey. This tract, as above described, included 
very nearly so much of the present city limits as is laid off in 
plats and blocks. Or, to describe it otherwise, it included that 
portion lying between the railroad track and the lake, with the 
addition of some small territory on the south side of the railway 
tracks about the depot, and also in the lower part of the village. 
It was a strip of land lying along Lake Pepin, a distance of a little 
over one and a half miles in length and extending backward from 
the lake a distance varying from one-half to three-fourths of a mile. 
It was this portion of Lake City township, that while still con- 
tinuing an integral part of that township, was practically cut off 
from it, by the special act of March 3, 1864, above referred to. 
The powers conferred by this act upon the supervisors of the town 
of Lake City, were to the effect that within the above specified 
territory, they could enact and enforce ordinances for a variet}^ of 
purposes, which briefly stated were : 

1. To compel owners and occupants of slaughterhouses, groceries, cellars, 
stables, sewers, vaults, or any unwholesome or nauseous house or places, to 
cleanse or abate the same as deemed necessary for the health and comfort of 
the town. 

2. To direct the location and management of slaughterhouses, markets, 
and to regulate the sale, storage and conveying of gunpowder and other com- 
bustibles. 

3. To prevent the incumbrance of streets, alleys or sidewalks, with anything 
whatever. 

4. To restrain cattle, hogs, sheep, dogs, poultry, etc., from running at large, 
and to provide for impounding, selling or destroying them as the case might be. 



798 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

5. To prevent tlie brinuinj^ into the district as above described, any putrid 
carcass or otlier unwholesome thing, or in case of its being so brought in, to 
provide for and enforce its removal. 

0. To regulate the burial of the dead, and jirovide against the spread of 
conta-iious diseases and their introduction. 

7. To prevent any persons from doing damage to the crossings and side- 
walks. 

8. To prevent open drunkenness, brawling, obscenity, etc., and provide 
for the arrest and punishment of those guilty of thus oflending against the 
general peace. 

9. To prevent the dangerous construction and condition of chimneys, fire- 
places, ovens, boilers and boiler-stacks, etc., the deposit of ashes in the high- 
ways, or in unsafe places; to regulate the use of fireworks and firearms, and in 
general to ]n'event and provide for the extinguishment of fires as might be con- 
sidered necessary and exjiedient. 

10. To provide for the maintenance of suitable sidewalks and street-cross- 
ings on both sides of Washington street, at the expense of the owners of the 
adjacent proi)erties. 

11. To establish a grade for Washington street, under direction of a com- 
petent surveyor, cause profiles thereof to be made and registered as town plats 
are recorded, and make regulations for excavating or filling in streets as may 
be required. 

12. To prevent and punish noise at public meetings and assemblies, riots, 
disturbances of all kinds, and generally to promote and preserve the public 
peace. 

It was made the duty of the townsliip supervisors to enforce the 
reguhitions that should be made in the interest and for the further- 
ance of the above objects, and the mannei" of procedure in such cases 
was duly set forth ; all by-laws, regulations or ordinances passed by 
them for this purpose were declared to have the force of law pro- 
vided they controvened no existing laws, and severe penalties could 
be enforced for their violation. The justices of the town of Lake 
City were given original and exclusive jurisdiction in all cases aris- 
ing under the act, and no appeal could be taken in anj- case where 
the fine imposed did not exceed twenty dollars. The supervisors of 
the town of Lake were also empowered to appoint a marshal, and 
it was made their duty to so appoint within thirty days of the an- 
nual town election. Said marshal was required to furnish bond, 
and given all the authority of constable under the statute of the 
state, to receive fees for his services, and such other compensation 
as the supervisors should determine, subject to limitation. The 
supervisors were also authorized and required to vote a tax u])on 
the taxable ])roperty of the district thus governed sufficient to pay 



LAKE CITY. 799 

the expenses incui-red in carrjing out the provisions of the act ; that 
tax was to be by majority vote of tlie town supervisors, and the town 
clerk was required to file a copy of record of such vote upon which 
the tax was to be levied and collected, as all other towr ship taxes 
were. The assessor of the town of Lake City was also required to 
make a separate list of the persons and personal property of all resi- 
dents ot the specified district in the same manner as was required to 
be done in the case of residents of incorporated towns. The act 
took efiect from and after its passage, and thenceforth the town 
supervisors of Lake City had a corporation to look after, which was 
not incorporated, and the district above described had all the honors 
and ]3rivileges of an incorporated village or city without its liabilities 
and many of its burdens. The legislature of 1866 made some addi- 
tional provisions, supplemental to the act of 1864, by which the 
special regulation concerning the building of a sidew^alk on Wash- 
ington street became a more general one, and included all the streets 
of the special district. In addition to this the town supervisors 
were authorized to direct so much of the poll and road tax, derived 
from the tax of the special district, as they deemed to be best, to the 
maintenance of bridges and highways in adjacent townships. This 
was only in effect to empower the town supervisors to do officially 
what the public spirit of the citizens, of the village which was not a 
village, had been doing privately and unofficialh for a number of 
years. Of this more specific mention will be made in another 
place. 

By act of legislature, approved March 9, 1867, some very ma- 
terial additions were made to the powers of the supervisors of the 
town of Lake City, by which they were authorized to license and 
regulate exhibitions and shows of all kinds, caravans, circuses, con- 
certs, theaters ; also, all auctions, billiard tables, tenpin alleys, bowl- 
ing saloons, etc. ; also, all taverns, saloons, and persons dealing 
in spirituous, vinous or fermented liquors. They were also given 
authority to prohibit gaming, card-playing, and restrain persons 
from engaging in the same, or from vending an}^ article for which 
license to sell was required, until the license so required had been 
duh' granted. Another important addition to their powers was 
that of establishing fire-limits, and prescribing what character of 
material should be allowed in building within such fire limits ; also, 
to prevent the reconstruction within such limits of all wooden build- 



800 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ings, where sucli buildings liad been damaged fifty per cent of their 
vahie. It was also enacted that they should provide a place for the 
confinement of all arrested persons, no matter from what cause, until 
discharged by due process of law or committed to the county jail. 
They were finally empowered to lay out a street through the center 
of a certain block (No. 1), levy a tax to compensate owners for 
damages, and to lease so mtich of the levee as to them shall seem 
just, provided it does not seriously affect or injure said levee, and pro- 
vided also that said leases should not extend for a longer term than 
ninety-nine years. The supervisors and town clerk were allowed 
two dollars per diem compensation each for all time actually em- 
ployed in discharging the duties set forth in the above act and its 
amendments ; and with this the special legislation ended for this 
special district which was virtually the incorporation of the city of 
Lake, and yet did not exist as such incorporation until eight years 
thereafter. 

There are few cases that can parallel this, and none that have 
come under our own notice. This existence of eight years in which 
the inhabitants of a favored corner of Lake City township were privi- 
leged with all that actual incorporation could confer, relieved of its 
financial burdens, might well mark an era in their history and be 
designated by a white stone. Not one substantial benefit that could 
be secured through a city charter that they did not reap ; not one 
responsibility, which as a city they must have assumed, that they 
did not in this manner largely avoid, and that without working 
aught but good to them. They could open streets and tax property 
therefor ; lay sidesvalks, grade, condemn property, lease the levees, 
prescribe fire limits, regulate sale of specified articles, require 
licenses, construct their own courts of municipal justice, issue their 
writs, execute them and enforce penalties without recourse (within 
certain limits); take the taxes for road purposes and appropriate 
them where they could do most good — and in every conceivable 
way exercise all the privileges of an individual or body corporate ; 
but they were not a body corporate in law, had no existence in 
fact, could not sue or be sued, could not contract any obligation, 
could not be forced to meet any ; and all the expense of carrying 
on this machinery was the sum of two dollars per ca})ita for 
the townshi]) supervisors and town clerk for every day actually 
expended in the direction of affairs. True the township officers 
could be sued, but there was no provision for their contracting any 



LAKE CITY. 801 

obligations for this specified district as such, and the arrangement 
all through was one on which Lake City, unincorporate, might well 
congratulate herself. Tlie verdict of one of her citizens — that she 
fortunately stumbled upon the peculiar legislation which this con- 
ferred privilege without responsibility, was after all, perhaps, not 
very wide of the mark. Early in 1867 the question of formally 
organizing as a city was discussed, and meetings held to consider 
the question. The matter was finally disposed of in a meeting of 
the citizens held at Williamson's hall, on the evening of Saturday, 
January 19, 1867. The objection to the existing order of affairs was 
urged, on the ground that as now administered, the town authorities 
lacked the power properly to administer the affairs of a community 
like this, and corporate powers had become a necessity. To this it 
was answered that the powers in the hands of the supervisors was 
ample, and only needed to be exercised. Also that if more legisla- 
tion was needed it could be obtained, but that it was unadvisable to 
saddle the town with the burdens of maintaining a corporate exist- 
ence. The test question, as submitted, was that a city charter be 
drawn up, and the proposition was negatived by a very decided 
majority. The meeting instructed the supervisors to rigidly enforce 
such by-laws and ordinances as were already in existence, and a 
committee chosen to draw up amendments to the present regula- 
tions, increasing the power of the town supervisiors so as to include 
the various subjects afterward specified in the legislative act of March 
9, next ensuing. Matters remained in this state so far as the exer- 
cise of govermental powers was concerned, until the formal incor- 
poration of the city — although one more attempt to incorporate was 
made, which led to no definite result. By act of legislature of 1870, 
it was provided that any community, within any specified district, 
numbering not less than two thousand souls, and not more than 
fifteen thousand, might, upon filing with the judge of probate for the 
county within which such district was located, a petition for incor- 
poration signed by not less than two-thirds of the legal voters ot said 
district, become thereby incorporated, and it was made the duty of 
the judges of probate, before whom such petition should come, to 
order an election for the purpose of filling the various offices set 
forth in the charter as petitioned for. Such petition so signed by 
three hundred and twenty-two legal voters residing within a certain 
described district (substantially the corporate limits of the 
present city of Lake City), came before A. Z. Putnam, 
48 



S02 HISTORY OF "WABASHA COUNTY. 

judge of probate for the county of Wabasha, on May 
15, 1871. The judge gave notice of election to be held 
July 1, 1S71, for the purpose of filling the various offices, 
and designated the place of holding such elections. Caucuses were 
held, and a full ticket nominated, but owing to opposition on the 
part of some, and a general distrust of the legality of such an incor- 
poration, the polls were nev^er opened, and the election passed. The 
friends of the measure were not satisfied with this disposition of the 
case, and C. N. Sterry, Esq., secured the opinion of Hon. Thos. 
Wilson, of the city of Winona, and also of Messrs. Bigelow, Flan- 
drau & Clark, of St. Paul, as to the constitutionality or otherwise of 
the city charter. The opinions in both cases sustained the action of 
the citizens as legal, and the incorporation as a valid act. The 
opinion of the- St. Paul attorneys was also to the effect that failure 
to hold the election in no case vacated or dissolved the corporation. 
The recourse as contained in the opinion, was to re-petition for a 
designated day of election, or apply to the legislature to appoint 
a day. The former was not done, and instead of the latter, an act 
of incorporation was duly passed at the next session of the legisla- 
ture in accordance with which Lake City was incorporated as a city, 
and the long-vexed question finally settled. 

The condition of the city, its growth and development as a cor- 
porate body, virtually dates from the year in which, under special 
legislative enactment, the inhabitants of this particular portion of 
Lake City township began to assume the methods of city govern- 
ments ; and in this view of the case we will speak of Lake City as 
existing from 1864. Little change requiring note appears to have 
transpired in 1864, and the early part of 1865. The attention of all 
classes was directed to the great struggle between national authority 
and organized rebellion, to the exclusion of almost all else ; and it 
was not until the nation emerged from the conflict, and her brave 
defenders came trooping homeward, regiment by regiment, what was 
left of their decimated ranks, that the great heart of the country 
breathed free, and the life of all industries resumed their natural 
flow. At this time, midsummer of 1865, the township of Lake City 
had a population of fourteen hundred and eleven ; of these from 
eleven hundred to twelve hundred were included within the city 
limits. The citizens of the little mart on the shores of Lake Pepin 
were aspiring to the direction of so much of the trade of the sur- 



LAKE CITY. 803 

roiindiug country as a liberal policy would enable tliem to control. 
They had reached out a liberal hand over the adjacent townships, 
and attempted the creation of a market for grain at this point by 
providing the best roads possible, along which the loaded wagons 
might reach their warehouses and wharves. They had steadily 
resisted all seductions to combine against the producer and depress 
prices, and by this policy had gained the confidence of the wheat- 
growers in adjacent counties, many of whom, as far as practicable, 
brought their surplus grain to Lake City market, the advance in 
price secured here more than compensating for the remoteness of 
the market. By this means the little city-to-be soon became noted 
as a profitable market in which to sell cereals, and successfully dis- 
puted the palm with older and more populous centers of trade. The 
season for grain shipments during 1865 lasted two hundred and 
forty-eight days ; and in that time there were shipped from this point, 
of wheat alone, 660,394 bushels ; and there was in store 66,000 
bushels, as seen by the warehouse receipts — an aggregate of 726,394 
bushels of wheat brought to this market in wagons. Prices ruled 
for the year about one dollar and five cents on the average, and had 
it not been for the rapacity of the transportation companies, it was 
claimed that the average price for the season would have ruled ten 
cents per bushel higher — a difference of seventy-two thousand six 
hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty cents in the pockets of the 
wheat-growers. This ten cents represented the increase above what 
was claimed to be a fair price for transportation. This exaction led 
to attempted combinations on the part of the shippers, out of which 
new lines of freiglit-carrying vessels originated ; and competition, as 
far as practicable, restored the balances to something like equity. 
Tlie tonnage of the vessels passing this point, and receiving and dis- 
charging freight at Lake City docks, was computed at twelve thousand 
six hundred and thirty-one tons, and the whole number of vessels 
fifty-three. To tliese were to be added one hundred and twenty-nine 
barges and lighters, with a farther capacity of nineteen thousand 
three hundred and fifty tons. The increase in population of the 
town of Lake City for the semi-decade from 1860 to 1865 was five 
hundred and forty-five, an increase of sixty-three per cent. No 
separate census returns were kept of population within the village, 
and how much of tlie increase was in town or how much in country 
cannot now be ascertained. The substantial improvements in building 



Washington " 


14 




Main 


" 


7 




High 


" 


8 




Oak 


" 


16 




Garden 


" 


11 




Prairie 


" 


9 




Miscellaneous, 


8 





804 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

alone during the year aggregated nearly eighty -five thousand dollars, 
about one-third of which was on Washington street. The improve- 
ments on the various streets, as shown in round numbers, and these 
very largely new structures, were : 

Franklin street, 8 buildings, valued at § 5,000 

27,000 

5,500 

8,500 

19,000 

10,000 

4,500 

5,000 

During the year 1866 tliere was no very marked improvement in 
the volume of business transacted, neither was any decrease noted. 
The aggregate of city improvements was nearly the same, the total 
being eighty-seven thoiisand six hundred dollars. A board of trade 
was organized in February, oflScered as follows : H. F. Williamson, 
president; A. B. Doughty, vice-president; S. B. Munson, Jr., 
secretary. Directors : A. Tibbitts, J. L. Armstrong and C. F. 
Rogers. Most of the leading men of the city were identified with 
this organization, which had, among other objects, that of securing 
more equitable freight rates for grain and merchandise. An anti- 
monopoly convention had been called, representing the merchants 
and shippers of the state, to meet at St. Paul on February 9, and to 
this convention the Lake City board of trade sent its representatives. 
The result of the deliberations at St. Paul was the determination to 
build a line of boats and put them on the river — to be known as 
the People's line — the people holding and owning the stock. Com- 
mittees were appointed to secure subscriptions to such stock, and 
President Williamson, of the Lake City board of trade, was appointed 
solicitor for this section. The organization of the Minnesota Trans- 
portation Company was the result of this convention ; but as the old 
monopolies were breaking up, and it was thought that the resulting 
competition would equalize freight charges, the building of boats was 
abandoned. The beginning of this year 1866 was marked by a 
decided interest in temperance matters on the part of the public at 
large. A Good Templars' lodge was organized here January 20, 
with a membership of sixty, and only one week later the number 
was increased to one hundred. A genuine wave of temperance 
feeling tided over the county ; lectures were common, lodges multi- 



LAKE CITY, 



805 



plied, the recruits were numerous, and the interest was well sus- 
tained throughout the year. There was also a proposition made to 
the citizens by the state conference of Congregational churches 
looking toward' the establishment of a college here under the auspices 
of that body. The matter was taken in hand by the citizens, meet- 
ings held of the legal voters of the town of Lake City, and the 
supervisors were ordered to issue the bonds of the town to the 
amount of twenty thousand dollars in aid of such an institution. 
Further conference with the church authorities having the matter in 
hand elicited the unexpected fact that if the college was established 
Lake City would have to build the structures, and provide largely for 
the expenses, the Congregational church throughout the state endors- 
ing the school and recommending contributions and endowments 
from the friends of education within that denomination. Tiie matter 
dropped there. From the ledgers of the merchants doing business in 
town, it was ascertained that the volume of trade for the year ended 
August 1, 1866, aggregated a little over one and a half millions of 
dollars. The returns, however, are quite incomplete ; oats, corn, 
barley, manufactures in general, saloons and some other branches 
of business are not mentioned. The list, as tabulated, is : 

Drygoods $166,000 Flour and feed $ 26,000 

Groceries 164,000 Harness 7,500 

Clothing 90,500 Bakery 8,000 

Agricultural implements 74,800 Horses sold 65,000 

Hardware 51,500 Butchers' produce 20,000 

Drugs 15,000 Lumber 60,000 

Boots and shoes 47,500 Wheat 765,350 

Not scheduled 60,000 

The price of wheat ruled high during the shipping season, and 
fifteen thousand dollars a day was quite frequently paid by the 
buyers here. The shipments for the season were 652,054 bushels, 
a decline of 57,544 as compared with the shipments of the previous 
year. The amount in store at close of navigation was 6,800 bushels. 
The decreased shipments all over the state were doubtless owing to 
the partial failure of the crop. The shipments at Ked Wing fell off 
300,000 bushels from corresponding period of previous year ; Hast- 
ings showed a decline of 78,000 bushels. In November the price 
paid here on the streets rose to $1.75, the Milwaukee quotations 
being from $1.80 to $2.12. The year 1867 was ushered in with a 
fire, which broke out in the livery stables of Kussell & M'Keil, on 



806 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Franklin street. The flames sped so quickly that only a portion 
of the stock could be saved, and seven horses were burned to death. 
The total loss, building and contents, was twenty-live hundred dol- 
lars, on which there was three hundred dollars insurance. 

The questions of supreme importance that engaged the attention 
of the citizens of Lake City during the year 1867 were those of rail- 
road aid and county-seat removal. The Chicago & St. Paul Eail- 
way Company had come to a standstill in their efforts to secure the 
construction of the road. A prejudice was felt against the road and 
eastern capitalists would not invest in its bonds ; it was therefore 
attempted to secure the placing of some of these bonds at home, or 
at least a sufiicient number of them to convince eastern capitalists 
that the road enjoyed the confidence of the residents of that portion 
of the state through which it was to pass: A conference between 
the representatives of the railroad company and leading citizens of 
Lake City was accordingly held June 26, and after some preliminary 
investigation into the character of the investment a motion was made 
by Judge Stout, recommending the supervisors of the town of Lake 
to subscribe for first mortgage bonds of the Chicago & St. Paul 
Kailway Company, to the amount of twenty thousand dollars, on 
the conditions embodied in the report of the committee that had 
been previously appointed and whose report was then under con- 
sideration. No result was reached, and the old company was reor- 
ganized in November, with Hon. W. B. Ogden, of Chicago, at its 
head. On March 6, 1868, by special act of the state legislature 
the town of Lake City was authorized to issue its bonds in aid of the 
construction of the Chicago & St. Paul railway. This act was 
amended February 2, 1869, and on the 6th of that month the super- 
visors of the town passed an ordinance, submitting the question to 
the legal voters thereof. Due notice was given, and the election 
was held Tuesday, February 26, 1869, at which a total vote of four 
hundred and thirty-seven was polled. The amount of the proposed 
issue was seventy-five thousand dollars, and the poll stood : for' 
issue, 306 ; against issue, 131. The issue of the bonds thus voted 
and their transfer led to litigation, in which the corporation of Lake 
City was made defendant and won the suit as against the railway 
company. Judgment was subsequently recovered against the town 
of Lake, so much of as was not included in the corporate limits of 
Lake City, and the matter compromised by the payment of the sum 
of twenty-five hundred dollars. The history of this litigation will 



LAKE CITY. 



807 



appear in another place. The county-seat question was one 
equally tedious of settlement, and much more provocative of 
animosity and sectional bitterness. On March 7 of tliis year, 1867, 
an act legislative was passed, submitting to the voters of the county 
the question of the removal of the county-seat from its then location, 
Wabasha, to Lake City. The act was passed upon a petition of the 
citizens, and competition for the capital honors became lively. Lake 
City bid for the removal by pledging her bonds to the extent of 
twenty thousand dollars for the erection of suitable county buildings 
in case the county seat was located here. It was urged that this 
would be a saving of at least ten thousand dollars to the county, as 
that amount was imperatively needed to provide a jail at Wabasha, 
and the matter of issuing county bonds for that amount had already 
been under consideration by the county commissioners. The legality 
of the issue of twenty thousand dollars in bonds as proposed by Lake 
City was submitted to the attorney -general Hon. W. Colville, 
who affirmed the legality of the issue. The bonds were duly issued 
and deposited with the county treasurer as the property of the county 
in case the removal should be effected. These bonds were to bear 
interest at the rate often per cent annually, and were made payable 
in five yearly installments of four thousand dollars each. The press • 
of the rival cities waxed heated in the contest which ensued,, and no 
means were left untried to secure a possible victory. The resources 
of the language were somewhat severely taxed, as well as the upper 
cases of the printing-offices, in supplying epithets and capitals, and 
so the day of election came on. The voting was something extra- 
ordinary," and the immense number of 9,480 votes were polled in a 
county not exceeding 13,500 populaticm all told. The contest was 
carried into the courts and a hearing had before Judge Barber, of 
the third judicial district. Case was adjourned lor months to take 
testimony, Judge Mitchell, of Winona, acting as referee, together 
with Coimsellor Benedict, of Rochester. The conclusion finally was 
that 2,531 legal votes had been cast, of which number 1,457 had 
been cast in fevor of Lake City, and 1,074 in favor of Wabasha. 
The case was carried to the supreme court and a decision rendered 
in January, 1871, reversing the judgment of the district court, on 
the ground that it requires a majority of the legal voters of the 
county and not a majority of the votes cast to effect the removal of 
the county seat, and in this manner the matter was disposed of three 
years and a half after the vote was taken. 



808 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

The city suffered quite a loss on August 30 of this year by the 
destruction of the planing-mill of J. W. Harding, which, with the 
wareliouse of Amsbry & Fletcher, was totally destroyed by lire. 
The })laning-mill was quite an extensive establishment, and the loss 
was probably not less than ten thousand, dollars, upon which there 
was no insurance. The wareliouse was 30 X 90, valued at live thou- 
sand dollars, insured for half that amount. 

This year marked an era in the history of the United States post- 
office here, which was made a money-order office September 9. 

The price of wheat rose to $1.83 for No. 1 early in October, and 
for the first four days of the month the sum of $75,000 was paid by 
the buyers of the city to farmers for wheat. Two weeks later one 
Urm in this city took in one hundred and ten loads, and barges 
were loaded at the rate of 2,000 bushels per hour. There was a 
decided falling off in the wheat shipments this year; only 342,622 
bushels were forwarded from this place, and at close of navigation 
25,855 bushels remained in store. 

The improvements in the way of buildings footed $74:, 600. 

With the year 1868 the town reached its first decade as an or- 
ganized part of the governmental system of the state. A comparison 
of the voies cast at the opening and also at the close of this period of 
ten years, shows that the increase was from one hundred and thirty- 
four votes in 1858, to five hundred and twelve in 1868. The area 
of the township, exclusive of town lots, in acres, 17,408i^? acres, 
which was valued at $100, 602, or about $5. 77 per acre. The aggregate 
value of town lots in 186S, including buildings thereon, was $180,639, 
making a total real-est te valuation for the town of Lake City of 
$290,21:1. The total value of the personal property of the town was 
rated at $149,374, a little more than one-seventh of all the personal 
property of the county, which was returned at $1,005,856, about 
$75,500 less than the real property as scheduled by assessor. While 
the vote of Lake City in 1868 had increased to almost four times that 
cast in 1858, the vote of the county at large had increased to a little 
less than three times the vote cast at the general election of ten 
years ago. Chester, Elgin, Gillford, Kichland, Highland, Plain- 
view and Zumbro, all showing a larger rate of increase than Lake 
City, the balance of the township a much smaller ratio. There was 
a decided increase in the amount of grain shipments from Lake City 
during this year as compared with 1867, but prices did not rule so 
high. Total wheat shipments were 502,288 bushels, and about 4,000 



LAKE CITY. 809 

bushels of barley. A census taken in this year by Abner Tibbetts, 
the assessor, gave 3,031 as the population of the town of Lake City, 
an estimate a little higher than the United States census returns of two 
years later seemed to warrant. The amount expended in building 
improvements for the year was about $28,000 in excess of that of 
1867, the total amount for 1868 being $102,750. The inhabitants 
of the city were forcibly reminded in the begiiming of this year that 
they were not quite out of the woods, by the advent of an immense 
wild-cat, which crossed the lake on the evening of January 11, and 
raided the chicken-house of David Lalaw, near the lake, and piled 
his poultry in a heap, after sucking their blood. On being discov- 
ered, he went out through the sash, and, taking refuge in Willis' 
warehouse, was shot. He was described as of immense size, almost 
as large as a wolf. These ' ' varmints " were quite common in the 
Wisconsin woods across the lake, but their advent in the streets of 
Lake City was something unusual. During the year 1869 the ques- 
tion of voting aid to the reorganized St. Paul and Chicago Railway 
Company was the all-absorbing theme. Of this mention has 
already been made. On July 9 a tornado, the first ever seen in 
Wabasha county within historic periods, struck the county, inflicting 
considerable damage in Mount Pleasant township, where three 
dwellings were destroyed, some stock killed, but no persons injured, 
with the exception of L. C. Carson's little girl, who was carried 
about one hundred and fifty feet and considerably bruised. The 
storm seemed to be identical in character with those that have re- 
cently devastated portions of this and Olmsted counties, and its descent 
into Lake Pepin and passage across, about one mile below town, are 
described as peculiarly grand and terrible. It appears to have 
formed on the highland between Read's Landing and the West 
Albany roads, and swept over the bluif back of Morrison Lake, 
near the O'Hara House, and descended to Lake Pepin. Its path 
was nearly three hundred yards wide, and where it descended the 
steep bluff, brush and Sapling were scooped out by the roots and 
scarifications made in the soil. Trees, fences, telegraph-poles, and 
whatever came in its path as it swept toward the lake, was carried 
into the air and hurled in all directions, its progress being accompanied 
by a tremendous roar that drowned the noise of the hoarse thunder 
then reverberating through the air. As it approached the lake, so 
says an eye-witness, it appeared a funnel-shaped cloud whirling 
about one hundred yards above the surface of the water, diagonally 



810 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

inclining toward the water. It gradually assumed an upriglit posi- 
tion, descending in its course until it commenced drawing up the 
waters of the lake, which rose to meet it. It was about fifteen 
minutes in passing over the lake, and the waters for nearly three 
hundred yards diameter were in a state of agitation impossible to 
describe. The water was mixed with the dust and debris carried 
from the shore, and there was a strange play of light within the 
cloud, which gave it the appearance of a lake on fire. When it 
reached the Wisconsin shore it had greatly diminished in breadth, 
but swept the waters out on the beach in a column thirty to forty 
yards wide and twenty feet above the ordinary lake level. As it 
rose, the bluff side, to pass over into the valley beyond, the trees 
that it lifted were plainly seen from the watchers on the shore at 
this point sailing away in the whirling death-dance of the tornado. 
Its force was so great that whole oak-trees, thirty inches in diameter, 
were twisted completely off, their stumps remaining to tell how 
powerful must have been the force excited. The storm crossed the 
lake about six o'clock in the evening, and when about midway the 
lake, the sun broke through the dun-colored clouds in the west, 
and a beautiful rainbow crowned the head of the tornado and rode 
upon it as upon the wings of the wind over to the Wisconsin shore, — 
Nature's presentation of "beauty and the beast"" on a gorgeous 
scale, within the beautiful amphitheater of bluff-crowned Pepin. 

The city continued to show a gratifying increase in trade and 
improvements. The amount expended in buildings was $109,000. 
The shipments of grain were much in excess of previous years ; 
barley began to assume importance as an item of freight, and flour 
shipments largely increased also. The shipments of wheat this 
season were 618,531 bushels, which, with the 23,800 barrels of 
flour, equivalent to 119,000 additional bushels at that time, and the 
86,165 remaining in store, would give a total of 823,696 bushels of 
wheat as the season's business. To this may be added 20,645 
bushels of barley, and some other shipments of oats and corn not 
tabulated, which would bring the grain business of the season to 
about 850,000 bushels. 

The year 1870 was that in which the United States census was 
taken, and the returns as filed by the eniwnerator gave the town of 
Lake City a total population of two thousand six hundred and eight, 
of whom two thousand one hundred and seventeen were within 
what mav be denominated the limits of the city. This was some- 



LAKE CITY. " 811 

wliat less than was expected, as from the assessor's returns of 1868 
it was confidently believed that the population would not fall below 
three thousand. The winter of 1869-70 a rivalry arose among the 
various drivers along the stage-route from La Crosse northward as to 
the quickest possible time between the terminus of the railroad, La 
Crosse, and Lake City. On Wednesday, February 9, one of the 
up-stages left La Crosse at 7:15 a.m., and making stoppages aggre- 
gating fifty -eight minutes at Winona, Minneiska and Wabasha, 
reached Lake City at 4:38 p.m., making the distance of eighty-eight 
miles in nine hours and twenty-three minutes, or, deducting stop- 
pages, in eight hours and twenty-five minutes. It was not always, 
however, that the drivers were so fortunate. The south-bound stage 
on December 28 went through the ice about three miles above 
Read's Landing, drowning the wheel horses and losing express, mails 
and freight. Two passengers on board escaped, one dry-shod, one 
with an ice-bath in Pepin. The mails, express and freight, with the 
coach, were hooked up by a party of volunteers from Read's Land- 
ing, and the horses only were a total loss. This year witnessed the 
organization of the First National bank, and the completion of the 
Methodist Episcopal church so far as to enable the society to occupy 
the basement, which they did, on December 18. These matters will 
be more fully treated of under ''Churches" and "Banks." The 
expenditures for buildings during the year footed up $88,125. The 
volume of grain business was: Shipped, wheat, 861,000 bushels; 
barley, 62,100 bushels ; oats, 27,000 bushels ; corn, 3,000 bushels. 
The shipments ot flour were not tabulated. There is a record of one 
shipment of eight hundred barrels, and as there was considerable 
local Wisconsin demand, it is within bounds to say that of wheat 
(and the equivalent in flour), barley, oats and corn, the actual shipments 
from the wharves here were in excess of one million one hundred 
thousand bushels. The year 1871 marked an era in the history of the 
town of Lake City, and was the beginning of the end of that anoma- 
lous existence in which the city that was not a city enjoyed all the 
privileges of a full-fledged corporate existence. As before cited, it 
was during this year that the attempt to incorporate through petition 
to the judge of probate was made. The retiring board of town 
supervisors made a tabulated report of the town business at the close 
of their term of ofiice, March 14, 1871, for which, at the town meet- 
ing held on that date, they were handsomely complimented in a 
resolution of thanks, as also for their efficiency and economy in the 



812 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

management of the town business. The meeting also expressed the 
hope that their successors would imitate their good example, and fur- 
nish each year a full statement to the press for publication. The 
year's expenditures for bridges, roads, streets, drains, tools for road- 
work, etc., were $853.48. The ordinary town expenses were $536.26. 
Legal services in the county-seat contest were $591.53, and for build- 
ing a lock-up they had expended $378. With uncollected taxes, 
taxes levied, delinquent highway tax and cash, the total assets of the 
town from these sources were $9,128.89 ; town bonds, town orders, 
and bond orders outstanding, with interest to date, $4,533.31, show- 
ing a balance in favor of the town of $4,595.58. The treasurer's 
report showed total receipts for the year, $7,140.73 ; all accounts 
audited and a balance in the treasury of $334.47. The Patrons of 
Husbandry organized a grange of the order in Lake City, June 3, 
and steps were taken to consolidate the work of the grange through- 
out the county, so as to secure some i)ractical results. This year 
was rendered memorable by the completion of the railway to this 
place, and the arrival of the long-expected locomotive. The track- 
layers crossed the county-line from the north on Tuesday, July 11, 
and by nightfall the rails were laid half-way through town. On the 
25th regular trains were put on between Lake City and St. Paul, and 
the road at the south was rapidly extending itself up the river. 
Work on the depot here was being rapidly pushed and matters wore 
a very businesslike air about the railroad terminus, the only objec- 
tion to which was its location so far from the business portion of the 
city. The first through train for Winona came down on Wednesday, 
September 6, and the following day regular trips commenced over 
the road. One train a day each way, meeting in this city at 1:15 
P.M., was the arrangement, and it was no longer possible to say the 
upper river towns were out of the world six months of the year. On 
Friday, October 13, the United States mails were brought in on the 
trains, and so closed the old era of stages and steamboats as mail 
transports for Lake City. The new order of things was brought 
about by the personal attention of congressman Averill, who gave a 
day of his time in Washington to matters and secured the benefits 
of railway mails without the usual delay. This year was also 
marked by the (5rganization of the public library and the opening of 
its shelves to the reading public. The matter was consummated 
August 22 by the organization of the Lake City Library Associa- 
tion, with the following board of officers and trustees, who also con- 
stituted the directory : J. Fletcher, president ; Mrs. C. A. Jewell, 



LAKE CITY. 813 

vice-president ; W. J. McMaster, secretary ; C. W. Hackett, treas- 
urer ; L. H. Garrard, C. A. Wood, Mrs. Hulett, Mrs. Williamson, 
Mrs. Guernsey, trustees. 

About the middle of November the reading-room in Eichard- 
son's block, on Center street, was opened. It was a free reading- 
room, neatly and comfortably furnished, and provided with all the 
leading northwestern dailies, as also those of New York and Wash- 
ington. Foreign reviews and home periodicals were provided, and 
the doors thrown open every evening at half-past six o'clock, 
made it a very desirable place for young people to visit, and was a 
decided rival to the saloons. The library began to arrive about the 
middle of December, the first installment consisting of two hundred 
and seventy volumes, to which, two weeks later, many more were 
added. These, with occasional donations, gave at the close of the 
year a very respectable selection from which to make choice, and 
the opportunity was not neglected. To add to the attractions of 
the association, a lecture course was organized, and during the 
winter seven lectures delivered under its auspices. The report of 
the school directors of the Lake City district also showed a very 
satisfactory condition of educational afiairs, as will appear under 
the head of "Lake City schools." Elevators were erected during 
the fall and winter along the railroad track, and a decided impetus 
was given to business, already flourishing, by the advent of railway 
communication. Other things seemed also to have come in with 
the railway, which were not so acceptable. Lake City wheat buy- 
ers had long before established the policy of paying as high prices 
for grain as the market would possibly justify, and this because it 
was just to the producer, conserved the interests of the trade of the 
city, gave the market at this point the preference over others, and 
so centered trade at this point. In order to compete with the buy- 
ers in this market, shippers at other points were therefore necessi- 
tated to pay the very top price the market would justify, and the 
speculators concluded to manipulate the market at this point. All 
the large wheat-buying houses were interested in the scheme: 
Culver & Graves, of Duluth ; Kellogg & Mann and Angus Smith 
& Co., of Milwaukee ; the Davidson and the Diamond Jo line of 
steamers were all interested. An arrangement was effected with 
the Lake City warehousemen by which a uniform price of twenty- 
five cents below the Milwaukee quotations should be paid for 
wheat in this market, and all profits were to be pooled. The 
monopoly extended wherever the river and railway lines extended, 



814 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

and as the freight was only twelve cents, commissions one cent, 
elevator charges one cent, and cost of buying three cents — at which 
there was a good profit — the cost of wheat here was justly within 
seventeen cents of the Milwaukee quotations, a clear gain beyond 
legitimate trade profits of eight cents per bushel, or a dead loss of 
that amount to the wheat raisers of the state. The merchants and 
press of the city opened upon the combination, and an agitation 
was begun by which, within thirty days, the ring was completely 
' ' busted " — as it was graphically expressed — and a return to honor- 
able competition became once more the order of the day. Control- 
ling as they did the whole wheat purchases of the market, the 
transportation lines forbid all warehousemen from paying more 
than the dictated price, from buying any wheat or shipping on his 
own account, or from receiving into the warehouse grain which had 
been purchased above the stipulated price. The large wheat mer- 
chants of the centralized markets and the transportation companies 
enforced, or attempted to enforce, their measures, by making non- 
compliance a ground of expulsion from the market, and set their 
own spies, with power to enter a warehouseman's office and 
examine his books, as a special police to enforce these regulations. 
The reputable wheat merchants of the city had entered very 
reluctantly into the arrangement at the outset, and only acquiesced 
under protest, to see how matters would turn out, not clearly 
seeing the depth of the business to which they were asked to com- 
mit themselves. The "ring" lasted about three weeks, and then 
collapsed, dishonesty getting so distrustful of its partners, that the 
Duluth members, finding their own interests suffering through the 
keener operations of their eastern partners, suddenly withdrew from 
the combination, and wheat went up by a rebound to within ten 
cents of the Milwaukee market. During the continuance of the 
monopoly, wheat here was lower than in the adjacent cities off the 
river and St. Paul railway, and the receipts were largely diminished. 
As a result, the members of the ring, no longer in combination, 
were jiitted against each other, and the following week (after 
Duluth witlidrew) the price ruled twenty to twenty -five cents higher 
than at Kochester, and by Saturday night the grand total of 
$130,520.20 had been paid for grain received in this city. The 
improvements for the year 1871 were largely in excess of all 
previous years, and some of them of a very costly and substantial 
character. The list aggregated $150,000. The more important 
structures were : W. H. Lyon's brick block, on Lyon avenue, 



LAKE CITY. 815 

$35,000; C. F. Young's block, $12,000;. the Chicago & St. Paul 
railway depot and improvements, $9,1:00 ; John McBride's brick 
store, $8,000 ; George Patton & Son, store, $8,000, dwelling, 
$8,000; H. Gillett, foundry, $5,000, and Amsbry & Fletcher, 
elevator, $5,000. The most important — or certainly not the least 
important — of the changes and improvements made this year, was 
the widening of Pearl street, now Lyon avenue, from a width of 
seventy to that of ninety feet. This work was the liberal donation 
of Mr. W. H. Lyon, of New York, who had extensive property 
interests in the city, and has always been liberal in devising for the 
little city by the lake. What property he did not own he purchased 
from High street to the lake, and, setting the buildings ba(?k the 
required distance, opened a street ninety feet in width. Purchasing 
some blocks about the depot, also, he meditated the widening of 
the entire street from the lake to the city limits, but was tempora- 
rily prevented by the owners of some property along the streets. 
The city, however, in 1873, took the matter in hand, condemned 
the lots that jutted out into the street (of which there were only 
three), and gave the city a beautiful avenue of the uniform width 
of ninety feet throughout its entire length. Other improvements 
meditated at the time, and which would have been of immense 
advantage to the city, were prevented by shortsighted opposi- 
tion to Mr. Lyon's plans, which so nettled him that he abandoned 
them and made his investments elsewhere. 

From the assessor's books of this year we gather the following 
statistics of the property, real and personal, and the agricultural 
products, stock, etc. 

ACRES. BUSH. 

Wheat '. 3,493 60,407 

Oats 589 23,760 

Corn 411 16,960 

Barley 158 5,205 

Buckwheat 15 425 

Potatoes 10 1,215 

Beans 1 60 

ACRES. TONS. 

Hay, cultivated 133 228 

Hay, uncultivated , 15 25 

Honey, number of hives 50, product 1,200 pounds. 

Apples, number of trees in bearing 5,987 2,000 bushels. 

Strawberries, acres 5, produce 6,000 quarts. 

Wool 98 pounds. 

Butter 18,975 " 



816 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

MISCELLAI<^OUS PRODUCTIONS IN VALUE. 

Whole number of acres cultivated 4,874 

Number of farms . . 77 

Number of horses 358 

Number of mules 22 

Number of cows 253 

Number of sheep 22 

Number of ho^s 17<5 

Increase of acreage over 1870, oats 209 

" " " " " wheat 353 

" " " " " corn 168 

Amount of personal property, 1871 

Increase of personal property over 1870 

The report of the board of supervisors for the year ending 
March 12, 1872, the last in which the town and city were to be 
included together, showed that the total expenses for highways, 
bridges, sidewalks, crossings, sewers, city marshal's salary, etc., 
was $2,025.25. The assessed valuation of town property was 
$638,767.00. 

THE treasurer's REPORT SHOWED: 

Cash on hand $ 334 47 

Licenses 1,651 05 

Justice Court fines 78 00 

Bounty tax 70 80 

Town tax 2,812 75 

Delinquent road tax 326 11 

Special or bond 3,308 40 

$8,641 58 

Bonds redeemed $2,992 72 

Orders redeemed, issued for road purposes 837 38 

" " " lumber 839 35 

" " " " road damages 65 00 

" " " " town expenses 1,728 41 

Interest paid on bonds and orders .* 363 95 

Treasurer's fees 100 14 

Cash on hand, March 2, 1872 1,648 63 

$8,641 58 
INCORPORATION OF LAKE CITY. 

Notwithstanding the failui-e to incorporate the city under the pro- 
visions of the general law of 1S70, known as the judge of probate act, 
and under which, as before noticed, an attempt at incorporation was 
made in 1871, the incorporation at an early day was accepted as 
certain. The failure in 1871 arose from the uncertainty of the 



LAKE CITY. 81T 

nature of the act, more than from any other cause. Accordingly, on 
the assembly of the legislature in the winter of 1871-2, an act of 
incorporation for the city claimed attention. A charter had been 
duly prepared embodying the views of those who had interested 
themselves in this matter, and a bill granting the charter prayed for 
was introduced by Mr. Thompson, representative from this district, 
early in the session. This bill passed the house under suspension 
of the rules on February 19, was as favorably received by the senate 
when it came before them the following day, was approved on the 
26th of the month, and became of effect from and after its passage. 
The city limits as defined under the charter were materially enlai'ged 
from what had constituted the special district exercising municipal 
powers under the administration of the supervisors of the town of 
Lake City. The new corporation retained the old name " Lake 
City,'' and its boundaries as described in the act were : "Beginning 
at the northwest corner of the N.E. J of Sec. 6, in T. Ill N., of 
R. 12 W., running thence south one and one-half miles to the 
center of section 7 in said township, thence east along the 
quarter-section line and the continuance thereof to the center 
of Lake Pepin, thence up the middle of said lake to a point 
due east of the termination of the line between townships Nos. 
Ill and 112, thence to and along said line west to the place 
of beginning. Otherwise described, the city limits, so much 
of them at least as were not covered by the waters of Lake 
Pepin, extended west from the lake shore, along the line separating 
Wabasha and Goodhue counties, a distance of one and a half miles, 
thence south one and one-half miles, thence east two and one-half 
miles to the lake shore, thence northwesterly along the irregular 
shore line to the boundary of the county on the north. The landed 
area of the city as thus defined embraced about three and one- 
quarter sections of land ; and there was not far from the same area 
covered by the waters of the lake. The city as thus limited was 
divided into wards, as follows : All that part of said territory 
lying and being westward of a line beginning in the southern boun- 
dary of said territorial limits at a point twenty-seven and one-half 
[rods] west of the center of section 8, in T. Ill N., of E. 12 
W., thence along the middle of the public road north to a point 
where a line running through the center of Pearl street in the 
plotted town of Lake City continued southwestward will intersect 
the same ; thence northwestwardly by said line running through 
49 



818 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

middle of Pearl street and the continuation thereof to Greenwood 
avenue, thence tlirough the alley between blocks E and F in said 
town of Lake City, thence northerly to the northern boundary of 
said territorial limits, shall constitute the first ward. All that part 
of said territorial limits lying and being eastward of said described 
lines constitute the second ward. The error in this description is 
in making Pearl street run northwesterly, — should be northeasterly. 
The division of the city into wards may at present be practically 
stated to be by a line running through the center of Lyon avenue 
and extending from the southern limits of the city to the lake. This 
does not differ materially from the division as ex])ressed in the act, 
the city limits and ward boundaries remaining practically as they 
existed at the time the charter was granted. The electiv^e offices, as 
established by the charter, were : For the city — mayor, treasurer, 
recorder ; for the wards — one alderman (except at first election, 
when one should be elected for one year), one justice of the peace 
and one constable, for each ward, whose terms of office should be 
for two years. The terms of office of city treasurer and recorder 
were fixed at two years, mayor to be elected annually. All candi- 
dates to office, to be eligible, must be residents within the city 
limits and qualified voters. The first Tuesday in April in each year 
was designated as the day for holding the charter election, of which 
ten days' previous notice was to be given by the common council, in 
which notice time and place of holding election, and the offices to 
be filled, should be set forth. Provision was also made for removals 
from office by a fourth-fifths vote of the aldermen of the city, all such 
removals to be for cause after due trial or notice of trial to accused, 
the specific process in which was fully laid down. The city wards 
as established by law were to constitute the electoral districts for all 
state and county elections as well as municipal ; a refusal on the 
part of any officer-elect to qualify within ten days of his election, or 
his removal from the city, vacated the office ; the ward alderman and 
one legalized voter from each ward, to be designated by the council, 
should constitute the board of judges of elections, and all elections 
were to be conducted in the same manner as provided for in holding 
state and county elections ; officers-elect were to be duly notified by 
the recorder of their election ; terms of office were to be from the 
second Tuesday of April in the year in which the election was made, 
and continue one year, unless otherwise specified ; failure to elect 
on the day designated was made cause sufficient for holding a new 



LAKE CITY. 819 

election, of which, as in the case of the regular elections, the council 
were to give ten clays' notice. The appointive officers of the city 
were attorney, marshal, assessor, street commissioner, and such 
others as the council might see fit to elect, and the terms of office of 
city attorney and assessor were fixed at two years each ; that of 
street commissioner, for one year. The mayor and aldermen were 
debarred fi-om receiving any compensation for their services as such 
officers, and the compensation of the city recorder was limited to the 
sum of one hundred dollars per annum. The treasurer's fees were 
made to conform to the law fixing the fees of town treasurer, and 
the recorder was prohibited from being directly or indirectly inter- 
ested in any contract, job or loan, in which the city is a party or 
negotiator. Provision was also made for city printing, by designat- 
ing one paper printed in the city, in which all proceedings, ordi- 
nances, acts or by-laws requiring to be published shall be printed, 
and it was made the duty of said cit}^ printer to file with the recorder 
"a copy of all such publication, with affidavit of time that same has 
been published, and such affidavit shall be conclusive evidence of its 
publication. All city contracts in which any alderman might be 
interested were thereby rejected, and money paid on such contracts 
was made recoverable by law, as against all such contractors. The 
.general powers of the council were amply set forth in the charter, 
and covered all matters to the well-being, peace, healthfulness, 
good conduct and safety of the city, as well as all matters aftecting 
her credit and finances : as, to regulate and prescribe fees for all 
exhibitions, shows, auctions, sports, sale of liquors, spirituous, 
vinous or fermented; to abate gambling, drunkenness, disorderl}^ 
persons, houses of prostitution, and all nuisances, physical and 
moral alike ; to prevent fast and reckless driving in the streets, or 
the incumbrance of streets, sidewalks, public grounds, etc., by any 
unnecessary articles ; to prevent all cattle, swine, poultry, etc. , from 
running at large ; to make and establish public cisterns, hydrants, 
and other receptacles for water, and control all waterworks estab- 
lished ; to regulate and control all carrying of passengers and freight 
within the city, by hacks, omnibuses, trucks or other like vehicles, 
and to provide for lighting the public streets and grounds ; to make 
all necessary market regulations, provide for board of health, estab- 
lish hospitals, to regulate runners or porters, and other soliciting 
agents, for boats, cars, hotels, etc.; to regulate the sale of combus- 
tibles, and prevent the use of firearms in such way as to endanger 



820 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

life, comfort or property ; to provide standard weights and measures, 
and for tlic inspection of liquors and provisions, measurement of 
materials for building, and the appointment of tlie necessary officers 
for such inspection ; to prescribe tire-limits, and make all needed 
regulations to prevent their occurrence and spreading ; to provide 
workhouse for persons convicted of offense, and put such offenders at 
work therein, or upon the streets of the city ; to establish a fire 
department and purchase the necessary engines, hose, and other 
apparatus, and to exempt members of such fire department, after 
certain terms of service, from poll-tax, jury service or militia 
duty. All ordinances were to receive the affirmative vote of a 
majority of the council, be approved and signed by the mayor, and 
published in the official paper of the city for ten days before becoming 
law ; and provision was made for auditing all accounts of officers 
and agents of the city, and making full record of the settlements 
made. Their powers in levying taxes, collecting and disbursing 
same, were duly declared, as also their control of the streets and side- 
walks, alleys and public grounds, and methods of procedure in all 
cases specifically set forth. All property of the fire department, or 
of the several companies that might compose it, all markethouses 
and their furniture, city-hall and council-room furniture, pounds and 
the lots on which they stand, and school property, was exempted 
from levy and sale under execution, save in the case of action of 
sellers of property to recover for property thus sold to the city. All 
private property was exempted from levy and sale for city corpora- 
tion debts ; all contracts for city work were to be to lowest bidder, 
of whom a bond was to be required for all contracts in excess of 
twenty-five dollars, unless work was done under supervision of some 
city officer. All city property was made free from taxation, and the 
power of the city to purchase, hold or lease both real and personal 
property for the city was specifically declared. By the same act of 
incorporation it was enacted that "all that part of the town of Lake 
City, not included in the limits of the said city of Lake City, under 
this act, shall constitute and be a town by the name of 'Lake,' with 
all the authorities, rights and powers of towns under the laws of this 
state." 

Section 11 of chapter 8 of the charter authoi-ized and empowered 
Asa B. Doughty, Merrell Dwelle and Carlos Clement to appoint 
three discreet and judicious persons in each ward to act as judges of 
the electicm to be held on the first Tuesday of April, 1872 ; and also 



LAKE CITY. 



821 



to locate and provide a place in each ward for holding the election. 
March 30, 1872, under call previously published, a union caucus 
for the nomination of city officers, irrespective of political parties, 
was held at the opera house, and a ticket put in nomination. The 
ward caucuses were held after the general caucus, one at the opera 
house and one at the Washington street school building. The 
caucus was numerously attended, and the proceedings were of a 
character to show a deep interest on tlie part of the best citizens that 
a city government of approved ability should be chosen. The nomi- 
nations were made, and on the following Tuesday, April 2, 1872, 
the polls were opened for the first charter election for the city of 
Lake City. The official returns are as follows : 



Candidates and Term of Office. 



Mayor . . . 

Eecorder . 
Treasurer 



Aldermen 



Justices of the peace, 



Constables 



f Joel Fletcher 

t Elijah Stout 

M. R. Merrell 

W. A. Doe 

f J. C. Bartlett, two years . 
I G. D. Post, two years. . . . 
I M. A. Baldwin, one year. 
•; H. K. Terrell, one year. . 

G. M. Dwelle, two years . 

J. Manning, one year. . . . 

Ed. Wise, one year 

Geo. F. Hatch 

J. C. Lawrence 

I J. E. Favrow 

LW. J.Jacobs 

fL.E. Thorp 

I J. W. Matthews 

I Oliver Young 

H. M. Powers 



First 
Ward. 



169 
56 
225 
224 
174 
49 
132 
90 



167 
35 
15 



114 
110 



Second Total Majori- 
Ward. Vote. ties. 



170 
134 
301 
303 



296 
190 
110 



302 



206 

87 



339 
190 
525 
527 
174 

49 
132 

90 
296 
190 
110 
167 

35 

15 
302 
114 
110 
206 

87 



149 

525 
527 

125 

42 
296 



117 



302 
4 



119 



The total vote cast was five hundred and twenty-nine. The vote 
in the town of Lake (the election in March having gone by default, 
that the city and town elections might be held on the same day and 
all conflictions avoided) was seventy-six, making a total vote in 
city and town of six hundred and five, an increase of ninety-seven 
over the vote polled at the presidential election in 1868, and an 
increase of sixty-six over the state election of the previous fall. 
The ratio of five inhabitants to one vote would thus give Lake City 
at the time of incorporation a population of twenty-six hundred and 
forty-five. It was generally conceded that the city officers-elect were 
as good timber for the new city government as could have been 
sele.cted, and the result was hailed by the citizens as an omen of a 



822 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

good administration of city aftairs. The first informal meeting of 
the officers-elect was held on April 6, and an adjournment made to 
the evening of the 9th, at which time the members of the council 
were all present and took their respective oaths of office. Treas- 
urer's bond was fixed at twenty thousand dollars ; constables at one 
thousand dollars each ; a copy of the city charter (official) was 
received. The city printing was awarded to Messrs. McMasters & 
Spaulding, and a committee of two appointed to complete contract 
for printing. F. M. Wilson, Esq., was elected city attorney, and J. 
AV. Matthews street commissioner. The city attorney-elect, with 
aldermen Dwelle, Bartlett and Manning, were appointed a committee 
to draft ordinances and report as early as practicable. Messrs. Man- 
ning and Bartlett were appointed a committee to secure valuation of 
taxable property in city and town, for the purpose of an understand- 
ing settlement between the city and the town of Lake. At the 
meeting of council held on the 28tli inst., Elijah Stout was chosen 
assessor by a unanimous vote, street commissioner's bond was fixed 
at one thousand dollars for the current year, and the committee on 
settlement between the city and the town of Lake reported, and they 
were instructed to draw up an agreement to be signed by the proper 
officers, to perfect settlement. This was accordingly done, and the 
settlement made. By the terms of this agreement all moneys on 
hand, whether in hands of town or city treasurer, were to be divided 
between the city and town, according to the assessed valuation of 
property in each, and all unpaid accounts were to be paid by each 
in the same proportion. The assessed valuation of city property 
was found to be $530,787 ; of town property, $102,000 ; the money 
standing to the credit of the former town of Lake City, after all out- 
standing orders were paid, amounted to $1,932.60. Of this sum the 
town received $337.13 and the city $1,595.47. The committee on 
city ordinances performed their work as expeditiously as possible, 
and presented the results of their work to the council before the 
close of the month. The ordinances as reported, and adopted by 
the council during this month, were by title as follows : Restraining 
the running at large of horses, cattle, swine and other animals ; 
licensing shows, caravans, circuses, theatrical performances, billiard 
tables, bowling-saloons, auctioneers, ordinaries, hawkers, pawn- 
brokers, money-changers and other persons ; licensing and regula- 
ting the sale of spirituous liquors and the keeping of billiard tables, 
pigeon-hole tables, shooting-galleries and ten-pin or bowling alleys 



LAKE CITY. 823 

in saloons ; creating a board of health and defining its duties ; 
relating to misdemeanors ; relating to disorderly houses and houses 
of ill-fame ; establishing a city prison ; regulating the planting of 
shade and ornamental trees within the city and for protecting the 
same ; also to prevent the obstructing of streets, sidewalks and 
crossings of streets ; establishing the duties and powers of city mar- 
shal ; concerning streets, sidewalks and alleys ; relating to nuisances; 
establisliing a night police within the city ; to provide for the safe 
keeping of powder ; licensing dogs. An ordinance creatino; fire 
limits, and establishing regulations for the erection of btiildings 
within such limits, was passed on May 4 ; and on December 21 
following, an ordinance providing a market for the sale of hay, straw 
and wood within the city, and for weighing and measuring the same, 
was adopted.. The fire limits included all of blocks one, two and 
three, blocks nine to sixteen inclusive, and twenty-three to twenty- 
six inclusive. All buildings within the limits were to be of fire-proof 
material, but some portions of this territory were exempted from a 
rigid construction of this ordinance, at the discretion of the council. 
This limit included practically that portion of the city enclosed be- 
tween Chestnut, Park, High and Dwelle streets. The portion in 
which this ordinance was to be strictly enforced without exception 
included the territory bounded by Franklin, Main, Pearl and Marion 
streets, the lots in the surrounding blocks facing these streets. 

LAKE CITY FEKRY. 

The situation of Lake City, on the shore of the lake, at some dis- 
tance from its outlet or its inlet, has always had the effect of 
curtailing its trade, cutting off as it practically does almost all, or 
at least a great part, of the trade to the north and east and southeast. 
Kepeated attempts have been made to overcome this disadvantage 
of location by establishing ferries or subsidizing them to a certain 
extent, with the view of drawing trade from the lake villages and 
the territory contiguous thereto on the "Wisconsin shore. This 
attempt has not been very successful, and it is to be doubted if the 
maintenance of a ferry at this point will ever pay the expenses of 
its maintenance. The attempt to make successful bids for trade over 
ferry routes on the Mississippi, under much more favv>rable auspices, 
at other points has not as yet been very successful. The ferry at 
Winona, for instance, costing the city yearly considerable more than 
the cost of its maintenance, and that over a route less than one- 



824 iriSTORv of wabasiia county. 

fourth tlie distance across Lake Pepin at this point. Not only so, 
but the little coasting steamers plying upon the lake will always, 
and necessarily, become formidable rivals to any ferry company 
attempting to maintain regular .communication across the river and 
return without making trips to the adjacent villages on either shore. 
The patronage of the one being conlined to the direct travel across 
the lake, the other including all travel across and upon the lake for 
miles in every direction. The width of the lake and the character 
of the navigation, the water being at times very rough, require good 
substantial boats. The cost of navigating and maintaining these is 
too great for the patronage that can be secured, and loss is the 
inevitable result, or at least has been, of every attempt to maintain 
a ferry here. The first regular, or perhaps, more joroperly speaking, 
irregular, communication across the lake, for passengers only, was 
established in the closing years of the war by Capt. J. Hull, of 
Maiden Kock Village, Wisconsin, who ran a small sloop-rigged 
sailboat, the Daisy, from Maiden Rock to Lake City, a distance of 
about eight miles. In 1866 Capt. John Doughty, of this place, put 
a sloop-rigged sailboat, called the Union, upon the lake. This boat 
was capable of carrying seventy-five persons comfortably, and for 
three years it was sailed here b}^ the captain, making trij)S across the 
lake and coasting its shores as pleasure-parties or the demands of 
business required. After doing duty for three years as a sailboat, 
the sails were taken out, a small engine put in, and the young pro- 
peller, christened the Winfred, navigated the lake one year, was a 
financial loss to the owner and discontinued. Two boats were upon 
this part of the lake that season, the May Queen being the name of 
the other, which was afterward taken to Bear lake, and burned 
there some years later. In the year 1870 Capt. Nelson ])ut a regular 
ferry on the lake between this city and the village of Stockholm, 
directly opposite on the Wisconsin shore. This was a sailboat and 
was exclusively for passenger traffic. Matters were in this condition 
until 1872, when Wm. B. Lutz and W. W. Scott received a charter, 
conferring on them, for a period of ten years, the exclusive right of 
keeping and maintaining a ferry across the Mississippi river at the 
town of Lake City, in the count}-^ of Wabasha, and State of 
Minnesota, at any point within one and one-half miles northwesterly 
or soutlieasterly up and down said river, from a point where the 
center line of Center street in said town continued northeasterly 
will strike said river. The charter required the parties therein 



826 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

named to give bonds in the sum of one thousand dollars to perform 
the duties set forth in the act, which was specific as to the time of 
running, charges or tolls to be levied for ferriage, tines to be imposed 
for failure of the said Lutz & Scott to give prompt attendance upon 
all parties desiring to cross the ferry between the hours of 7 a.m. 
and 7 p.m. between the dates of May 15 and November 15 in each 
year, unless ])rev'ented by ice, high winds or other cause which 
would render the attempt to cross dangerous or imprudent. 

By act of legislature of 1873 the time of franchise was extended 
to fifteen years, and the time of opening the ferry from twenty 
to thirty months, and of filing Bond from eighteen to thirty months, 
from the passage of the act of March 4, 1872. A similar franchise 
was owned by parties on the Wisconsin shore, and this was pur- 
chased, together with a barge owned by said parties, by Messrs. 
Lutz & Scott, and preparations made for establishing a steam ferry ; 
but Mr. Lutz was stricken with partial paralysis, incapacitated from 
attending to any business for two years, and nothing was done with 
the franchise, which expired in due time by limitation. Pending 
the expiration of this charter in the fall of 1873, a proposition was 
made to the city to purchase the franchises on both sides of the river 
(or Lake), together with the two lots on the Wisconsin shore (at their 
actual cost to the owners of the charter), and give a bonus or loan 
to some responsible parties, who should undertake, under bonds, to 
establish and maintain a ferry for a given term of years. Antici- 
pating some necessity of this kind as likely to arise, the city 
council, in February, 1873, had secured the passage by the state 
legislature of the ferry-bond act, authorizing them to issue the 
bonds of the city to the amount of $2,500 in aid of a ferry, pro- 
videctfthe legal voters of the city so desired. The matter was sub- 
mitted to tlie electors at the charter election held April 1, 1873, and 
the proposition was snowed under by a vote of 295 against issue 
to 83 in favor of issue. This attempt having failed, the sum of 
$800, in shares of $25 each, was subscribed for the purchase of the 
charter held by Messrs. Lutz & Scott. This sum was raised in 
April, 1873, but no purchase of the charter was effected, and in the 
following September negotiations were entered into with Capt. 
Murphy, looking to the permanent establishment of a steam-ferry. 
Mr. Murphy's proposition was, that in consideration of the sum of 
$2,500, and the franchise for a term of fifteen years, he would 
put himself under approved bonds to maintain the ferry for that 



LAKE CITY. 827 

length of time. The sum of $2,500 was raised, but the matter 
had dragged, and before the result was announced to Mr. Murphy, 
he had made other arrangements, and the whole matter fell through. 
In the. meantime Capt. Murray, of the little steamer Pepin, had 
been making regular trips around the lake, touching at Maiden Rock, 
Stockholm and Pepin, on the Wisconsin side, and at Frontenac and 
Lake City on the Minnesota shore, with occasional trips to Read's 
Landing. His little steamer was sometimes accompanied by a barge, 
on which merchandise and passengers were transported, but it was 
not suited to the purpose. Accordingly in the season of 1874, 
early in May, a subscription was started to procure money to build 
a barge or boat to be used in carrying teams and passengers between 
this city and the Wisconsin shore. Meetings were held, commit- 
tees appointed, funds raised, a boat built at an expense of about $500, 
and Messrs. Doe, J. G. Richardson, Farron, Baldwin and Murray were 
appointed a committee to make a written contract with Capt. O. N. 
Murray, of the steamer Pepin, to operate the feriy. On Thursday, 
July 16th, the first regular trip was made in the city's own boat ; the 
mayor and common council in attendance, and the landing made 
upon the other shore in seventeen minutes, according to the time 
given by a local reporter. The city barge had a capacity of six teams 
and as many passengers as could crowd on. Trips were made at 
9 A.M. and at 4 p.m., for which the free use of the barge was granted 
Capt. Murl'ay. The rest of his time was devoted to his regular 
coasting trips around the lakes. 

That fall, 1874, the charter of the Messrs. Lutz & Scott expired, 
and in the following spring, by special act of legislature, the 
franchise for a ferry was granted to the city, with power to operate 
or lease at their discretion. This charter gave the city the exclusive 
right to maintain a ferry within the corporate limits of the city, and 
the territory extending one-half mile beyond said limits on the north 
and west. In case the city council should lease the ferry to be car- 
ried on by other parties, the duration of said lease was not to exceed 
ten years, and the city was also required to reserve such rights as 
would empower them to terminate the Jease at any time by equitable 
payment to the lessee for outlay in construction of docks, levees, 
breakwater, etc. The city council were also empowered to regulate 
the charges for ferriage and control the place for the landing of boats, 
and provide such regulations as would insure the comfort and safety 
of passengers. And all grants or lease on the part of the city 



828 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

under the provisions of this charter were so by ordinance of the 
council duly passed and signed as in the case of all other ordinances, 
and the lessee under such ordinance was to file such bond, for the 
pi-oper maintenance of tlie ferry according to the regulations ])re- 
scribed, as the council should deem sufficient and equitable. During 
the years 1875 and 1876, the exclusive right to the ferry charter was 
granted to Capt. Murray, and during th(jse years the communication 
between Lake City and the Wisconsin shore was maintained as it 
had been in 1874. Early in the spring of 1877 a joint stock company, 
with a capital of ten thousand dollars, was organized foi- the ])urpose 
of maintaining and operating a ferry at this point, such as would 
establish regular communications at all hours of the day with the 
Wisconsin shores, and not merely for a morning and evening trip. 
The company was named the Lake City Ferry and Transportation 
Compan3^ This company purchased the franchises held by Milison, 
Sandburg & Co., of the ferry privileges on the Wisconsin shore, 
and secured a lease of the Minnesota franchise from the common 
council of this city, together with the barge or boat belonging to the 
city, for the term of ten years from and after April 3, 1877. The 
company, by the terms of the ordinance, was required to provide a 
good, safe steamboat for the transportation of teams and passengers ; 
that not less than six trips per day were to be made during the 
season of navigation, and the Wisconsin landings were designated 
" to or near the village of Stockholm, and to or near the mouth of 
Bogus creek in the county of Pepin." The city, by the terms of 
the ordinance, absolved itself from all responsibility in the matter of 
expenses incurred, which were to be met by the transportation 
company without claim upon the city, but the city was to furnish 
them the use of the barge and confer the rights of the franchise 
\v'ithout charge. A rate of tolls or charges was established by the 
ordinance, as follows: Each team of two animals with vehicle, 
loaded or unloaded, together with driver, fifty cents ; single animal 
with carriage attached, fifty cents ; horse, cow, ox or mule, without 
carriage, twenty-five cents each ; each sheep or swine, ten cents ; 
wagon or carriage without .team attached, twenty-five cents, and 
merchandise for the sum of twentj^-five cents per hundred pounds. 
The ferry company were to keep the barge of the city in good rejmir 
and return it to the city at the expiration of their lease or use of it, 
in good condition as when received, except the usual and uiuivoid- 
able wear and tear. The company was also to own and continue 



LAKE CITY. 



to own the franchise on the Wisconsin shore as a condition precedent 
to the continuation by the city of the grant of its charter. The 
ferry company was composed of responsible business men in Lake 
City, who were desirous of maintaining more frequent communica- 
tion with the Wisconsin shore, believing the same would be bene- 
ficial to the trade of the city. The books of the company were 
burned in the disastrous fire of 1882, which almost wiped out the 
business houses of the city, and it is impossible to give a list of the 
stockholders. The first board of directors were : John J. Doughty, . 
H. Gillett, J. C. Stout, Wm. Campbell, W. J. Halm and H. D. 
Stocker. They immediately purchased the steamer Clipper, which 
had been sold under the hammer by the United States marshal, 
Capt. Kaney, paying therefor the sum of fifteen hundred dollars. 

The Clipper was a boat of about twenty-eight feet beam ; length 
over all about seventy feet. Her hull was new, having been built 
only the season before, and she was really a staunch built craft. 
Her engines, however, were old and comparatively worthless, and 
not at all adequate for the work required of her. The company 
expended about two thousand dollars on repairing the boat, building 
cabin, etc., and she was run during the season of 1877 with the old 
engines. During the winter of 1878 she was supplied with new 
engines, and some other improvements, upon which the company 
expended a further sum of three thousand dollars. This latter 
amount was refunded the company by special vote of the citizens, 
and this was the only subsidy ever received. The cost of maintain- 
ing the ferry was too great for the receipts derived from the freight 
and passenger and other transportation charges, and there was year 
by year a growing diminution of capital. 

When four seasons had been passed in this way, the regular 
trade over the ferry line, continually cut into by the coasting 
steamers plying along both shores of the lake, and the low rate of 
transportation keeping receipts at a minimum, the company called 
a halt. It was found that the original stock had been absorbed, as 
also the three thousand dollars bonus received from the city and 
the amount received for transportation during the four years the 
company had been operating the line. This latter sum aggregated 
about as much as the others, making a total sum of twenty-six 
thousand dollars expenses for four years' ferry maintenance. Under 
this condition of afiairs the directors concluded to wind up the affairs 
of the company and dispose of the assets. This was done. The 



830 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

steamer was put up at auction and bid in by Messrs. Stout & Post, 
two of the stockholders, for an amount equal to the company's 
liabilities, — about eighteen hundred dollars. The franchise on the 
"Wisconsin shore had been placed in the hands of the city council, 
and also a mortgage upon the boats of the company, as security to 
the city that the c()ra])any would maintain the ferry a given number 
of years. This was done in 1878, when the bonus of three thousand 
dollars was given by the city. These franchises, thus the property 
of the city, were the property of Messrs. Post & Stout, so long as 
they fulfilled the obligations of the old ferry company. The city, 
retaining the franchises, released the mortgage upon the boat, at the 
request of the directors, upon showing how they had lost thousands 
of dollars in the attempt to maintain the ferry for the benefit of the 
city. Messrs. Post & Stout kept the ferry running during the 
season of 1881, and that fall closed out, having onl}^ added to their 
former losses by the attempt to continue the line in operation. 
They started their boat for Stillwater when the ferry season closed, 
intending to dispose of her to the trade there, but on the way up 
the river the pilot ran her on the government pier near Prescott, 
and there she remained during the winter. The following spring 
she was left to break up, her machinery taken out, and when high 
water came she floated off and the hull sunk some distance down 
stream. This was the last of the ferry steamer Clipper, and of the 
attempt to maintain a regular ferry at this point for the crossing of 
teams and passengers between Lake City and Stockholm. 

In the spring of 1882, Murray & Lenhart resumed trips between 
the Wisconsin and Minnesota shores ; and Murray dying, the firm 
became Lenhart & Collins, who are now (18S3) running the steamer 
Pepin and barge from Lake City to Maiden Rock, Pepin and Stock- 
holm, on the Wisconsin shores, making scmiweekly trips to Read's 
Landing, in this county. The attempt to maintain a regular ferry 
here has only proved disastrous to those engaged in it. Thousands 
of dollars were spent in the public-spirited attempt, from which the 
stockholders of the ferry company received no benefit, only such in- 
crease of trade, so many of them as were in business, that came to 
them from the Wisconsin shore. As related at the outset, the cost 
of maintaining the ferry over so wide a stream was too great to be 
met by the ciiarges for transportation, and the majority of the citi- 
zens were unwilling to subsidize the ferry to the extent of guarantee- 
ing the running expenses, not considering the returns in trade 
suflicient to justify the outlay. 



LAKE CITY. 831 

FIKES. 

Down to the date of the incoi^Doration of the city in 1872, Lake 
City had suffered ' comparatively little from fires. December 9, 
1870, the old grain warehouse on the Point, technically known as 
the Armstrong warehouse, and at the time of its destruction owned 
by Bartlette tfe Smith, was burned. The fire occurred at about 
eleven o'clock. The warehouses of Atkinson & Kellogg and 
Angus Smith & Co. were in close proximity on either side, and the 
problem was the salvation of these buildings. The pails standing 
at the doors of the grocery houses were unceremoniously seized by 
the hurrying hundred who started on the run for the Point, 
there being at that time no fire company or engine of any kind in 
the city. The people present worked with a will. The water of 
the lake afiPorded an ample supply, and as fast as the adjacent ware- 
houses caught fire, they were extinguished by the crowds who 
swarmed upon the roofs and every available spot where an advan- 
tage could be taken of the situaMon and the contents of a water-pail 
be made effective. Burned hands, scorched faces and singed hair 
and clothing were the rule ; but the situation was fully understood, 
and had the fii-e gained headwa}^ there would have been more to 
follow. Pluck and water gained the day. The adjacent warehouses 
were saved, and no further destruction of property .than that of 
the old Armstrong warehouse and its contents ensued. There were 
about seven thousand bushels of wheat in the warehouse at the 
time, six thousand bushels of which were a total loss, one thousand 
bushels being saved in a damaged condition. There was an insur- 
ance on the building of about thirteen hundred dollars. The grain 
in the warehouse was covered by about three thousand dollars insur- 
ance. There w^ere some other warehouses, one stored full of tobacco, 
and an elevator at the depot burned prior to the incorporation of the 
city, but no very serious loss resulted in either case ; the tobacco 
was fully covered by insurance. 

On Sunday morning, April 20, 1872, at about three o'clock, an 
alarm of fire was sounded, and the lurid reflection upon the build- 
ings and sky, as those who were aroused rushed into the streets, 
proved only too conclusively that a destructive fire was in progress, 
and had already made no little headway. The fire was found to be 
in Bessey & Burdett's wlieat warehouse, on tlie lake shore near the 
city flouring-mills. The wind was fi-esh from the north, and carried 
the burning shingles and other light material for a long distance 



832 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

over the city, requiring constant vigilance and the application of 
water and wet blankets to prevent a general conflagration. The 
origin of the fire was never clearly ascertained ; the building had 
taken fire on the afternoon before, probably from the spilling of a 
can of kerosene upon the floor near the stove, but the flames had 
been thoroughly extinguished, and a watch kept upon the premises 
until ten o'clock at night, when Mr. Burdett, who was on watch, 
went home. There were between eight thousand and nine thousand 
bushels of wheat in the warehouse at the time, fully covered by 
insurance. The building was one of the largest warehouses in 
town, and was a total loss, upon which there was no insurance. 
These fires had all been in the suburbs, or, more properly speaking, 
along the lake front of the city, and not in the heart of the business 
or residence portion. 

The next call was neai*er home, and up to the date of its 
occurrence was the most disastrous fire that had 3'et visited the 
city, involving a loss of about thirtj'^ve hundred dollars, one-third of 
which was covered by insurance. This fire occurred in the evening of 
January 28, 1873, at which time flames were seen issuing from the 
cellar of Glines & Gould, druggists, on Main street. All efiPorts to 
reach the fire were unavailing, and it was only a few moments — 
so inflammable were the contents of the cellar — before the flames 
broke out, and it was with difficulty that the books and contents of 
the safe and money-drawer were saved. The buildings destroyed 
were, besides the drugstore, an unoccupied building adjoining, 
owned by Mrs. J. A. Waskey, Oliver Young's residence, which 
was torn down to prevent the spread of the fire, and for which he 
afterward claimed remuneration from the city. From the rear of 
the burning buildings on Main street, the fire communicated to the 
rear of Wise's block on Center street, cleaning out the saloons there 
in a hurry, and wrapping Hudderon's brick block adjoining in a 
sheet of fire. This block was partially occupied by the stock of 
J. E. Farron, general merchant, who succeeded in saving the 
greater portion of his goods in a damaged condition. Kerrey's 
brick block (usually known as the Harley block) followed, and this 
was the last of the buildings consumed. The upper stories of this 
block were unoccupied, the corner storeroom was in possession of 
S. S. Ball, grocer and bookseller. Young's brick block and Iler- 
rey's wooden buildings, on the opposite side of Center street, were 
covered with wet blankets to keep the fire from licking them up, 



LAKE CITY, 833 

and in this they were successful. Glines, Gould & Co. lost, on 
building and stock, ten thousand dollars, on which there was about 
seventj-five hundred dollars of insurance. The occupants of private 
rooms in this building were losers to the extent of about five hun- 
dred dollars additional. Mrs. AVaskey lost one thousand dollars, 
insurance eight hundred dollars ; Mr. Young's loss was five hun- 
dred dollars, of which about two-thirds was, after much delay, paid 
by the city council ; Were's block was valued at five thousand dol- 
lars, insured for sixteen hundred dollars. The saloon losses were 
about one thousand dollars, no insurance ; Mr. Huddleson's loss 
was over seven thousand dollars, uninsured. J. E. Farron's damage 
was covered by insurance. Gen. Ilerrey was insured for four 
thousand dollars, about one half of his loss. Other losses were all 
of a minor character, and did not aggregate much in excess of 
one thousand dollars. 

The north side of town was the next visited, and again it was a 
gi-ainhouse, this time upon the tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee & 
St. Paul railway. The Boston elevator was the fated structure this 
time, which was discovered to be on fire about three o'clock on the 
morning of March 12, 1875. The origin of this fire is also involved 
in mystery. It was first discovered by the watchman, breaking out 
overhead in the ofiice, and doubtless originated in the end of the 
elevator adjoining the engine-room. The watchman, who was 
sleeping in the building at the time, found the fire had gained too 
much headway to leave any hope of saving the building. This ele- 
vator was built in the season of 1873 by a company of Boston capi- 
talists, who had become interested in the future of the city. It was 
the most conspicuous building on the town site, was thoroughly 
constructed, well supplied with the best machinery for cleaning and 
elevating grain, and cost when finished about twenty thousand dol- 
lars. The insurance on building and machinery was twelve thou- 
sand five hundred dollars. There was a large amount of wheat in 
store at the time the fire occurred, probably about sixty-five thou- 
sand bushels ; nearly one-third of this was saved in a damaged 
condition. Insurance upon grain was sixty thousand five hundred 
dollars. The company promptly adjusted all claims of farmers for 
wheat stored and resumed business in a rented storeroom, pending 
the erection of a new elevator. The smoke of this fire had hardly 
cleared from the sky, when the cry of fire again resounded upon the 
night air ; this time a little nearer the business of the heart of the 
50 



834 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

city, and among its manufacturing industries. This fire occurred 
not quite two weeks after the destruction of the Boston elevator. 
The fire broke out March 25, 1875, at the corner of Franklin and 
Center streets, in the large wooden building occupied by J. H. 
Emory as a blacksmith-shop. The wind was blowing a moderate 
bi'eeze from the east, right in the direction of the other shops in 
the block, and the hotels on the other side (^f Lake avenue, kept by 
Messrs. Neal and Sexton, which were so seriously threatened that 
their destruction was regarded certain. The fire next spread to 
John Dobner's wagon and blacksmith shop, and then took, in 
A. N. Curtis' carriage-making establishment, which, with Neal's 
barns with their contents in the rear of the shops, were totally 
destroyed. The fire had now reached Lake avenue, just across 
which were the hotels. Here a determined opposition to the fiirther 
])rogress of the fire was made by the volunteer pail brigade, and 
after a heroic fight, in which men were completely exhausted 
and many burned, the fire was prevented crossing the street. The 
aggregate losses were in the vicinity of ten thousand dollars, upon 
which there was little insurance. Mr. Emery's loss was five hundred 
dollars, in tools ; no insurance. The building he occupied was 
owned by David Timmerman, of Utica, New York, and was insured 
for twelve hundred dollars, about one-half its value. Mr. Dobner's 
loss, mostly in seasoned material and manufactured stock, aggregated 
six thousand dollars ; insured for eighteen hundred dollars. A. ]S\ 
Curtis' loss was fifteen hundred dollars ; no insurance. Neal's barn, 
insured for four hundred dollars ; loss abf»ve insurance, five hundred 
dollars. As before said, these fires, following so soon one upon the 
heels of the other, awakened public attention to the need of an 
efticient fire department, and its speedy organization was the result. 
The fire de])artment had been organized a little over three and a 
half years when it was called to battle with the most destructive fire 
that had heretofore visited the city, and whose ravages were not 
stayed (owing to an unfortunate circumstance over which the depart- 
ment had no control) until the First National Bank building, a brick 
structure, corner of Center and Washington streets, and seven 
wooden buildings were laid in ashes, involving a total loss of nearly 
seventy-five thousand dollars, about one-third of which was covered 
by insurance. The origin of the fire was never definitely ascer- 
tained. The flames were seen in the back part of J. E. Favrows' 
store, and spread rapidly in every direction. The alarm was given 



LAKE CITY. 835 

about one o'clock on the morning of November 16, 1S79. The tire 
department was ])romptly an hand, and a telegrapli despatch for aid 
was sent to Red Wing, which, owing to delays on train, did not reach 
here until about four o'clock, by which time the work of desti'uction 
was as complete as it was likely to be. The new arrivals did good 
service in cooling oft" safes and quenching the smouldering flames, 
for which the exhausted firemen of the city were deeply grateful. 
The fire gained headway through a whole hour, in which the fire 
engine was rendered absolutely useless by the supply pipe becoming 
choked with sand. About three years before the fire, after the other 
fire cisterns had been completed, it was deemed expedient to provide 
a water supply near the corner of Center street and Lake avenue, 
which would save about one hundred and fifty yards of hose con- 
nection with the lake in case of fire in the eastern or southeastern 
part of the city. The well was dug in the low ground east of 
Neal & Johns, to a point considerably below that to which the water 
would rise through the sand in case of extreme low water in tlie lake. 
This well was not cemented on the bottom, and the suction of the 
steamer's supply pipe drew the sand into this pipe and into the 
engine pumps, completel_y choking the engine, in fact packing it 
solid with sand and rendering it absolutely useless. During the 
hour-spent in getting ready for even such work as in its damaged 
condition it could perform, the fire made fearful headway, sweeping 
round the corner of Washington street, and making clean work of 
everything between the bank corner and the heavy stone and brick- 
work of Patton & Son's store. The fire on Center street was not so 
destructive, and its progress was checked by the pail brigade and 
Babcock extinguishers so effectively that only one wooden building 
on the street adjoining the bank was burned down. Others were 
damaged, and stocks of goods so materially injured as to involve 
almost total loss ; but the progress of the fii-e was stayed without 
spreading through the block to Main street. With the exception of 
the bank building, the structures consumed were wooden, and old city 
landmarks, representing the early palatial stores of pioneer days ; 
and in their destruction some old relics were forever swept out of 
existence, the original Masonic and Odd-Fellows' halls among others. 
The First National Bank block was the pride of the city. It was 
erected in 1873 on the south corner of Center and Washington streets 
(the streets all running diagonally to points of compass). The bank 
was on the corner, with stores on Center and Washington streets. 



836 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUJS'TY. 

These stores were the property of the then cashier and president, 
respectively, L. S. Yan Vliet and L. H. Gerrard. It was built of 
Milwaukee white pressed brick, iron columns, galvanized iron cor- 
nice, white draped stone caps, sills and trimmings, plate-glass 
windows, etc. The banking otiice was elegantly iinished with solid 
black-walnut counters, desks, doors and casings, and was a model 
bank office. J. E. Favrow, who suffered so seriously in the fire of 
1872, in the adjoining block on the south, was this time completely 
wiped out. The "Sentinel " office was so completely consumed that 
not a shooting-stick even was saved. The law office of Stocker & 
Matchan, over the bank, with its library, was consumed, including 
account books, old journals, etc. The losses of building were : First 
National Bank, seventy-five hundred dollars ; Van Vliet's & Ger- 
rard's store, seven thousand dollars ; and the store of Peter Beck, H. 
C. Bronco, S. Lindgreen, Mrs. A. W. Ditmars, D. C. Corwin, H. 
L. Halsey and George Patton, each valued at from twelve hundred to 
two thousand dollars. The value of the buildings destroyed was about 
twenty-five thousand dollars, upon which there was an insurance of 
nine thousand five hundred dollars. The damage to buildings not 
burned was probably not more than fifteen hundred dollars, and 
upon these there was ample insurance to cover all loss. The heaviest 
losses in merchandise and other stock, fixtures, etc., were: J. E. 
Favrow & Co., sixteen thousand dollars, insured for four thousand 
dollars ; H. D. Brown, printing-office, ten thousand dollars, insured 
for fifty-five hundred dollars ; Stocker & Matchan, law library and 
furniture, sixty-five hundred dollars, insured for seventeen hundred 
dollars ; Henry Miller, druggist, five thousand dollars, insured for 
fifteen hundred dollars ; E. M. Everson, twenty-five hundred dollars, 
fully insured ; S. Leudgreen, two thousand dollars, no insurance. 
The total loss on buildings was about twenty-seven thousand dollars, 
on stocks forty-eight thousand dollai-s ; upon the former of which 
there was an insurance of eight thousand seven hundred and fifteen 
dollars, and on the latter of seventeen thousand seven hundred 
and forty-five dollars. The morning light of Monday had scarcely 
broken before the debris was being cleared away and prepara- 
tions made for rebuilding and resuming trade. These fires, 
disastrous as they were, and severely felt as they must have 
been in a town of twenty-six hundred population, were so com- 
pletely overshadowed by the calamity of 1882, that the plucky 
business men of the city are wont to say, "We never had 



LAKE CITY. 837 

but one fire here that amounted to anything, and that was in 
18S2, when we were' all wiped out clean as with a sponge." This 
tire, technically known as the "great tire," originated in an unused 
room of the old Sexton House on the Point, wliich was discovered to 
be in ilames at about two ox-lock on the morning of Saturday, April 
22, 1SS2. The wind was blowing a fierce gale from the lake, and 
carrying the flames into the old wooden rookeries in that part of 
town, sheds, barns, etc., faimed them into a roaring conflagration, 
and swept the cinders, shingles and burning material of all kinds 
right over the western and northern parts of the town, threatening 
the whole with speedy destruction. The workmen in Neal & 
John's establishment saved that manufactory by almost superhuman 
exertions, and thus prevented the spread of the flames across the 
block to the west, and no doubt saving the blocks between Washing- 
ton and Franklin streets, on the west of Center. The wagonshops 
of Curtis & Richardson Bros. & Co. were speedily wrapped in 
flames, which almost instantly leaped across the street to John 
Dobner's blacksmith-shop, and to the buildings on the east side of 
Washington, between Center and Marion ; all of which, though good 
substantial brick structures, were consumed. Nothing was left 
standing thus far from the starting point of the fire east of Washing- 
ton, between Center and the lake, except the big warehouse just 
across Marion street. Crossing Washington street, Sam Lindgreen's 
saloon, and the other brick buildings on that side of the block from 
the First National Bank to Patton's block, were soon in flames, which 
swept across Center street, through the wooden structures on the 
northeast corner of Center and Washington, moving down both sides 
of Center to Main, and leaving nothing standing in its track. Leaping 
across Main street, it swallowed up the fine brick stores of C. P. 
Young & Bro.; and on the north side of Center street, carrying 
destruction with it as far as the building of the Lake City Furniture 
Company, which was destroyed. The buildings on the lower side of 
Center street, between Washington and Main streets, were all 
destroyed except the lower corner room of the Lake City Bank 
building, a fine three-story structure, in which was the postoffice. 
The fire had quickly spread over the entire block bounded by Main, 
Center, Washington and Lyon streets ; the fierce gale blowing the 
flames in a due westerly course diagonally through the block and 
across the corner of Lyon and Main streets to the Commercial hotel, 
which, having been destroyed, the destruction was stayed in that 



838 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

quarter for lack of material. The eiforts of the firemen were ]mn- 
cipally dh-ected to saving the block bounded by Center, Washington, 
Lyon and Franklin streets, in which was the Merchants' hotel, an 
immense three-story wooden structure. The burning of this block 
would in all probability have involved the destruction of the entire 
northwestern portion of the city, as far down as Center point, as the 
wind was blowing a perfect gale, and buildings were taking fire sev- 
eral blocks from the center of the conflagration, fired by the burning 
shingles which were whirled blazing through the air, only to fall on 
some dry roof and kindle it into a blaze. The firemen made a stand 
at Richardson's corner, where their brick building interposed some 
obstruction to the progress of the flames through the block ; and 
though several times on fire, as were also the other buildings of the 
block, the catastrophe that would have followed their burning was 
averted by the heroic exertions of the citizens, who had turned out 
en masse to save the town ; many of them so intent on fighting fire 
at its very center that their own properties were consumed before 
they were aware of the tact. Another stand was made against the 
progress of the flames at the wooden saloon on the Main street side 
of the National Bank Building block, as, had that building gone, 
nothing could have saved the block across the street, and its destruc- 
tion would have involved the center of the residence portion of the 
city, including all the church buildings. The efforts in both cases 
were finally successful, and the fire was finally stayed after sweeping 
through six blocks, the best business blocks of the city, in which 
scarcely a structure of any kind remained to tell the awful story of 
destruction. So complete was the work of annihilation, and so serious 
the losses sustained, that many seriously doubted the practicability 
of rebuilding the city. All that remained standing was the row of 
brick stores on the northwest of Lyon avenue, and the block on the 
northeast of Washington street and northwest of Center street. It 
would be utterly useless to attempt to specify the losses on either 
buildings or goods. There were about fifty buildings burned, 
involving a loss of property in structures and contents, as nearly as 
can be ascertained, of at least three hundred and seventy thousand 
dollars, upon wliich there was an insurance of about one hundred and 
sevent^'-eight thousand dollars. Of this amount, however, consider- 
able proportion was insurance on damaged goods, and jiartially 
destroyed or damaged buildings ; so that the loss may be fairly said 
to have been about one-third covered by insurance. Thus, within a 



LAKE CITY. 839 

period of less than ten years, destructive fires had three times ravaged 
the business center of the city, involving a loss of over half a million 
dollars in a small town of about twenty-six hundred population. 
The grit of the little city was fully apparent in this calamity. The 
common council met immediately, and, refusing all applications for 
permits to erect temporary wooden structures, extended the fire 
limits to the lake shore, upon which the fire had originated. Monday 
evening, following the destruction of Saturday, an enthusiastic 
meeting of the board of trade was held, and it was aj^parent that the 
enterprise and courage of the city was by no means in ashes, if the 
buildings of the city were. Capt. Seeley, the city postmaster, on the 
alarm of fire, left his own household goods to ^lestruction, and used 
all his exertions to save the mails and records of his oflice, in which 
he was successful ; all letters, papers and office records being safely 
removed. The First National Bank were at work immediately, and 
resumed business in a building they put up on a corner across Center 
street from their own property. Work upon tlie bank corner was 
immediately begun, and the structure was soon ready for occupancy. 
The Lake City Bank moved into the reading-room in the Merchants' 
Hotel, and resumed. Their first business after the fire was to 
receive a deposit fof three hundred dollars from A. P. Merrell, 
of Maiden Rock. The Masonic fraternity lost all their furniture, 
including their records, the latter a serious loss. The destruction 
of the valuable museum of Dr. Estes was much to be deplored. 
Its collection had been the work of a lifetime ; and, besides con- 
taining curiosities of very rare and valuable cliaracter, many of them 
impossible to duplicate, the Doctor's manuscripts and notes, the 
work of years, and which it was his intention to have given to the 
public in perm^anent form, were all destroyed, leaving him, in his 
own pathetic words, "Not a scrap of my life work ; not a scrap, sir." 
This was a loss not to be computed in dollars and cents. The burned 
district has to a great extent been rebuilt, and the business of the 
city goes on its prosperous way, in the earnest hope that, having 
been tried so as by fire, it may henceforth escape the destructive 
ordeal. 

FIRE DEPARTMENT. 

Lake City had no regularly organized fire department until three 
years after her actual incorporation as a city. Several narrow escapes 
from disastrous conflagrations had warned the citizens of the pos- 
sible danger to the business center of the city, unprotected as they 



840 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

were against any serious fire that might break out in the more 
densely-built portions of the city ; but the danger passing, the 
matter was lost sight of. On the night of March 25, 1875, a fire 
which broke out on the corner of Center and Franklin streets, and 
for a time very seriously threatened all the lower portion of the town, 
reawakened the interest of the citizens in fire protection. This fire, 
which destroyed ten thousand dollars' worth of property, following 
close upon that of the twelfth of the same month, when the Boston 
elevator was burned, and which involved the destruction of sixty 
thousand dollars' worth, very forcibly aroused the public attention 
to the imperative necessity of organizing and maintaining an 
efficient fire departiyent. The matter was at once taken hold 
of energetically, and petitions numerously signed were presented 
to the council, asking for the immediate creation of a fire 
department, as authorized by chapter 4, section 38, of the city 
charter. This petition came before the new council at its first 
regular meeting after the spring election in 1875, and Messrs. 
Fowler and Farrow were appointed the counciPs committee on fire 
department. The petition was referred to this committee, who were 
also instructed to negotiate for the purchase of a steam fire-engine, 
hose and necessary equipments. At a special meeting, held 
April 16, a proposition was received from Samuel McDowell, 
of Seneca Falls, New York, to furnish the city with one of Silsby's 
patent rotary steam tire-engines, third size, two hose-carts, fifteen 
hundred feet of hose, and all the equipments necessary to operate 
it successfully, for seven thousand two hundred and fifty dollars ; 
terms, twelve hundred and fifty dollars cash, the balance to be })aid 
in three equal yearly installments of two thousand dollars each, 
bonds to bear intei-est at ten per cent. This proposition was 
accepted by the council, and the engines and apparatus ordered, 
with the understanding that they were to be shipped within three 
weeks. The council also passed an ordinance providing for the 
organization of a fire department, to consist of one engine com- 
pany of forty men, two hose companies and a hook and ladder 
company, to consist of thirty men each. W. A. Doe, L. S. 
Yan Yliet and I. S. Richardson were appointed a committee to 
enlist suitable members for the companies, and to call a meeting for 
organization so soon as twenty members were received for each 
company. Saturday, May 1, 1875, the companies met and per- 
fected their organizations. Meeting was held in the Academy of 



LAKE CITY. 841 

Music hall, with L. S. Yan Vliet in the chair, and H. E. Hum- 
phrey, secretary. G. D. Post was elected chief engineer of the 
department and the various companies organized, as follows : 

Engine company : E. B. Ellsworth, foreman ; L. L. Fletcher, 
assistant foreman ; H. E. Humphrey, secretary, and L. S. Van 
Yliet, treasurer. The members of the engine company were : L. S. 
Yan Yliet, E. B. Ellsworth, J. M. Martin, John Phillips, Geo. C. 
Stout, Henry Hoth, D. M. Smith, Clias. Forrest, J. E. Doughty, , 
H. R. Warner, H. Gillett, Calvin jSTeal, J. C. Hassinger, Robt. 
Romick, H. E. Humprey, I. E. Norton, M. L. Hulet, L. L. 
Fletcher, John Fletcher, E. H. Center, T. Stout, J. J. Doughty, 
Geo. Gibbs, H. C. Whitcher, H. M. Powers, C. J. Collins, Charles 
Knapp, R. B. Gates, Henry Scott, M. T. Stevens, Wallace DeLong, 
C. J. Cogswell, W. R. Muir, C. Sinclair, Frank Bouton, Oliver 
Young, A. N. Curtis, Frank Phelps, Ferd. Baker, L. E. Thorp. 

The hose company organized, and elected for officers : F. W. 
Seeley, foreman and president ; W. A. Doe, assistant foreman and 
vice-president ; M. P. Stroup, secretary ; I. S. Richardson, treas- 
urer. The following were the enrollment as meinbers : I. S. 
Richardson, W. A. Doe, M. C. Humphry, Jr., C. E. Cate, 
R. Hanish, G. W. Mossman, M. P. Stroup, F. L. Kopplen, N. E. 
Stringham,W. H. Dilley, G. D. Post, Henry Selover,'Henry Dwelle, - 
G. N. Tupper, W. J.' Hahn, J. B. Hawley, O. N. Smith, F. W. 
Seeley, Joseph Flarley, H. L. Smith, Francis Jenks, L. Lutz, 
R. H. Brown, Frank Whitcher, Chas. Sargeant, Dan'l Crego, Wm. 
M. Sprague, E. M. Baldwin and James Gillett. 

Within three weeks the hose company had received an additional 
enlistment of twenty-six members. The new engine arrived on the 
14th of May, and the trial test was made on the afternoon of Satur- 
day, the 22d of that month. The day was made almost a general 
holiday. The mayor of Red Wing headed a delegation from that 
city. The chief engineer of the Winona lire department and his 
assistant, and others from neighboring towns put in an appearance. 
The "department" was out in force. The engine was stationed 
near the pond in the vicinity of Doughty & ISTeal's wagonshop, and 
four hundred and fifty feet of hose were quickly laid up Center to 
Washington, and around the corner in front of Richardson Bros' 
store. In three and a half minutes from lighting the fire, with 
cold water in the boilers, the steam-gauge indicated five pounds of 
steam, which was rapidly increased, until at the end of seven and 



842 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTi-. 

a lialf minutes the pressure was thirty-five pounds, and water was 
running from the nozzle of the hose. AVith ninety pounds of 
steam, a stream was thrown up the street two liundred and twenty- 
seven feet through a one and one-eighth inch nozzle, and also to the 
heiglit- of one hundred and twenty-five feet. More hose was 
attached and extended up Center street to the corner of Main, and 
a stream thrown completely over a three-story building on the upper 
side of the street. A second line of hose, each was seven hundred 
and fifty feet, was attached, and both streams were thrown over the 
building, and with a branch section the three streams were thrown 
one hundred and sixtj'^ feet in a horizontal direction. Then a single 
line of hose, fifteen hundred feet long, was run u]) to the 
Episcopal church, and a stream forced over the s])ire and up to the 
height of one liundred and twelve feet from the ground. The test 
was pronounced satisfactory by the council in special session on 
the following Thursday, and the papers were duly made out. 
Lake City had at last secured what so many of her citizens had 
long desired — a good, serviceable fire engine, and many breathed 
freer, feeling their property was, at least to some extent, reasonably 
secure. 

At the first regular meeting of the council, in May of this 
year, the sum of four hundred and fifty dollars was appropriated 
for the purchase of a lot on the southeast side of Center street, 
between Oak and High streets, upon whicli to erect an engine- 
building, and the fire committee were instructed to purchase the 
same. Steps were also taken for the building of cisterns in neces- 
sary locations for water supply, and the council's committee on 
fire department given charge of the matter. A committee visited 
La Crosse, Wisconsin, for the purpose of securing information con- 
cerning the character of the cisterns needed, and reported their 
conclusion to be in favor of brick cisterns, as the only reliable ones 
in this soil. The council's fire committee reported bids for building 
three cisterns, of dimensions according to specifications drawn by 
J. B. Hawley. The contract was awarded to Dix & Bonney, as the 
lowest bidders, for seventeen hundred and eighty dollars. Not long 
afterward, G. W. Thayer was awarded contract for erecting an 
engine-house for fire-steamer and hose-carts, building to be 20x50. 
The front thirty feet to be used as an engine-room, the rear twenty 
for council-room ; contract price, six hundred and thirt}^ dollars. 
The cisterns were located as follows : The main cistern, with a 



LA.KE CITY. 



843 



capacity of one thousand barrels, at the intersection of Center and 
High streets ; two others, each having a capacity of live hundred 
barrels, one at the intersection of Garden and Dwelle streets, the 
other at the intersection of Oak and Doughty streets. A very sad 
accident occurred during the excavation for the cistern at the corner 
of Garden and Dwelle streets, by the caving in of tjie walls, owing 
to the lack of care in stoning up the walls. The men were 
repeatedly warned of the danger, but did not deem the alarm neces- 
sary and continued at work, until by the sudden caving in of the 
walls they were buried alive. Their names were A. H. Sandford 
and Benjamin Kramer. They were both taken out dead, Mr. Kra- 
mer after two hours' work, Mr. Sandford about seven hours after 
the accident. There is another water reservoir, which is more a 
well than a cistern, at the rear of Messrs. Neal & Johns' manufac- 
tory, on Center street, and from these the city has quite an ample 
water supply, well distributed. Improvements, in the shape of 
hose-tower, hook and ladder company's apparatus, etc., have been 
added from time to time, until today the city has quite a comfortable 
city building and engine-room. The old engine-house has had a 
story added within the past year, the hose-tower has been increased 
in height, and now the departments are well supplied with places for 
meeting as well as apparatus for extinguishing fires. The city build- 
ing as now standing is a conveniently-arranged two-story structure, 
20X50, with a hose-tower, 12x12 feet at the base, rising fifty-six 
feet above the ground. The lower story of the city building is 
devoted to the storage of the engine, hose-carts, hook and ladder 
truck, coal-truck, and appliances. The engine is in excellent con- 
dition, under the care of chief engineer H. Gillette, and can get 
ready for business, under a full head of steam, within ten minutes 
of lighting the torches. The engine-room has a supply pipe for 
furnishing hot water to tlie boilers in cold weather, greatly expe- 
diting the work of. getting up steam. There is also an excellent force- 
pump for the protection of the city building, with hose attached, 
through which water can be instantly turned on any part of the 
building. The hose-tower has a tank conveniently arranged for 
cleaning hose, and both tower and engine-room are supplied with 
abundant heating apparatus for winter use, in thawing out and 
drying hose and apparatus. The hose-reels are supplied with 
about twenty-five hundred feet of good hose, on the two carts 
known as Nos. 1 and 2. The hook and ladder trucks are furnished 



844 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

with one forty-foot ladder, one thirty-five feet, one tliirty feet, and 
some shorter ones ; and also with twenty-four good fire-biiekets. 
There are four Babcock extinguishers in the building, and all kept 
in perfect order, ready for any emergency that may arise. The 
upper story, which is reached by a broad, covered stairway on tlie 
outside of the building, is the city hall. Here the council holds its 
sessions, public meetings of the citizens are convened liere, the 
engine and hose companies use it for tiremen's hall, and it is just 
what it purports to be — the city's hall. It is comfoi'tably warmed, 
lighted and seated, and from it emanate the decrees of the city 
fathers for the government of the little municipality. 

The present officers of the lire department are : II. Gillett, 
chief engineer ; W. M. Sprague, assistant engineer. 

Engine company : James H. Gillett, engineer ; Ed. J. Collins, 
treasurer. Hose company : Ed. Tupper, foreman ; Frank Peirce, 
assistant foreman and secretary ; L. P. Follett, treasurer. Hook 
and Ladder company : H. McMillan, foreman ; Sunmer David, 
assistant foreman ; Frank Adams, secretary ; F. Schindler, treasurer. 

CHURCHES. 

Presbyterian. — The iirst Presbyterian church of Lake City was 
organized December 31, 1856, with Rev. Silas Hazlett as acting 
pastor, and B. C. Baldwin, A. V. Sigler and Mrs. Hazlett as mem- 
bers. B. C. Baldwin and A. V. Sigler were elected elders. 

For nearly a year and a half the church held union services with 
the Congregationalists, in the old Congregational church erected by 
the contributions of both societies, the pastors of the two churches 
alternating in the services. In 1S5S the Presbyterian church rented 
what was then known as Skinner's Hall. This was in the third story 
of a store-building situated on lot 2, block 14, fronting on Washing- 
ton street. In 1859 the church erected their church edifice on lots 4 
and 5, block 58, which had been presented to the society' by Mr. 
Samuel Doughty. These lots are now occupied • by the residence 
of Mr. Charles E. Crane. The church-building, which originally cost 
nine hundred dollars, was removed in 1863 to its present location 
on High street, just north of Lyon avenue, and in 1876 was repaired 
and enlarged at an additional cost of eight hundred and fifty dollars. 

In 1862 the trustees purchased lot 1, block 56, and erected their 
present parsonage at a cost of eight hundred dollars, and in 1878 it 
was enlarged and repaired at a further cost of six hundred and fifty 
dollars. 



LAKE CITY. 845 

The total number of members received into the church since its 
organization has been one hundred and ninety-seven, and of these 
one hundred and three were received upon the profession of their 
faith in Jesus Christ. The total baptisms during these years have 
been one hundred and four. The present membership is sixty. 

The officers of the church are : Pastor, J. W. Ray ; elders, A. V. 
Sigler and A. T. Guernsey ; trustees, A. T. Guernsey, J. B. McLean 
and J. W. Kennedy. 

The names of the pastors who have successively served the 
church, in the order of their service, are : Revs. Silas Hazlett, Porter 
H. Snow, William Speer, D.D., John Yaleen, John A. Annin, 
Hugh W. Todd, John L. Howell, James M. Pryse, W. J. Weber, 
Samuel Wyckoff, and J. W. Ray, the present incumbent. 

The Sunday school was organized on January 1, 1S60, with A. 
T. Guernsey as superintendent, who held the office eighteen years, 
since which time the following persons have held the position : 
Oliver Jones, who was superintendent two years, and Messrs. J. B. 
McLean, S. M. Emery and Wm. Wilson, who have each held the 
office one year, the last-named gentleman now serving his second 
term, having been re-elected recently. 

Swedish Zutheran.—The Swedish Lutheran church, in this city, 
was organized October 10, 1869, at a convocation called for that 
purpose, the Rev. P. Sjoblom, of Red Wing, presiding. The 
original number of communicants was forty-five, prominent among 
whom were Messrs. L. A. Hockanson, G. F. Edholm, A. E. Edholm, 
P. Sundberg, G. Erickson and others. Services were conducted for 
a time by two lay preachers, L. A. Hockanson and A. G. Westlong, 
and the congregation was ministered to at intervals by Rev. P. 
Sjoblom, of Red Wing, Rev. J. FremJing, of Stockholm, Wisconsin, 
and Rev. J. Wagner, of Svea, Wisconsin. In 1879 the congregation 
secured the services of the Rev. S. A. Lindholm, who also minis- 
tered to churches at Millville and Minneiska. Until the year 1875 
the congregation worshiped sometimes in a smajl hall, at other 
times* in the Presbyterian or Baptist churches of this city, which 
were kindly opened for their accommodation. In 1875 a small 
church, 26X40 feet, was built and neatly furnished. This building 
stands on the upper side of Sixth street, three blocks northwest of 
Lyon avenue ; and facing it on the opposite of Sixth, a commodious 
parsonage was built in 1881, at a cost of twelve hundred dollars. 
The Sunday school, in connection with the church, organized fn 



846 nisTOKY OF waijasiia county. 

18T3, has always been maintained in a flourishing condition. Its 
superintendent for many years was Mr. P. Sundburg : the present 
superintendent is O. Chinberg. The present membership of the 
congregation is about eighty-tive, recent removals having led to a 
very material decrease. A very efficient Ladies' Society has been 
working within the church organization for several years, collecting 
m.oney for church and missionary purposes. They meet the third 
Fri(hiy in each month, and during the year 1883 contributed one 
hundred and eighteen dollars toward the six hundred and seventy- 
five dollars raised by the congregation. 

The present officers are Rev. L. A. Lindholm, pastor ; Mr. Ed. 
Edholm, secretary ; Mr. Nils Peterson, treasurer ; deacons, P. 
Sundberg, A. Anderson, G. Erickson, (). Chinberg ; trustees, A. E. 
Edholm, Nils Hallin, Chas. Chinberg. 

St. Mary's Catholic Church. — The first religious services held 
in Lake City in connection with the Catholic church were in 1857, 
in which year Father Auster conducted services in the house of John 
Moran, in the vicinity of the brick schoolhouse in the first ward. 
This was the first Catholic service ever held in the place, and though 
no church building was erected until seven years afterward, regular 
ministrations at the hands of Father Auster were enjoyed until 
his departure from the parish in 1860. During these years and sub- 
sequently, until the old church was built, the congregation wor- 
shiped from house to house and in public halls, particularly Will- 
iamson's, in which services were held longer than in smj other one 
place. To Father Auster succeeded Father Tisot, in 1860, remain- 
ing four years. In 1866 the old church was erected, on Center 
street, one block nearer the lake than the railway tracks of the Chi- 
cago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railroad. This was a substantial 
frame building, about 36x60 feet, and in this the cliurch continued 
to hold services, until 1873, when the church lots were sold and 
property bought farther down town. The new property consists of 
an entire bloc}j:, bounded by Lyon avenue, Center, Prairie and 
Garden streets. Upon this site the old frame cliurch was moved, 
refitted for service and occupied until 1877, when it was converted 
into a school-building for the use of the parish school. Father 
Tisot was followed by Father Trobec, the present parish priest at 
Wabasha, in 1865, and he in turn by Father Ilermon, in 1868, who 
continued in charge until 1875. It was during his ministry that the 
old church was removed to the present eligible and central location. 



LAKE CITY. 847 

Father Quinn became parish priest in 1875, upon the removal of 
Father Hermon, and remained in charge until his failing health 
compelled him to seek rest in a more congenial climate. He 
accordingly crossed the seas and took up his residence in France, 
but the vital energies were too severely taxed to respond to tlie call, 
and he died shortly after reaching France. He was an earnest and 
indefatigable worker, and it was largely owing to his energetic 
eftorts that the beautiful church structure on the corner of Lyon 
avenue and Garden street was constructed. The present church 
edifice, erected in 1877 at a total cost of sixteen thousand dollars, 
is much the finest church structure in the city. It faces fifty feet on 
Lyon avenue, and has an extreme length of one hundred and 
sixteen feet along Garden street, including the sacristy, which is 
16x53. The building is a substantial brick structure, stone founda- 
tions, water-table, caps, sills and trimmings. The side walls are 
twenty-two feet in height, and the top of the cross is one hundred 
and sixty-one feet above the sidewalk. It is finished inside to the 
roof, and seated to accommodate about six hundred. There is 
room, however, for quite a number of additional pews, and the 
seating capacity may be easily extended to eight hundred if desired. 
The church is an ornament to tlie city, and its spire can be seen 
from almost all parts of Lake Pepin, rising above every surround- 
ing object in its vicinit3^ Father Quinn was succeeded by Father 
Riley, a young man who remained in charge six months, and who 
was followed in the summer of 1882, by Father Riordan, who 
resigned his charge and went south for his liealth, January 1, 1884. 
The parish school, which was established in 1868, has not been in 
session for some time past, and probably will not be until the 
church has a permanent priest. The services are at present con- 
ducted by supplying priests from St. Paul. The number of con- 
tributing families in the parish is about thirty-five, but the number 
of families actually connected with the parish is much larger. 

Congregational : The first Congregational church in Lake City 
was organized on August 8, 1856, with ten members — four men 
and six women. This was the first church organization in this place, 
and at the time of its institution there were probably not far from 
three hundred people within what are now the corporate limits of 
Lake City, Rev, DeWitt C, Sterry (who died last summer in Kan- 
sas) was the first acting pastor of the church, which flourished vigor- 
ously during the ten years that he remained in charge as its minister. 



848 HISTORY OF WAUASIIA COUNTY. 

tlie increase during the first year being more than fourfold. The 
little society worshiped in halls and rooms, as they could best 
secure accommodations, for one year, when they moved into their 
own house of worship which they had built upon the lot presented 
them tor that pur])ose by Abner Dwelle, Esq., one of the original 
proprietors of the town site. Their site was lot No. 10, block 27, 
and upon it the church-building, a frame structure 30x50 feet, was 
erected. In 1866 this old house of worship was reconstructed, 
turned partially around, enlarged and refitted for service, the cost of 
the improvements being considerably in excess of one thousand 
dollars, which was all paid early in January, 1869. In 1866 a par- 
sonage was erected on the south half of lots 6 and 7, in block 49, at 
a total cost of about fifteen hundred dollars. Since then the build- 
ing has received several additions and needed repairs, and is now a 
commodious and comfortable residence. 

In 1873 the old church was repainted, and six years later was 
burned to the ground. The congregation then decided to abandon 
their old location and build a new church in a more desirable part 
of the city. The site selected was on the north corner of Lyon 
avenue and Oak street. The lot fronts ojie hundred and thirty 
feet on Oak street, and one hundred feet on the avenue. Here 
in 1880 the present beautiful church structure was erected. This 
is a substantial stone and frame, m.odern style of architecture, 
extreme dimensions 40x60 feet. The basement is of stone 
with a ten-foot ceiling, and is conveniently arranged for Sunday- 
school and social services, as well as the regular church reunions. 
Above the basement rises the auditorium, finished to the Gothic 
roof, comfortably seated and furnished, having sittings for about 
two hundred and twenty-five persons. The contract price for the 
building was forty-nine hundred and sixty dollars, but its actual cost 
was considerably above that figure, the entire outlay for lots, build- 
ing, furniture, upholstering, bell, etc., being in round numbers about 
nine thousand dollars. 

As before stated, De Witt Sterry was the first acting pastor of the 
church, and he sustained that relation for nearly ten years, when he 
was succeeded by the Rev. Edward Anderson, whose ministry con- 
tinued a little less than two years, when he resigned, and W. B. Dada 
acce))ted a call to the pulpit. His ministry, begun in December, 1867, 
terminated in February, 1872, when he was succeeded by Rev. J. W. 
Ray, whose pastorate lasted five years. In October, 1877, Rev. P. 



LAKE CITY. 849 

B. Fisk was called to the oversight of the church, and remained 
its pastor until the spring of 1882, In May of that year, Rev. J. 
W. Horner became minister of the church, an office which he now 
sustains with great acceptability to the church and congregation. 

The whole number of members connected with the church from 
the date of its organization to the present has been two hundred and 
seventy. The present membership is one hundred and twenty-five. 
The present officers are : Trustees, A. E. Smith, president ; C. A. 
Hubbard, treasurer; N. C. Pike, secretary; deacons, Carlos Clem- 
ent, M. C. Humphrey ; Rev. J. W. Horner, church clerk. 

There is a very efficient Sunday school maintained by the church, 
the average attendance at which is about one hundred. W. H. 
Moore, the principal of the city schools, is its superintendent. This 
Sunday school was organized immediately after the church organiza- 
tion was effected, and has been in continuous existence until the 
present. 

Episcopal Church. — St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal church is 
one of the strong church organizations of Lake City. The first 
services were held here in the fall of 1857, at which time Bishop 
Kemper visited the place, preached and baptized. Subsequent 
visits were made by the bishop, by the Rev. E. R. Wells, of 
Red Wing, and in 1860 by Bishop H. B. Whipple. In 1862 
the parish was formally received into union with the council, 
but no vestry was formed until December, 1864. On the 14th 
of this month a meeting was held at the residence of Rev. 
John W. Shatzel, parish missionary, at which time the vestry 
was constituted by the election of the following : Wardens, 
Lyman H. Buck, senior, John O. Junkin, junior ; Vestrymen, 
Wm. E. Perkins, John T. Graves, P. R. Hardt, Thomas Gibbs, 
B. L. Goodrich, Wm. Marsh, Asa Doughty and Mathias Dil- 
ley. L. H. Buck was elected secretary of the vestry, and R. S, 
Goodrish, treasurer. Services were first held in a small school- 
room owned by Mrs. O. E. Walters, and afterward in a hall under 
the Masonic lodge, from which they removed in the spring of 1864 
to what was known as Harley's hall. Here they remained until the 
completion of the church-building in the summer of 1866. Prepara- 
tions for building were begun in 1863, the sum of sixteen hundred 
dollars was raised or pledged, and a church lot 75 X 100 feet pur- 
chased, for which the sum of three hundred and fifty dollars was 

51 



^50 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

paid. It was found that lumber could not be procured, and build- 
ino; was deterred until the fall of 1865. The church was com|)leted 
early in the summer of 1860 and the opening services were held 
July 1, but the parish being in debt for the building to the amount 
of eight hundred dollars, the consecration was defen-ed until 
Wednesday, Januar}^ 16, 1867, when the church was formally con- 
secrated according to the usages of the Protestant Episcopal church. 
The site of this church edifice is a commanding location on Oak 
street, just south of Lyon avenue, fronting the lake and overlooking 
the main business portion of the city. The structure is of wood, 
50X30 feet, with a front tower 12x12 feet, and a chancel extension 
10X18 feet. The side walls are fourteen feet and the ridge of the 
ceiling thirty-one feet. The tower is forty-five feet in height, and 
above it rises the si)ire a farther distance of thirty-four feet, sur- 
mounted by a cross four feet high, the total height from sill to 
cross-top being eight3^-three feet. The building is comfortably 
furnished and has sittings for a little over two hundred persons. 
The entire cost was about thirty-five hundred dollars, and of this 
sum two thousand dollars were raised by the society at home, the 
rest being contributions from abroad. 

There have been connected with this church from the date of its 
organization to the present a total membership of two hundred and 
fifty-four. Baptisms, for the same period, four hundred and fifty- 
two ; confirmations, two hundred and one ; marriages, seventy-six ; 
burials, one hundred and fifty. 

The succession of rectors of St. Mark's is as follows : C. P. 
Dorset, 1861-2; J. W. Shatzel, 1863-6; C. W. Kelley, 1867; 
J. C. Adams, 1868-72 ; C. H. Plummer, 1873, to May, 1883 ; Rev. 
"W. Gardam, the present incumbent, having been in charge only 
since last May. 

The present church officers are : Rev. W. Gardam, rector ; L. 
H. Buck and W. E. Perkins, wardens ; vestrymen, G. F. Benson, 
S. K. Gates, J. C. Adams, C. W. Crary, Thos. Gibbs, A. Wells, 
O. P. Francisco, C. H. Benedict. Mr. L. 11. Buck is secretary and 
Mr. W. E. Perkins, treasurer. The present number of communi- 
cants is one hundred and twenty-two. 

St. Mark's church maintains a flourishing Sunday school with 
eighteen teachers and one hundred and forty scholars, of which 
Mr. J. M. Underwood is superintendent ; Mrs. G. F. Benson, 
librarian and L. H. Buck, treasurer. 



LAKE CITY. 



851 



Baptist. — Baptist meetings were held by Kev. Edgar Cad}^ from 
July, 1857, to December of the same year, when the first Baptist 
church of Lake City was organized, December 13, 1857. The num- 
ber of constituent members was twenty-one. Up to 1871 two 
hundred and twenty-five members had been added to the church, 
including twelve members of a branch church at Maiden Rock, 
Wisconsin, in 1863. Of the above number sevent^^-seven were by 
baptism, the balance by letter and experience. Subsequent statistics 
of membership are not available. The present number of members 
is sixty-four. 

The Baptists worshiped first in Gaylord's hall, which stood. I 
believe, about where Perkins' livery stable now is. The present 
edifice was erected under Rev. A. P. Graves' supervision, in 1859, 
at a cost of two thousand dollars. It has been enlarged and im- 
proved during the past year by the expenditure of about seven 
hundred dollars. The church owned a parsonage until a few years 
since, when it was sold to Mr. Terrell in order to liquidate the 
church indebtedness. 

Of pastors the following is a complete list, with dates of settle- 
ment and terms of office : Rev. Edgar Cady, July, 1837, one year 
and four months ; Rev. A. P. Graves, August, 1859, two years and 
five months ; Rev. G. W. Freeman, September, 1862, two years 
and two months ; Rev. G. W. Fuller, April, 1865, six years and 
two months ; Rev. H. H. Beach, June, 1872, four years ; Rev. E. 
C. Anderson, November, 1876, four years ; Rev. A. Whitman, 
December, 1880, one year and five months ; Rev. W. K. Dennis, 
October, 1882, present pastor. 

The Swede Baptist church, of Lake City, was at first a branch 
church, and eventually organized during Rev. M. Beach's pastorate, 
and the English Baptist churcii, of Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, was an 
offshoot from this church. 

The Baptist Sunday school was organized in Gaylord hall in 
1857. Number of pupils, eighty-five. 

List of church officers : Pastor, Rev. W. K. Dennis ; clerk, J. 
M. Chalmers ; treasurer, Mr. Alex. Selover. Trustees : A. R. 
Spauldings, A. Selover, N. K. Eells, A. D. Prescott, F. Bouton. 
Superintendent of Sunda^ school, J. M. Chalmers. 

MetJiodist.—^xiQx to 1857 no society of the Methodist Episcopal 
church was known in Lake City, although a few of the old settlers 
were members of that church. During the month of September, 



852 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

185'^, Kev. S. Salisbury was sent, by the bisho]> ])residing over the 
Minnesota annual conference, to Wabasha and Lake City circuit. 
He came to Lake City and preached one sermon in the Congrega- 
tional church, but we saw his face no more. This was the first 
sermon ever preached in Lake City by an ordained minister of the 
Methodist Episcopal church. The few members (iive in number), 
as a ilock without a shepherd, were soon in charge of Rev. C. 
IIobart,a supernumerary member of the minister of the Minnesota 
conference, who at that time resided in Red Wing. We rented a 
room known as Skinner's Hall, a small room with but limited seat- 
ing capacity, lighted with tallow candles. Here we waited for the 
salvation which God had promised. It seemed as if each member 
of the small company received a special commission from the King 
Eternal to go forth and win souls. 

A class was soon formed by Dr. Hobart, which consisted of D. 

C. Estes, M. E. Estes, Seth Tisdale, Augusta Dollar, Jane Terrill, 
Eliza Baily and Bidwell Redley. D. C. Estes was appointed leader. 
Seth Tisdale was a local preacher. This completed the organization 
of the society. Of these seven members five are still living. Bid- 
well Pedley was killed during the late war, while engaged in the 
service of his country. Seth Tisdale died in September, 1883. Eliza 
Baily lives in St. Paul. Augusta Dollar is now living in California. 

D. C. Estes, M. E. Estes and Jane Terrill are still members of the 
society in Lake City. 

Rev. Seth Tisdale was the first preacher of the Methodist Epis- 
copal church to engage in special revival services. His work began 
first at Florence. He was a man of strong faith and untiring energy. 

Soon after Dr. Elobart took charge of the work the first quarterly 
meeting was held. Rev. Dr. Quigly preached from Isa. Ixiii, 1, a 
sermon of marvelous power. It was as of old a demonstration of 
the spirit. 

The little company of believers enjoyed the privilege at that 
quarterly meeting, for the first time in the new country, of receiving 
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a society of the Methodist 
Episcopal church. 

Dr. Hobart was assisted during the winter by Bro. Tisdale. In 
the spring of 1858 we moved to a vacant ^^toreroom on Main street, 
in the building which is now occupied by Mr. D. Cregoasa dwelling. 
About this time Rev. J. Gurley, of Pepin, Wisconsin, was appointed 
to supply Lake City, but on account of the difficulty of crossing the 



LAKE CITY, 858 

lake he was not able to render much service. In 1858 Lake City was 
left to be supplied. In 1859 Rev. E. R. Lathrop was appointed as 
pastor, being a man of kind, genial spirit, and a good preacher. 
The society prospered under his administration. In 1860 Rev. A. 
y. Hiscock was appointed pastor ; a year of encouragement during 
which many were added to the church. In 1861 Rev. C. T. Bow- 
dish was pastor. In 1862 the society was left to be supplied. In 1863 
Rev. G. W. T. Wright was app(nnted pastor. He served the charge 
until September, 1866, when Rev. T. M. Gossard was appointed. 
During Bro. Gossard's term of two years the church was favored with 
a gracious revival. During Bro. Gossard's pastorate the place of 
meeting was changed. The society rented a vacant store-building on 
Upper Washington street. This building is now occupied as a 
dwelling by Mr. Brown. In 1868 Rev. D. Tice was appointed as 
pastor. During his first year the corner-stone of the church was 
laid, the site for the building being a lot which had been previously 
secured on the corner of Chestnut and Oak streets. The church 
was enclosed and the basement occupied by the society in 1869. In 
1870-1 Rev. H. Goodsell was pastor. In 1872-4, Rev. C. M. 
Heard was pastor. In 1875 Rev. J. Door was appointed. The 
audience-room was finished and dedicated in 1876. The dedicatory 
services were held July 9, 1876. Rev. Mr. McChesney preached 
the dedicatory sermon. In 1878-80 Rev. G. W. T. Wright was pastor 
for the second term. In 1881 T. B. Killiam was appointed pastor. 
During 1882 and 1883 the entire debt, which had for years been a 
burden to the society, was paid. We now have a good property, a 
membership of ninety persons ; a good sabbath school, the average 
attendance being seventy. 

Church ofiicers : Pastor, T. B. Killiam ; class-leader. Rev. C. 
L. Dempster ; sabbath-school superintendent, J. M. Martin. 
Stewards : James M. Martin, D. C. Estes, L. W. Lemley, E. 
Wrigley, E. F. Carpenter. Trustees : T. Megroth, D. C. Estes, A, 
Koch, J. Harding, E. F. Carpenter, E. Wrigley, L. W. Lemley. 

The Methodist Episcopal Sunda}' school of Lake City, Minnesota, 
was organized by Dr. D. C. Estes on the first sabbath in Septem- 
ber, 1857, — being the first Methodist Sunday school held in Lake 
City, and the second one organized in the county of Wabasha. The 
first services of the school were held in the unoccupied store build- 
ing situate on lot 9, block 17, fronting on Main street, then but re- 
cently vacated by the firm of Johnson & Kittredge, since remodeled 



854 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

into a dwelling-liouse, and owned by Daniel H. Crego. The records 
of the school from its organization down to September 3, 1865, were 
all destroyed in the fire of April 17, 1882, that burned Dr. D. C. 
Estes' office ; but we learn from the report of the su]ierintendent, 
Dr. Estes, made to the school on the occasion of their tenth anniver- 
sary, September 1, 1867, that there were but few children in the 
first organization. "Our beginning was but a feeble, a small one," 
but increased gradually. From that day down to the present the 
Sunday school has continued without interruption, following the 
fortunes of the church in its various movings from store to store, 
from store to halls, from halls to church ; at times with lessening 
and again increasing attendance. As far as the records extant dis- 
close, the largest average attendance a])pears to have been in the 
winters of 1868-9, when the average attendance was one hundred, and 
again in the winter of 1876-7, when the enrollment was one hundred 
and forty-eight, and average attendance of one hundred and three ; 
and again in'J 880-1, when the number enrolled and in attendance was 
about the same as in 1876-7. In the spring of 1881, from removals, 
the numbers decreased largely, the present enrollment (February, 
1884) being one hundred and five, with an average attendance of 
seventy-two. 

Since the organization, the following have been superinten- 
dents in the order and for the times named : Dr. D. 0. Estes, 
September 1, 1857, to September 13, 1868 ; Dr. W. H. Spafford, 
September 13, 1868, to September 3, 1871 ; Kev. H. Goodsell, 
September 3, 1871, to June 2, 1872 ; Chas. M. Gould, June 2, 
1872, to April 27, 1873 ; J. M. Martin, April 27, 1873. to October 
21, 1877 ; P. S. Hinman, October 21, 1877, to September 7, 1879 ; 
Geo. L. Matchan, September 7, 1879, to January 1, 1882 ; J. M. 
Martin, January 1, 1882, to present time — re-elected for ensuing 
year September 9, 1883. The present officers of the school are : J. 
M. Martin, superintendent ; E. L. Carpenter, assistant superinten- 
dent ; Maggie Koch, secretary ; Lutie Chapman, treasurer ; Henry 
Koch, librarian. Teachers : Kev. T. B. Killiara, Mrs. J. Dobner, 
Mrs. S. L. Strong, Mrs. F. M. Martin, Miss Jennie Baker, Miss H. 
M. Dobner, Miss Marion Lee, Chas. A. Koch, J. M, Martin. 

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

It is impossible to present any connected history of the Lake 
City schools, such as we would esteem it a pleasure to prepare, had 



LAKE CITY. 855 

we tlie data. The records and material for such history are unfor- 
tunately lost, having been destroyed in the great tire of 1882, in 
which so much that was valuable and indispensable to a complete 
history of the city was irretrievably lost. All efforts to restore these 
records, or recreate them from the memories of those now living, 
have proved abortive, as there is too wide a divergence in the 
statements of those who were living here a quarter of a century 
since to predicate anything very positive upon such sources of 
information. The human memory, unassisted by records or un- 
corrected by memoranda, is not to be relied upon for much outside 
of merely personal matters, and not always for even these. This, at 
least, is the conclusion very reluctantly reached after weeks of care- 
ful inquiry, and we are therefore necessitated to content ourselves 
with a general statement, into which is interwoven so much of de- 
tail as is warranted correct by the agreement of the narrati^s of those 
who have been interviewed, and their recollections noted. In addi- 
tion to this, the files of the old newspapers still existing have been 
thoroughly scanned for points, but these also are silent where most 
naturally they would be expected to speak — as, for instance, in not- 
ing the erection, completion and opening of school-buildings. Thus 
we are cut off from the two most reliable sources of information, viz, 
the school records themselves, and the reports found in the news- 
papers of the specific dates at wliich particular occurrences took 
place. 

The probabilities are that the public schools in this city never 
formed an integral part of the school system of the county, having 
been organized prior to the establishment of the school System of 
the state. Not only so ; they appear to have attained sufficient 
growth to have been included in an independent school district, 
before the public school system of the county took form. The 
schools here were originally of the character known as subscription 
schools, being supported by the voluntary subscriptions of the resi- 
dents of the place. 

The pioneer school in the little settlement, now Lake City, was 
opened by the Kev. S. Hazlett, in the fall of 1856 (November), 
and was taught in a frame building, the lower portion of which was 
used as a carpenter-shop, on the lot, now vacant, at the east corner 
of the Academy of Music block. The number of pupils in attend- 
ance was about thirty, and the estimated population of the settle- 
ment at that time was three hundred. From this date, schools in 



856 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Lake City were regularly tauglit somewhere. Gaylord's hall, near 
the present site of W. E. Perkin's livery stables, was subsequently 
opened for school purposes, and schools were taught at various 
places — now hero, now there — for the next five years, the city hav- 
ing no school-building of its own prior to 1801. In this year it was 
determined to build a suitable schoolhouse, and in the early summer 
plans for such building were prepared by Geo. Kogers, and contract 
for the lumber was made. Work was immediately begun, the base- 
ment excavated, the stonework laid up, and the building partially 
enclosed, when the school trustees released the contractor from his 
contract to furnish the clear lumber, because the price of lumber 
had advanced, and the building came to a standstill. Late in the 
fall the basement was finished, and school opened, — Geo. T. Gibbs, 
now of St. Paul, being the first teacher to guide the young idea in 
the new schoolhouse. This building was a credit to the city. It 
was a commodious two-story frame, -±0x60, with stone foundation 
and basement. The basement only was completed in 1861, and in 
this school was held until the upper stories were finished and fur- 
nished in 1863, when the whole building was occupied for school 
purposes. This schooliiouse is the one now standing upon its origi- 
nal foundations, on Garden street, and doing duty as the high- 
school building of Lake City. 

In the meantime the citizens of the ambitious little city by the 
lake had made provision for a somewhat higher grade of scholar- 
ship than was contemplated in the common schools of twenty-five 
years since, and the Lake City Academy came into existence. This 
Academy building, also on Garden street, now known as the old 
Crane residence, was largely erected by the private contributions of 
the citizens, with the evident intention of its becoming the pro])erty 
of the city, to be used as an academy for higher instruction. It was 
built (date not accurately known) with funds }n-ovided as above 
mentioned, for Mrs. C. W. Hackett, who opened a school or academy 
there and taught it for some years. The property subsecpiently 
passed into Mrs. Hackett's possession in some undefined way, and 
was sold. 

With the growth of the city, the accommodations of the wooden 
building erected in 1861 became totally inadequate to meet the 
wants of the city, and the erection of a new school-building was 
determined upon. 



LAKE CITY. 857 

By the legislative act of 1864, giving the settlement, now Lake 
City, all the rights and immunities of a corporate city without its 
responsibilities, a change was made in its government, and this was 
followed in 1865 by a change in the administration of school affairs. 
In the spring of this latter year a board of education was elected, of 
which Dr. Estes was clerk, and to this board and its successors have 
been entrusted the management of all school matters for the past 
nineteen years. Finding that the work of education was suffering 
for lack of proper school accommodations and appliances, the 
board determined upon the erection of a school-building in the 
first ward, that would accommodate all the children of that ward 
below the grammar and high school grades, and thus draw into one 
building the scholars scattered in various places throughout the city, 
as rooms could be obtained. Plans for the new building were 
prepared, bids advertised for, and in the summer of 1872 the con- 
tract was let to Red Wing parties for a little less than nine thousand 
dollars. This is the building between Oak and Garden streets, 
known as the first ward schoolhouse. It occupies a full half-block, 
fronts northeast and northwest ; is a substantial two-story brick with 
a high stone basement; has two schoolrooms on each floor with 
commodious hallways and closets, and is provided with the requi- 
site flues for furnaces, should they ever be deemed necessary. Its 
entire cost, including sidewalks, fencing and furniture, was about 
eleven thousand dollars. School was first opened in this building 
early in the winter of 1872-3, with James M. Martin and Misses 
Anna Montgomery and E. M. Burrett as teachers. But three 
rooms were occupied. These were graded "A," "B," '*C," and 
the enrollment of pupils was about eighty, forty-five and sixty, 
respectively. 

Ten years passed away before any additions were made to the 
school-buildings of the city, and again the demand for school-room 
had outgrown the accommodations. In 1883 the second ward 
schoolhouse was erected, on the original school lot on Garden 
street, just a little southeast of the old building in which school had 
been opened in 1861. This new building is also of brick, two 
stories, with substantial stone basement, and is intended to form one 
of the wings of a complete structure, which shall include high 
school, grammar school, and ward school in one. The dimensions 
of the wing already built and occupied, are as follows : width, 31 



1 



858 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

feet; length, 06 feet; height over all, 57 feet; vestibule on the 
southeast front, 10x27-| feet. This vestibule is the full height ot 
the building, and from it access is gained to the schoolrooms, two 
in number on each floor. The building is furnished in the latest 
style, well provided with all needed ai)i)liances. The ceilings are 
fourteen feet each, and the whole structure complete cost a little in 
excess of the contract price, eight thousand dollars. The contract- 
ors were Messrs. Lutz & Alexander, of this city, and bj them the 
building was turned over to the school board on September 20, 1883. 

The present officers and members of the school board are : J. C. 
Adams, president ; C. D. Vilas, clerk ; J. M. Martin, treasurer ; C 
W. Crarv and W. H. Hobbs, committee on supplies ; H. D. Stocker, 
committee on textbooks ; W. H. Moore, city superintendent of 
schools. 

The schools are graded into high, grammar, intermediate and 
primary, taught as follows: The high school and "A" grammar is 
taught by Superintendent Moore, assisted by Misses Sarah E. Pal- 
mer and Anna C. Marston. Mr. Moore is a graduate of Darmouth 
College, class of '81, and his. assistants are both graduates of the 
State University, classes of '81 and '83 respectively. The "B" 
grammar is under the charge of Mrs. Alice Fox, of the State Normal 
School at Winona, and the "C" grammar under that of Miss F. 
M. Thornton. Miss Jennie M. Baker has the "A" and "B" in- 
termediate in the second ward, and Miss Helen Dobner the same 
grades in the flrst ward. The "C" intermediate and "A" pri- 
mary are taught by Miss Kate J. Lilley in the first ward, and in the 
second ward by Miss Margaret Clearman. Miss Belle Hulett has 
the "B" and "C" primaries in the first ward, and Miss Mollie 
Greer in the second ward. The "D" primaries are taught by 
Misses Nellie J. Estes and Sue Slocurn, of the first and second 
wards respectiv^ely. 

The total enrollment for the year is about six hundred ; the aver- 
age enrollment, four hundred and fifty. The aggregate cost of main- 
taining the schools, not including interest on or cost of constructions, 
is about eight thousand dollars per annum. Salaries vary from 
thirty-five dollars per month to one hundred and twenty dollars. 

It is with extreme satisfaction that we record the exceptionally 
high rank taken by the Lake City schools, particularly the high 
school, which since 1881 has been the banner hijjh school of the 



LAKE CITY. 859 

state, the percentage of its pupils passing the examinations prescribed 
by the high-school board of the state, being greater than that of any 
other of the fifty high schools competing for the state appropriation. 

SECRET SOCIETIES. 

The history of the secret societies of this city is one most diffi- 
cult to prepare satisfactorily, owing, as in the case of the city schools, 
to the destruction of the records by fire and loss of important data. 
In this case, however, the work of reconstruction has not proved 
impossible, as the matters treated of are more individual and specific, 
and private memoranda have been found that materially assist in 
fixing dates. Personal recollections also are more available here, and 
the reports of the higher representative bodies, with whose trans- 
actions the subordinate bodies were to some extent involved, have 
been drawn upon for such information as they contain. Not only 
so — the destruction of records in this case was not as complete as 
in that of tiie schools, and we are therefore prepared to assert quite 
confidently that the subjoined statements will be found, if not 
absolutely accurate in all particulars, at least sufficiently so to 
answer all the purposes of a substantially correct record of the insti- 
tution, growth and present condition of the benevolent fraternities 
of Lake City. 

CarneJian^ No. If-O., A.F.A.M. — Lake City had grown into a 
town of considerable proportions ; her schools and churches had 
been in existence for a period of five or six years, and her citizens 
included no inconsiderable number of the "ancient craftsmen," 
before any attempt was made to set up the ancient landmarks, and 
organize a masonic lodge upon the banks of the beautiful lake, 
where so many of the A.F.A.M. had reared their home altars and 
industries with the intention of ending their days there. 

The first year of the war of the rebellion had closed, and many 
of Minnesota's bravest and best had given themselves to the service 
of their country, when the members of the masonic order in Lake 
City, remembering the former times, took counsel together and 
determined to organize a lodge of Ancient Craft Masonry. Accord- 
ingly, early in the summer of 1862 (probably in May — date not 
accurately known), a petition was presented to M.W. A. T. C. 
Pierson, grand master of the state, for a dispensation to open a 
masonic lodge in Lake City. The petition was approved and 
dispensation granted to C. G. Bowdish, W.M., John McBride, 



860 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

S.W., and Benjamin Smith, J.W., to open and conduct a masonic 
lodge here. This dispensation was in force only until the meeting 
of the grand lodge next ensuing, October, 1862. Owing, however, 
to the absence of so many Masons from tlie state, in the ranks of 
the Union armies, no grand lodge meeting was held in 1862, and in 
December of that year Grand Master Pierson notified the members 
of the order here that if they would designate such persons as they 
desired to open and conduct their lodge, he would grant them 
another dispensation. In accordance with this intimation the mem- 
bers of the craft here held an election on January 13, 1863, at 
which time the following otScers were elected : Benjamin Smith, 
W.M.; S. E. Merrell, S.W.; C. F. Eogers, J.W.; k" Gould, Sec; 
S. P. Hicks, Treas.; C. W. Smyth, S.D.; Anson Peirce, J.D. The 
dispensation was duly granted until the meeting of the grand lodge 
in the ensuing ftill, and under this renewed authority the lodge 
worke.d until the assembling of the grand lodge, at Masonic Hall, 
in the city of St Paul, October 27, 1863. 

From this grand lodge a charter issued to Carnelian Lodge, 
No. 40, A.F.A.M., of Lake City, bearing date October 28, 1863, in 
which the following were named as the charter members : C. G. 
Bowdish, John McBride, Benj. Smith, C. M. Loring, C. F. Rogers, 
C. W. Smyth, N. Gould, Elijah Stout, F. R. Sterrett, E. F. Dodge, 
S. R. Merrell and probably Dr. D. W. Green, Of this latter name 
there is some doubt, recollections differing. As the charter was 
burned in the great fire of 1882, and also the original records, the 
question cannot be definitely settled. Of the other names there 
appears to be no doubt. 

The first masonic meetings were held in what was then known 
as Gaylord's hall, which stood on Washington street, on the present 
site of W. E. Perkin's omnibus barn. Here the lodge remained for 
several years, and worked and grew and prospered. Probably 
about the year 1878 the lodge removed to the Armstrong building 
on Washington street, just below Center. They did not continue 
in this location very long, for in February, 1869, the lodge removed 
to Harley's hall, the present site of the Academy of Music, where 
they remained until J^ovember, 1872, when they took possession of 
the hall in Young's block, corner of Center and Main streets, 
which they had leased for a period of ten years. This hall was 
specially fitted up and arranged for the work of the masonic bodies 



LAKE CITY. 



861 



of the city, and its destruction by fire was a severe loss to the craft, 
as many of their records, regalia, furniture, working-tools, etc., 
were destroyed. Since that destruction the blue lodge and chapter 
have been holding stated meetings and convocations in the hall of 
the I.O.O.F., in Lyon block. The comniandery has held no regular 
asylum since the tire, having no suitable arrangements for work. 

Carnelian Lodge has numbered among its members very many 
of the best business and professional men of this city, and upon its 
rolls may be read the names of a majority of those citizens whose 
records are inseparably interwoven with tlie business enterprises of 
the city. During the almost twenty-two years of its existence, 
Carnelian Lodge has entered the names of two hundred and two 
members upon its registers, and of these just one-half remain 
affiliate, the other one hundred and one having either died, removed 
or demitted. 

The list of those who have sat in the east, west and south since 
the organization of the lodge is herewith given, and should be 
carefully preserved as a matter of reference, as the data from which 
the roster is made is most difficult of access. 



1864. 
1865. 
1866. 
1867 



. S. R. Merrell Anson Peirce L. J. Fletcher. 

.8 R Merrell L.J. Fletcher R. Ottman. 

.S. R. Merrell C. W. Smyth W. A. Doe. 

_„ L. J. Fletcher W. W. Scott M. L. Hulett. 

1868 S. R. Merrell Anson Peirce C. J. Collins. 

1869 C G Ayres M. L. Hulett Lafe. Collins. 

187o! W. W. Scott Rev. G. W. T. Wright. . .E. B. Ellsworth. 

1871 W. W. Scott Lafe. Collins E. B. Ellsworth. 

1872 Lafe. ColUns OUver Gibhs, Jr Samuel Dale. 

1873 W. W. Scott M. L. Hulett Samuel Dale. 

1874 M. L. Hulett : H. D. Brown H. Dwelle. 

1875 M. L. Hulett John Wear H. Rotf. 

1876 ... J W^ear M. P. Stroup J. Hassinger. 

1877 M. L. Hulett M. P. Stroup H. K. Terrell. 

1878 M. P. Stroup C. W. Crary Oliver \oung. 

1879 M. P. Stroup John Wear Oliver \oung. 

1880 John Wear H. Rofi' C. A. Hubbard 

1881 H Roff ■. C. A. Hubbard C. J. Coggswell. 

1882 . . . .H Roff O. P. Francisco J. S. Stanford. 

1883 O. P. Francisco J. W. Kennedy A. J. Fowler. 

1884 O. P. Francisco J. W. Kennedy A. J. Fowler. 

The other officers for the current year are : C. Neal, Treas., 
who has held that office ten years ; Adebert Wells, Sec, who has 
held his office four years ; C. C. Lowe, S.D. ; C. H. Hanson, J.D. ; 
James Lister, S.S. ; F. G. Slocum, J.S. ; James K. Baker, Tyler. 



862 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Hope Chapter^ No. i^, R.A.M. — The war had closed, the citi- 
zen soldiers had returned to their homes, trade had resumed its 
wonted channels, and peace settled permanently upon all our broad 
domain ; when, with the return of prosperity and the abiding- convic- 
tion tliat war's rude alarms would not soon disturb their (juiet, the 
members of the Lake City A.F.A.M., who in other places had 
enjoyed the privileges of the liigher masonic bodies, determined, if 
possible, to secure the institution of a chapter of the royal arch at 
this place. A petition was accordingly forwarded to B. F. Smith, 
ofMankato, G.Il.P. of the G.R.A.C., for dispensation to open a 
chapter of R.A.M. in Lake City. The petition was favorably re- 
ceived and the request granted. The dispensation, bearing date 
February 2, 1867, came duly to hand and on the evening of the 
seventh day of that same month was read before the following 
named Royal Arch Masons, who constituted the original members of 
Hope Chapter, No. 12 : Eduard Anderson, E. F. Dodge, Benj. 
Dodge, A. H. Beach, John McBi-ide, C. G. Ayres, Geo. K. Saylor, 
L. J. Fletcher, Benjamin Smith, T. M. Gossard, W. E. Lowell. 
The dispensation named A. H, Beach, H.P. ; Geo. Saylor, K. ; 
John McBride, Scribe; Benj. Smith, C. of H. ; C. G. Ayres, P.S., 
and L. L. Fletcher, R.A.C., to act until the convocation of the 
G.R. A.C. in the ensuing fall. The chapter thus working under dis- 
pensation continued its labors until the convocation of the G.R. A.C, 
October 12, 1867, when the act of dispensation was approved 
and a charter issued. The G.H.P. not being able to attend in per- 
son, appointed, as his proxy, companion S. B. Foote, of Red Wing, 
who, under instructions from the G.H.P., visited Lake City on 
December 3, 1867, to install the officers-elect and consecrate and 
dedicate the chapter. In addition to the names already given as 
petitioners, the list of charter members included the following : 
B. S. Goodrich, C. W. Smyth, S. S. Whitney, S. B. Munson, Jr., 
H. K. Terrell, J. W. VanVliet. The meetings of the chapter were 
regularly held in Masonic hall and the numbers increased steadily. 
The whole number of companions who have been borne upon the 
rolls of Hope Chapter, No. 12, R.A.M., since its institution nearly 
seventeen years since, has been one hundred and forty-six, and of 
these ninety-six are now members. Of the original petitioners 
three have entered within the veil of the unseen temple, the house 
not made with hands, viz : Geo. K. Saylor, Benjamin Smith and 
W. E. Lowell. 



LAKE CITY. 863 

The officers who have filled the three highest positions in the 
chapter from the date of its dedication, are as follows : 

YEAR. II. P. KING. SCRIBE. 

1868 C. G. Ayres John McBride B. S. Goodrich. 

1869 S. B. Munson S. S. Whitney L. J. Fletcher. 

1870 E. F. Dodge W.J. Whitney W. J. Townsend. 

1871 W. J. AVhitney W J. Townsend S. R. Merrell. 

1872 C. G. Avres C. W. Smvth J. E. Favrow. 

1873. . . .E. B. Ellsworth W. J. Whitney H. H. Dickman. 

1874 W. N. Vilas H. H. Dickman J. E. Favrow. 

1875 E. B. Ellsworth H. H. Dickman L. E. Thorpe. 

1876 H. H. Dickman M. L. Hulett L. E. Thorpe. 

1877 M. L. Hulett J. E. Farrow Calvin Neal. 

1878 M. L. Hulett Calvin Neal H. K. Terrell. 

1879 M. L. Hulett. . . Calvin Neal G. W. T. Wright. 

1880 W. J. Hahn Calvin Neal G. W. T. Wright. 

1881 W. J. Hahn Calvin Neal G. AV. T. Wright. 

1882 Calvin Neal J. C. Stout H. RofF. 

1883 J. C. Stout H. Rofl" O. P. Francisco. 

1884 J. M. Martin O. P. Francisco J. Nute. 

The officers for the current year, other than those above given, 
are: M. O. Kemp, C.H. ; C. A. Hubbard, P.S. ; C. C. Lowe, 
RA.C. ; C. W. Smyth, Treas. ; Adelbert AVells, Sec. ; J. Cole 
Doughty, M. 3d Y. ; J. W. Kennedy, M. 2d Y. ; C. H. Salisbury, 
M. 1st Y. ; Jas. F. Baker, Sentinel. 

Lake City Coininandery^ No. 6. — The organization of the com- 
mandery in Lake City followed the institution of the chapter about 
three years. In the spring of 1870 a petition was presented to E. 

D. B. Porter, K.E.G.C, for dispensation to erect an asylum in Lake 
City, and the dispensation, in accordance with such petition, was 
granted on March 21 of that year (1870). One month later, April 
21, 1870, the first meeting of the commandery was held. The Sir 
Knights to whom the dispensation of R.E.G.C. Porter came, were : 

E. F. Dodge, S. R. Merrell, F. A. Wells, Ilenry W. Holmes, Grove 
B. Cooley, S. Y. Hyde, Chas. H. Lindsley, Richard A. Jones and 
E. H. Kennedy. Of these, E. F. Dodge was named E.C., S. R. 
Merrell, G., and F. A. Wells, C.G. In the following June the 
grand conclave met, approved the work of the Sir Knights and 
issued them a charter in regular form. On October 31 following, 
Sir Knight S. R. Merrell, of this city, received orders from the 
R.E.G.C. to organize the commandery, and on November 12, 1870, 
the orders were obeyed, and Lake City Commandery of Knights 
Templar, No. 6, was formally organized. The commandery has 
had a prosperous existence, and until the trial by fire, nearly two 
years since, was steadily increasing in numbers, influence and effi- 



864 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ciency. Notwithstanding the organization of Ked Wing comman- 
dery so near their asyhim, witliin less tlian half the prescribed 
limits, Lake City Sir Knights have added to their numbers from year 
to year until one hundred and seventeen have taken the orders of knight- 
hood in the asylum here, or been received from others. Of this whole 
number of one hundred and seventeen, only twentjMiine have sev- 
ered their connection, leaving an actual membership of eighty-eight. 
Of the twenty-nine who are no longer carried upon the list of Sir 
Knights connected with this commandery, live have gone out at the 
orders of the Supreme Commander, to enter the earthly asylum no 
more forever. Their names are : C. A. Bayard, who died in 1872; 
Wilbur Carrol, in 1875 ; W. E. Collins, in 1880 ; H. M. Powers, 
in 1881, and H. P. Krick, who received his summons only last Sep- 
tember. The three principal posts in the commandery have been 
held by the following Sir Knights from the organization of the body, 
in 1870, until the present. In this table the years in which the 
elections were held are the ones given : 

YEAR. E.C. G. C.G. 

1870 E. F. Dodge S. R. Merrell Geo. Atkinson. 

1871 S. B. Munson S. R. Merrell Geo. Atkinson. 

1872 S. R. Merrell D. M. Baldwin Geo. Atkinson. 

1873 D. M. Baldwin W. J. Whitney W. E. Collins. 

1874 W. J. Whitney W. E. Collins W. N. Yilas. 

1875 W. E. Collins E. B. Ellsworth G. W. Mossman. 

1876 E. B. Ellsworth C. W. Smyth H. D. Brown. 

1877 E. B. Ellsworth C. W. Smyth H. D. Brown. 

1878 E. B. Ellsworth J. E. Favrow J. C. Stout. 

1879 J. C. Stout J. E. Favrow H. Rotf. 

1880 J. C. Stout J. E. Favrow H. Roff. 

1881 J. C. Stout H. Roff C. A. Hubbard. 

1882 C. A. Hubbard H. Roff C. J. Stauff. 

1883 C. A. Hubbard H. Roff J. Cole Doughty. 

The completed roster of the Sir Knights holding office in the 
commandery here at present are : Rev. James Cornell, P. ; James 
C. ITassinger, S.W. ; J. C. Parkhurst, J.W. ; O. P. Francisco, 
Treas. ; M. O. Kemp, Rec. ; H. H. Dickmann, St.B. ; C. H. 
Salisbury, Sw.B. ; Calvin Neal, Warden ; J. O. Junkin, 1st G. ; 
A. B. Kegar, 2d G. ; H. Lorentzen, 3d G. ; R. H. Keal, Sentinel. 

Lake City, No. 22, 1. 0. O.F.— The I.O.O.F. of this city have 
had a continuous and prosperous existence of nearly sixteen years. 
The lodge was instituted here by C. C. Comee, G.M., and C. D. 
Strong. G.Rep., July ?3, 1868. The charter members were: R. 
H. Matthews, S. S. Whitney, Albei-t Glines, T. H. Perkins, R. R. 
Gray and Richard Weeks. The original elective officers were : S. 




X 



FRANCIS TALBOT. 



LAKE CITY. 865 

S. Whitnej, N.G. ; Albert Glines, Y.G. ; R. II. Mattliews, Sec. ; 
Richard Weeks, Treas. The appointed officers were : T. H. Per- 
kins, Warden ; R. R. Grey, Guardian. 

The first meetings of the Lake City Lodge, No. 22, I.O.O.F., 
were held in what was then known as Gaylord's Hall, on Washing- 
ton street, upon the present site of W. E. Perkins' omnibus barn. 
In December, 1871, they went into permanent quarters in their 
present location, in the third story of Lyon block. They have a 
very comfortable hall 30x55 feet, with commodious anterooms, 
committee rooms, preparation and regalia rooms, and all the neces- 
sary accompaniments for the regular prosecution of their work. 

The whole number of members received into the order here since 
its organization, both by card and initiation, has been two hundred 
thirty-two. The present membership is ninety-four. The officers 
now serving are : W. M. Sprague, K.G. ; J. C. Schmedt, Y.G. ; 
W. A. Stevens, R.S. ; C. H. Hanson, F.S. ; A. Koch, Treas. ; 
R. Clifford, Warden ; D. G. Heggie, Conductor ; L. D. Avery, 
O.G. ; P. J. Anderson, LG. ; N. C. Pike, R.S. KG. ; H. D. 
Wickham, L.S.N.G. ; S. W. Webster, R.S. Y.G. ; S. P. Stettler, 
L.S.Y.G. ; B. W. Dodge, R.S.S. ; W. H. Whipple, L.S.S. ; Rev. 
T. B. Killiam, Chaplain. The trustees are Robert Romick, T. J. 
Morrow, E. C. Eaton. 

The chair of P. G. has been filled since the institution of the lodge by 
the following members, whose names appear in the order of their 
.succession : S. S. Whitney, A. Glines, R. H. Mathews, A. K. Gay- 
lord, M. C. Humphrey, jr., G. W. Fuller, A. H. Taisey, D. C. 
Estes, R. Weeks, David Walker, E. A. Kelley, H. H. Arnold, J. 
E. Maas, A. Beardsley, D. G. Heggie, Rob. Romick, J. M. Collins, 
H. C. Jackson, Edwin Wrigley, N. C. Pike, L. P. Hudson, Gran- 
ville Clark, K J. Snow, H. A. Young, Robert Clifford, C. E. 
Hinkley, C. H. Hanson, John Phillips, Henry Schmidt, C. M. 
Colby. 

Mount Zlon Encampment, No. 7, Z 6>. 6>.i^.— The Lake City 
Lodge were no sooner fixed in their comfortable quarters in Lyon 
block than the organization of an encampment, which had been fre- 
quently considered, was actively entered into. An informal meeting 
of such patriarchs as were interested in the organization was held on 
December 23, 1871. Measures were taken to secure the proper 
authorization from the grand encampment, and on February 20, 
1872, the organization was formally effected, with the following as 
62 



866 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the charter members : R. B. Gates, Albert Glines. E. A. Kelly, 
H. A. Young, N. C. Pike, K T. Estes, A. II. Taisey, A. Beardsley, 
S. W. Webster and R. W. Clifford. The encampment was instituted 
by Grand Patriarch C. D. Strong, assisted by other ofhcers of the 
grand encampment. The ofiicers elect were then installed, viz : 
Albert Glines, C.P. ; R. B. Gates, II. P. ; A. K. Gaylord, S.W. ; 
R. Weeks, J.W. ; E. A. Kelly, Scribe ; 11. A. Young', Treas. The 
appointed officers were : N. C. Pike, Guide ; N. T. Estes, Sentinel ; 
A. H. Taisey, 1st W. ; R. W. Clifford, 2d W. ; S. W. Webster, 
3d W. ; H. H. Arnold, 4th W. ; A. Beardsly, 1st G. of T. ; R. 
Clifford, 2d G. of T. Since the organization of the encampment. 
Mount Zion, No. 7, has met regularly on the first and third Tues- 
days of each month, and have just completed the twelfth year of a 
very prosperous existence. The whole number of members con- 
nected with Mount Zion since its organization has been eighty-two. 
The present membership numbers forty-two. The elective officers 
for the present term are : Henry Schmidt, C.P. ; D. C. Estes, H.P. ; 
J. C. Schmidt, S.W. ; C. M. Colby, J.W. ; N. C. Pike, R.S. ; 
R. Romick, F.S. ; J. M. Collins, Treas. The trustees are H. C. 
Jackson, J. C. Schmidt, C. M. Colby. 

Insurance, JVo. 38, A. O. U. W. — This lodge, having for its object, 
among others, the payment of the certain stipulated sum of two 
thousand dollars to the widows and orphans of deceased members, 
was organized in this city January 19, 1878, with sixteen charter 
members, namely, George W. Lemley, A. T. Guernsey, G. W. 
Thayer, C. C. Stone, Wm. Jewell, John Adolph, C. W. Crary, 
Chas. Funk, L. A. Lemley, Charles Ilartman, Wesley Carpenter, 
Fred. Abraham, John Trobke, Henry Selover, A. N. Curtis, H. W. 
Banks. The lodge was duly instituted and the officers-elect installed 
by A. H. Taisey, D.G.M.W., and the lodge was ready for business. 
A. T. Guernsey was the first M.W. of the new lodge, and William 
Jewell its recorder ; and these gentlemen, with Dr. C. W. Crary, 
were the first board of trustees. Dr. Crary was aj^pointed medical 
examiner to the lodge, a position which he still continues to hold. 
The organization of the lodge was effected in Rogers' Hall, in the 
rear of the Academy of Music, but the members shortly afterward 
took possession of a hall in the third story of Lyon block, and 
here they continued to hold their regular meetings until September, 
1882, when they sold their furniture to the K. of H., who had 
been burned out in the great fire of the spring previous. Since 



LAKE CITY. 867 

that date, September, 1SS2, the A.O.U.W. have lield their regular 
meetings on the second and fourth of each month in the hall of the 
K. of H.^ over the postoffice. The present number of members is 
fortj-four. Whole number belonging since the organization has 
been, as nearly as can now be ascertained, about eighty. 

The present officers are : A. T. Guernsey, P.M.W.; M. F. Hills, 
M.W.; Oscar Anderson, F.; Fred Abraham, O.; G. W. Thayer, 
Eec; D. M. Smith, Fin.; G. W. Lemley, Receiver; Andrew 
Steel, Guide; Peter Lindblad, I.W.; F. Lange, O.W. 

Lake City, No. 576, K of ^— This organization, diifering 
little in its general features from the A.O.U.W., has had an exist- 
ence in this city of very nearly seven years. It came into being at 
Odd Fellows' Hall April 4, 1877, under the hand of J. S. Marvin, 
D.S.D. The charter members numbered fourteen, and all of these 
were necessary to fill the several lodge offices save Messrs. R. 
Hanisch, H. A. Young and F. J. Kopplin ; and of these Messrs. 
Hanisch and Young became trustees. The names of the original 
officers who, with those mentioned above, constituted the charter 
members were : A. K Gay lord, P.D.; R. B. Gates, D.; R. Romick, 
Y.D.; J. Dobner, A.D.; H. L. Smitli, Rep.; C. F. Kircher, F.Rep.; 
Chas. Wise, Treas.; J. E. Maas, Guide; Frank Doughty, Guard.; 
W. L. Doe, Sent.; C. W. Crary, Chap. 

The lodge subsequenty removed to a building near the corner of 
Main and Center streets, and were burned out in the spring of 1882, 
when they rented of the A.O.U.W. for some months, finally pur- 
chasing the furniture of that body and fitting up a very pleasant 
hall for themselves in their present location over the postoffice. 
Since the organization of the lodge sixty-seven members have been 
carried upon their rolls, and of these forty-seven still retain member- 
bership with the lodge here. The others have removed, died, 
demitted, or dropped out. The K. of H. are all included in one 
general beneficiary dispensation; the A.O.U.W. have separate 
beneficiary jurisdictions largely corresponding to state lines. 

Lake City, No. 576, K. ofH., is officered as follows : J. H. Gillett, 
P.D.; E. H. Warner, D.; G. Rossler, Y.D.; L. Schindler, A.D.; 
J. B. Johnson, Ge.; F. Cotter, Chap.; Robert Romick, Rep.; A. 
Krall, F.Rep.; R. Hanisch, Treas.; J. C. Schmidt, Guide ; H. Gil- 
lett, Sentinel. 

S.S.H.F. — The Scandinavian Relief Association was formed in 
1874 by a number of the Scandinavians of Lake City, with the object 



868 HISTORY OF wauasiia county. 

of lielping poor emigrants, and ulso its members. Tiio members 
meet once ii month to pay their dues, and has at present twenty-eight 
members. At the last annual meeting the following officers were 
elected to serve for one year : O. Chinberg, president ; C. E. Carl- 
son, vice-president; A. Anderson, treasurer; Edward Edholm, 
secretary. 

B.VNKING IN LAKE CITY. 

Lake City, like all new towns in the west, had no lack for men 
of enterprise and push. Following close in the wake of the pioneer, 
and before he had scarce made a beginning on the frontier, the mer- 
chant and business man, with his stock of gf)ods or eastern bank 
account, also put in an appearance. Among the first to do anything 
having the semblance of a banking business, was C. P. Cogswell, a 
young man from the east, who opened a bank in 1858 on the corner 
of Main and Marion streets, in a very pretentious and expensive 
building (for that early day), erected for banking and office purposes 
in the summer of 1857 by Dwelle & Tibbetts. In the spring of 1859 
Mr. Cogswell turned over his agency of the Phoenix Insurance Co. 
to Mr. A. T. Guernsey, and left here for some place of more metro- 
politan pretensions. He was succeeded by E. Chamberlain & Co., 
from — no person seems to know where, who conducted a (pretended) 
flourishing banking business ; however, only for a few weeks, and 
would, perhaps, by this time have been forgotten here if he had paid 
a small bill due tlie village printer. About this time Mr. H. F. 
Williamson (now merchant in Duluth) established a large general 
merchandise stor^ here, carrying a full line of such goods as were 
best suited to a pioneer trade, and taking in exchange therefor every 
staple article produced on the f^irm. He also, as a matter of con- 
venience to himself and friends, connected with his business a com- 
mercial exchange. This was principally done by purchasing checks, 
drafts and other commercial paper having a par value, from traveling 
men and newly-arrived emigrants. 

In 1863 the grain and commission firm of Bessey & Doughty, 
who were then doing an immense business, added a banking or 
commercial exchange department to their house, not so much as a 
matter of profit to themselves, but as a matter of convenience in 
their growing trade. They were also agents for, and did a large 
traffic with, the old northern line of steamboats on the Mississippi, 
and in this way found the convenience of a banking system almost 
indispensable. This commercial enterprise prospered without event 



LAKE CITY. 



869 



till one morning in the summer of 1866, when the town was startled 
by the announcement on the streets that the bank had been robbed. 
The rumor was authentic ; the bank had been burglarized, and as no 
mystery surrounded this (to Mr. Doughty) unfortunate affair, he con- 
cluded to forego the profits and advantages of conducting a banking 
business under the circumstances in Lake City. The already great 
commercial interests and still growing enterprises at this important 
point created an urgent demand for a commercial exchange. The 
opening soon found a capitalist, and Lake City dates her first per- 
manent banking house, as established here in 1868, by C. W. 
Hackett (now of St. Paul). This was a private enterprise, but one 
that enjoyed the entire confidence of the people, and did an exclusive 
banking business. In 1870 Mr. Hackett sold out to Joel Fletcher, 
Esq., of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, who continued it as a private 
enterprise till 1873. it was then incorporated according to state 
laws, with a capital of fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Joel Fletcher 
was its first president, Hon. Sloan M. Emery, vice-president, and 
C. A. Hubbard, Esq., cashier. Mr. Fletcher died in 1875, and 
Samuel Doughty, Esq., was then elected to the presidency, and still 
fills the position. Mr. Emery resigned the vice-presidency, when he 
became connected with the Jewell Nursery in 1879, and no vice- 
president has since been elected. Mr. C. A. Hubbard still fills the 
position of cashier. Its present board of directors is composed of 
O. F. Benson, Samuel Doughty, C. A. Hubbard, J. M. Underwood, 
Eobert White, W. E. Perkins, J. W. Kay and S. M. Emery. In 
April, 1882, the bank building (corner of Lyon avenue and Wash- 
ington street), a fine three-story brick structure, in size 60x82^ feet, 
was destroyed by fire. The oflice and vault on the corner, with the 
two upper stories burnt off, remained standing and uninjured. A 
temporary roof was put on, and business continued unobstructed, 
and the same season the block was rebuilt and finished as a two-story 
structure. 

First National Banlc.—T\\\% bank was organized in 1870, ac- 
cording to the United States laws, with a capital of fifty thousand 
dollars and the following board of directors : L. II. Garrard, L. 
S. Van Vliet, John W. Willis, Wm. S. Timerman, G. F. Benson, 
H. Center, and J. B. McLean. L. H. Garrard was elected 
president, G. F. Benson, vice-president, and L. S. Van Vliet, 
cashier. The bank building, a substantial two-story brick, is sit- 
uated on the corner of Washington and Center streets, and is the 



870 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

third building, its two predecessors luiving been destroyed by fire, 
without the loss of ti paper. 

The present board of officers and directors consists of C, F. 
Young, president ; L. S. Van Vliet, cashier ; A. Basej, C. F. 
Eogers, G. H. Grannis, J. C. Hassinger, D. M. Smith, directors. 
These two banking-houses are a credit to not only Lake City, but the 
county, and are institutions in which the people feel a just pride. 
They are as permanent as the foundations of the city, inasmuch as 
they are under the directorship of its most honorable and wealthy 
men. Personal sketches of them appear further on in this work. 

NURSERY. 

One of the interests of which Lake City has just reason tO' 
be proud, is known as the Jewell Nursery. It is situated on the 
upper bench of the Lake Pepin bottoms, west of the city, and now 
contains about one hundred acres of growing trees and shrubs. The 
varieties grown have been selected with great care, having a view 
to adaptability to the climate in which they are sold — the west 
and northwest. The proprietors, Messrs. Underwood & Emery, 
are men of sound judgment and business habits, and are determined 
to make it one of the permanent institutions of the state. The 
firm has three hundred acres of land adapted to this purpose, 
and is steadily enlarging the plant. More fruit-trees will be set 
from this nursery in the spring of 1884 than all others in the state 
combined, and more than are grown in any nursery west of Ohio. 
This industry was founded in 1868, by Dr. P. A. Jewell, now 
deceased, and thus derives its name. Ten acres of oak grub-land 
were set at first to fruit-trees, and additions wei'e made from time to 
time, reaching eighty acres in extent at the time of the doctor's 
death. The business was managed by J. M. Underwood, who 
became sole owner in 1878, and next j'ear associated with himself 
Mr. S. M. Emer}", constituting the firm above named. The location 
commands a view of the city and valley, and is one of the most 
pleasant that could be imagined. Messrs. Underwood vfc Emery 
also give a great deal of attention to stock-raising, and have one of 
the finest herds of pure-bred Ilolstein cattle in the northwest. By 
lease they have control of five hundred acres additional, and carry 
on extensive farming" operations. The influences of these enter- 
prises are destined to be powerfully felt throughout this and adjoin- 
ing states in the near future. It is well that such men live, for 



LAKE CITY. 8T1 

they have a tendency not only to build up and enrich themselves, 
but also to enhance the value and elevate out of the old-time "ruts " 
of other days a vast expanse of country surrounding them. 

On February 26, 1884, this already immense enterprise was or- 
ganized into a joint stock company and incorporated under general 
laws of the State of Minnesota, with a capital of one hundred thou- 
sand dollars, for the purpose of propagating and selling nursery 
stock, as well as importing, breeding and dealing in pure-bred 
Holstein cattle, and the transacting of a general real-estate business. 
The management of the incorporation is vested in the following 
board of officers : President, J. M. Underwood ; secretary, S. M. 
Emery ; treasui-er, J. Cole Doughty, with principal office at Lake 
City and a branch in Richland county, Dakota. 

In speaking of this enterprise, the Lake City "Graphic" says : 
"You will iind right here the beginning of a thoroughbred Fries- 
land dairy-ranch, that is destined to be one of the largest enter- 
prises in Wabasha county. You will "find here the entering wedge 
of one of the best paying industries in this state, and that wedge 
driven half-way home. You will find here tlie starting-point for a 
lucrative stock business, the breeding and selling of fine-bred 
dairy-cattle, that will give Lake City a name in every county of this 
immense northwest. This commendable enterprise is only one 
more sign of the innate and inborn business vigor there is in the 
big nursery-firm whose operations put more spot cash in the tills of 
our merchants than the business of any other firm in this or any 
adjoining county. Out of this new venture of Messrs. Underwood 
& Emery it needs no prophet's eye to see the grand results which a 
very few short years must bring forth. The best herd of thorough- 
bred, gilt-edged dairy-cattle west of the great lakes, imported with 
judgment and bred with the utmost care, it will follow as a neces- 
sity that buyers from all our northwestern state will make tlieir 
semi-annual visitations to this point for purchases, and thereby be 
no inconsiderable factor in Lake City's prosperity." 

FATALITIES. 

Mourning, disaster and death are the common lot of man, and 
though he seek out and settle in the fairest and most beautiful spot 
in all the Creator's fair universe, yet the "pale horse and rider " is 
his unseen companion. 

The most appalling and heartrending fatal disaster that has 



872 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

fallen to the writer's lot to place on the histoi'ic page is (if we except 
the terrible calamity caused by the falling of the bridge at Dixon, 
Illinois, on Sunday. May 4, 1873, when two hundred men, women 
and children, wlio were witnessing a baptismal ceremony, were pre- 
cipitated into the Rock river without a moment's notice, thirty-seven 
being drowned or killed, and five mortally wounded) the drowning 
of the Stout and Stowell girls in Lake Pepin. On a fair and beauti- 
ful Saturday morning, in the month of June, in 185S, a party of 
Lake City young peo])le, composed of John Stout, William Corn, 
Misses Julia and Eebecca Stout, Miss Julia Cooper (now Mrs. G. 
M. Dwelle, and the only member of the party still residing in Lake 
City), and two sisters (young ladies from Mazeppa, by the name of 
Stowell) organized for a day's picnicing and excursion to Maiden 
Rock. They embarked in a sailboat with happy hearts and a bright 
prospect for a delightful day's recreation. The lake was calm and 
the morning fair and lovely: the sun shone in all its glory on the 
surrounding hills. Friends on shore bade them good morning with 
the wish that they might enjoy themselves as much as the day was 
beautiful. Maiden Rock was reached without incident, the linen 
spread and dinner served on its summit. A couple of hours were 
spent in gathering flowers and viewing the grandeur of Lake Pepin's 
scenery in the distance. At about two o'clock in the afternoon the 
party started on its return, and when about a mile down the lake 
and a half-mile from shore, the wind suddenly arose and almost 
instantly became a gale. The young men saw the peril and 
attempted to cut the rope that held the sail, but the same instant 
the boat was overturned and lay bottom up. A moment's struggle 
in the water and six of them had a hold on the boat, but one of the 
Misses Stowell was gone. In a very short time the boat turned 
again ; this time Miss Rebecca Stout lost her hold and sank from 
sight. Miss Cooper also lost hold of the boat, but while sinking 
caught hold of one of the young men's feet and climbed to the surface 
and again clung to the boat. The craft was then on its side, and appar- 
ently held in that position by the sail and mast. The three remain- 
ing girls now took positions as best they could on the side of the 
boat and hoped to finally drift ashore. About an hour after Julia 
Stout and Miss Stowell, either becoming chilled, discouraged or 
asleep — at least apparently unconscious — slipped off into the water 
and sank without a struggle. Miss Cooper, describing her 
experience, says she fought and struggled desperately for her life, 



LAKE CITY. 873 

and only by the aid of the young men was she kept awake. Sleep 
seemed to be her danger and it required all her will-power to fight 
it off. About two hours from the time they first upset, the remain- 
ing three reached shore, more dead than alive. A Swede settler's 
cabin was found half a mile from where they landed, and he was 
dispatched with the sad intelligence to their friends. The same 
evening the survivors reached home, and the next Saturday the 
bodies of the four young ladies were picked up at difterent points in 
the lake, and were all buried together near the city. This sad affair 
happened on Julia Stout's fifteenth birthday, and Kebecca Stout was 
to have been married in a short time. 

On December 13, 18TS, two more young and promising lives 
were yielded up to feed Lake Pepin's hungry waters. On this even- 
ing a skating party had congregated on the ice and all enjoyed them- 
selves till the usual hour of adjournment, returning to their respective 
homes — all save Porter B. Guernsey and Florence Wyckoff". They 
were skating companions during the evening (which was very dark) 
and had become separated from the others, who supposed they had 
gone home. Mrs. Guernsey's injunction to herboy was that he should 
always return from skating at nine o'clock. This he had invaria- 
bly done heretofore. This evening the usual hour had passed, the 
busy clock had ticked away the tedious minutes and struck the hour 
of ten. A half-hour more of intense anxiety was passed, and Mr. 
Guernsey, who was attending a meeting during the evening at the 
hall, returned. The mother had hoped up to this time that the son 
had joined his father at the hall. JS^ow thoroughly alarmed, Mr. 
Guernsey hastened to the residence of Mr. Wyckoff, thinking his 
son might have tarried there. The two anxious parents now aroused 
their neighbors and began a search which lasted all night. Next 
morning the bodies were found and taken out of an air-hole in the 
ice not far from the foot of High street. The young man was the 
son of Mr. A. T. Guernsey, long and well known in this city, and 
was in the sixteenth year of his age. He was a bright and promis- 
ing young man, a general favorite with his companions. The young 
lady was the daughter of Kev. Samuel Wyckoff", pastor of the Pres- 
byterian church of this city, and was in her seventeenth year. The 
sudden and untimely death of these young people cast a gloom over 
the entire city. 

The most singular among Lake Pepin's disasters, within the 
recollection of the pioneers of this city, was the crushing in the ice 



874 History of wabasha county. 

of the steamer ^Eolian in the sprinii^ of 1859. Early that spring 
several steamboats had arrived at Read's Landing from St. Louis, 
and were waiting for a passage through the lake, being delayed or 
ice-bound several days. At last a channel appeared, supposed to be 
wide enough to eriable them to reach the open water at Lake City 
and land below the point. The old War Eagle (a substantial and 
powerful boat) forced a passage through, followed by another vessel 
(name unknown) of nearly equal size and strength. The moment 
these large crafts emerged from the narrow channel into the open 
space, the great bodies of ice on either side closed together on the 
ill-fated ^olian, which was only a short distance behind, and cut her 
in two at the water's edge. The lower part, with the machinery 
and three persons (two men and an old lady who ran below to save 
some articles of clothing), sank immediately, leaving the cabin andl 
pilot-house on the ice. The bodies were recovered after the ice was 
removed, and were buried near this city. Two of them were on 
their way to this place to locate and start to make themselves a home. 

On June 12, 1882, Frank Collins was drowned by the criminal 
carelessness of the officers of the steamboat Centennial. Young 
Collins was out in a skitf, in compan}^ with two other men and a 
boy, and was engaged in fishing, lying at anchor about sixty feet 
from shore at the end of the point. The Centennial, on her way up 
the lake, had made her usual halt at Washington street, and resumed 
her course. When rounding the point she ran over the skiff, cutting 
it in two. The other parties who were with Collins sprang into the 
water and were saved, while Collins, who attempted to pull in the 
anchor, was drowned. He was a son of Mr. Timothy Collins, an 
early settler of this city, and was about twenty-three years old. The 
captain, Thomas L. Davidson, was sued by the young man's father 
for his personal damages in the United States court at St. Paul, and 
obtained a judgment for fifteen hundred dollars and costs, in Decem- 
ber, 1883. " 

The pilot, John King, was indicted by tlie grand jury, tried in 
the district court at Wabasha, and convicted of manslaughter in the 
fourth degree. Judge Card, of Lake Cit}^, prosecuted the case in the 
United States court, and assisted the county attorney in the prose- 
cution of King. 

On Sunday, April 22, 1883, John Matter and his newly-married 
wife were drowned in the lake about a mile from this city. They 
were residents of Pepin, and on the day named had come to Lake 



LAKE CITY. 875 

City for a few needed articles and a pig. They had started back 
about 3 P.M., and when about a mile out were struck with a gale of 
wind which instantly overturned the boat. Otto Marks, who accom- 
panied them, was rescued by some boy, in a drowning condition ; 
the pig, more fortunate, succeeded in reaching shore alive. The 
bodies were recovered in a few days and buried at West Abany. 

Scores of precious lives have been lost in Lake Pepin's beautiful 
though treacherous waters, and no less than nine bodies were covered 
with the ice of tlie winter of 1884. 

Other incidents worthy of mention are the shooting of Thomas 
Martin and Patrick Murphy by City Marshal S. B. Dilley. This 
unfortunate affair happened on Saturday, September 12, 1868. The 
.victims were comparative strangers in town, having been in the 
employ of farmers during harvest, and had come to town for a little 
hilarity. Drinking, singing and playing games had been the order 
of the day, and night had found them and their companions con- 
siderably intoxicated, and consequently noisy. About eight o'clock 
in the evening the marshal's attention was attracted to a drinking 
den on Washington street, between Center and Marion streets, by 
the boisterous and vociferous demonstrations within. Upon going 
to the door (the evidence at the trial disclosed) he was met by some 
of the parties in a fearful state of excitement, who, he supposed, 
were about to attempt to lay hands on him. In the momentary 
excitement one chamber of his revolver was (some say accidentally) 
discharged, the bullet taking effect in Martin's breast. Murphy then 
took hold of the marshal's throat, and was instantly shot in ihe chest. 
The two men soon after died of their wounds, and excitement among 
the Irish element ran high. The better class of them, however, suc- 
ceeded in restoring order, called a meeting and passed resolutions 
declaring that any person who attempted personal violence or revenge 
on Marshal Dilley was no friend of theirs. They also, at the same 
time, took steps to raise means for the purpose of a vigorous prose- 
cution of the slayer of their friends. On Monday following the 
marshal gave himself up, waived a formal examination, and asked 
the court for permission to be released on bail. This was granted, 
and bonds in the sum of ten thousand dollars were signed and turned 
over to the guardians of the law for his appearance before the district 
court. After being continued through several terms of court his 
case was finally brought to trial, and by the most strenuous eftbrts 
on the part of his attorneys— Judge Wilder, of Red Wing, and H. 



876 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 

D. Stocker, of Lake Citj^ — he was saved from the penitentiary. The 
prosecution was conducted by the county attorney, W. W. Scott. 
Othei* able counsel had been employed to assist the county attorney 
at first, but as the years passed interest seems to have been lost, and 
the money and counsel, so lavishly promised at first by the dead 
men's friends, never materialized. 

Another shooting affair, attended with fatal results, occurred in 
the fall of 1882, about a mile below the city limits, at a house of 
questionable reputation. The victim, David Davis, while in an ex- 
citing altercation with a 3'oung man named John White, was shot 
by the latter, and died within forty-eight hours. Davis was a man 
of whom little is said, and was perhaps better known by men who 
possessed similar traits of character. White was tried by a jury of. 
his fellow-citizens, and sentenced to the penitentiary for five years. 
He is a young man of German birth, and promises to outlive this 
unfortunate disgrace, and yet become an honored and law-abiding 
citizen. 

"The cistern has caved in — two men are buried!" were the 
words that spread from lip to lip, and from house to house, a short 
time before noon, on August 11, 1873. 

People fled from their stores, shops, and, in fact, from all ]mrts 
of the city, to the scene of the disaster, at the corner of Garden and 
Dwelle streets, where the fire department was having a cistern con- 
structed. The report was confirmed, and the appalling sight which 
met the eyes of the gathering crowd can better be imagined than 
described. The cistern, which was about twenty feet square, had 
been excavated to a depth of nearly eighteen feet, when the earth 
suddenly gave way on all sides — burning two poor unfortunate 
laborers under tons of dirt. Men went to work regardless of time, 
talent or station in life, and the same evening restored to their ha]> 
less widows and helpless orphans the lifeless bodies of Benjamin 
Kramer and Adna Sanford. Those men had dwelt here for several 
years, and had become known and respected as honorable and indus- 
trious citizens. 

Mrs. Sanford still resides here, and has raised her family of eight 
orphan children honorably, and without the aid or interference of 
either the city or county. 

Near the corner of Center and Prairie streets, while re-curbing 
a well, Mr. J. F. Hall was buried a distance of thirty-five feet below 
the surface, by the sudden caving in of the well, while he was at 



GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP. 877 

work near its bottom. His body was recovered after forty-eiglit 
hours' arduous labor. 

On January 18, 1871, Mrs. John McBride was instantly killed 
while out riding with her son, C. W. Smyth, of this city. The 
horse being frighten ted, became unmanageable, and began running 
and kicking. Mrs. McBride, realizing her imminent danger, sprang 
from the cutter, the concussion of w^iich produced a fracture of the 
spinal column near the base of the brain, and died without speak- 
ing. She was one of Lake City's most respected ladies, and her 
loss was much felt by its citizens. 



CHAPTER LXXXY. 



GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP. 



Most of this town lies in the bottoms adjacent to the Zumbro 
river, at its confluence with the Mississippi. The northeastern part 
is known as Sand Prairie, and the character of the soil is shown by 
its name. Great expectations were once indulged in regard to this 
particular locality. On the shore of the great river were standing 
the empty tepees of an Indian village when white men had begun 
to congregate in this locality. Timothy Enwright made a claim 
here, and the location soon attracted the speculative eye of several 
capitalists, as a feasible site for the upbuilding of a town. Accord- 
ingl}^, in 1856, Messrs. Thomas H. Forde, of Ohio, and Judge 
Casey, of Pennsylvania, platted a town, and named it "Teepeota." 
This was four miles southeast of Wabasha. Boats were induced to 
land here for a time, and the "boom" prospered. In 1857 Theo- 
dore Adams became a partner in the townsite. During this year a 
three-story hotel was erected, two stores and a blacksmith-shop 
were in operation, and the village numbered about thirty residences. 
D. Sinclair & Co. built a sawmill, which was set in operation in the 
spring of 1858, employing thirty men. The apparent success of 
this rival soon aroused the jealousy of Wabasha people, and bitter 
feelings were engendered. However, Teepeota was shortly com- 
pelled to acknowledge the superior advantages of its older rival. 
Boats refused to land there except at rare intervals, and people 



878 IIISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

began to avoid and desert the isolated locality. On a March night 
in 1859 an incendiary torch was applied to its deserted buildings, 
and in a few short liours it was swept out of existence. No trace of 
it can now be seen. 

South and west of the Zumbro lies a beautiful and feitile bench, 
about half-way between the level of the stream and that of the prairie 
at the top of the bluffs. Here settled, in the spring of 1854, on 
section 30, Messrs. Levi and Aaron Cook, and this gave rise to 
the name Cook's Valley, by which the locality is now known. Their 
location was at the mouth of Cook's valley proper, a valley tributary 
to that of the Zumbro, and running back southward several miles. 
Both these gentlemen are now deceased. The former has five 
children in Dakota and the west. 

During the same year Dr. C. C. Stauff, a native of Germany, 
who had settled at Wabasha in 1853, located a claim near the river 
on section 19, on this bench, where he dwelt several years. He is 
now a prosperous merchant in Lake City, and his eldest son is clerk 
of the district court at AVabasha. 

Ephraim Wildes was another settler of 1854, having first located 
on the northeast quarter of section 34. The next year he moved to 
section 30 and built the first frame house in the township. Here he 
died in 1861. 

In April, 1854, Isaac Cole, now a resident of Wabasha, located 
on section 22, on the south bank of the Zumbro. He established a 
ferry and hotel and was largely patronized, for travel from Wabasha 
westward naturally followed the valley of the Zumbro. The Indians 
located by lunidreds on the banks of the river were at times exceed- 
ingly troublesome, especially when returning noisy and furious from 
Wabasha, filled with the old-time fire-water. Brandishing their 
bowie-knives they threatened to kill and exterminate the whites, 
from which they were prevented only by the squaws wresting the 
dangerous weapons from them without ceremony. On one occasion 
they undertook to carry off Cole's ferryboat, and in ftict did, but 
were compelled to abandon the enterprise by a posse of men who 
pursued and overtook them. Cole's son still occujiies the old home- 
stead, having a residence in the village of Kellogg, about one-fourth 
of a mile south of the site of the log cabin which did duty as a 
"tavern." In fact, every settler in those days kept a hotel, for 
explorers were glad to find a dry place to lie down when overtaken 
by night, and none were turned away hungry as long as the larder 



GKEENFIELD TOWNSHIP. 879 

contained bacon and cornmeal. Game furnished a considerable 
portion of the provision against starvation and frequently furnished 
a meal with no accompaniment save salt. 

Among other pioneers of 1854 may be mentioned G. II. Amer- 
land, H. P. Wilson, John W. Murphy and Michael W. Riley, none 
of whom are now resident here. 

The next year marked the arrival of Gai-ret A. Cook, still a 
prominent and respected citizen of the town. He is a brother of 
Aaron H. and Levi Cook, and a biographical sketch of him will be 
found farther on. 

Garret Albertson, a local Methodist elder, now deceased, came 
this year. His brother William at the same time located on section 
30, where he now resides. His house has always been open to the 
weary traveler and is well known* as a resort for preachers. 

Patrick Holland located a claim on section 29, April 19, 1855, 
and still dwells thereon. 

Daniel Metzgar located on section 30 in 1857, and still tills a 
■small farm there. He is now sixty-two years old and is venerated 
and beloved for his noble qualities of mind and heart. 

J. H. Wehrenberg, Henry Frye, Henry Graner and George 
McCaffrey settled in the valley in 1856. 

A fine stream winds along the middle of the bench and is known 
as Cook's Valley creek. On the northeast quarter of section 34 is a 
small gristmill turned by this stream, known as Fish's mill. 

Most of the early settlers were men of family, and appreciated 
the need of educational facilities. At a meeting of the citizens held 
in G. A. Cook's house, November 8, 1857, a school district was 
organized. John Canfield, a resident of Glasgow township, was 
made director. Garret Albertson, treasurer, and G. A. Cook, clerk. 
The latter has filled the same office for this community ever since, 
and still has the records of this first meeting. Nearly all the 
citizens of the town were present, and it was decided to raise fifty 
dollars for school purposes. By mutual contributions of labor, a 
log building was erected for a schoolhouse, on the site of the present 
one, in district No. 28, and school opened the same month. G. A. 
Cook's daughter, Aurora, was employed at a salary of ten dollars 
per month, and presided over the instruction of fifteen pupils during 
the winter. There are now four schoolhouses in the township, and 
the youth will compare in intellectual development and culture very 
favorably with those of other rural localities in the state. 



880 HISTORY OF AVABASHA COUNTY. 

A postoffice was located in Cook's valley in the spring of 1859, 
and supplied by the Wabasha and Austin stages. Daniel Metzgar 
was appointed to take charge of it, and after keeping it a little 
more than three years, turned it over to G. A. Cook, who has ev^er 
since administered its affairs. 

In 1862 a postoffice was established at Pauselim, with W. A. 
Johnson as postmaster. On the organization of the village of Kel- 
logg, the office was moved thither, and now bears the latter name. 

Several of the pioneers were devout Methodists, and steps were 
early taken to secure the preaching of the word. The earliest 
religious service were held in the year 1857, at the cabin of Levi 
Cook, and was conducted by Eev. Crist, a Methodist clergyman. 
Rev. H. Dyer was soon after sent here by the conference, and he 
organized a class. In August, 18*59, he was assisted in his labors 
by Garret Albertson, a local elder residing here. Sunday school 
here included thirty -five pupils. 

In March, 1863, a meeting was held at Cook's Valley school- 
house to take steps toward building a house of worship. The fol- 
lowing trustees were elected at this meeting : Oliver Collier, G. A. 
Cook, John R. Brown, Ezikiel Collins, Nelson Staples. This com- 
mittee, with the assistance of Eev. H. Dyer, were instructed to 
solicit funds, and proceed to invest them as fast as secured in the 
construction of a church edifice. During the same year foundations 
were prepared and lumber brought on the ground. In the fall, IS". 
Staples was awarded the contract for the carpenter work at seventy- 
five dollars, to be completed by March 1, 1864. The latter year 
saw the completion and occupation of the building. It is located on 
the south side of the Plainview road, on section 30, and is a 
plain frame structure, 24x36 feet in superficial dimension. It has 
been painted white, but at this writing (February, 1884) is in 
need of a new coat of color. The original cost of the building was 
about six hundred dollars, and it will comfortably accommodate one 
hundred persons. 

A church of the same character and dimensions was built at 
Pauselim, simultaneously with that at Cook's valley. It was re- 
moved to Kellogg in 1882, and is now located in the southwest 
quarter of section 22. Divine service is held in these churches 
once in two weeks. Rev. Acres, resident at Read's Landing, is the 
circuit pastor. The sabbath school at Kellogg includes about 
twenty-five pupils, in charge of IVIrs. Charles LaRue. 



i^;.#;. 



fg^ ^Ifi^- 



^'^^ 




OLIVER CRATTE, 



GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP. 881 

Much of the religious information above is derived from records 
now in the hands of G. A. Cook, who was secretary of the first 
board of trustees. About the time that these churches were built, a 
Presbyterian missionary was at work among the people, but he did 
not succeed in organizing a society. It was at first the intention of 
the Methodists to build only one church, but it was decided to be 
necessary that a society be maintained at each end of the town in 
order to preserve the supremacy of Methodism. No minister of 
any denomination is resident in the town, and the churches above 
described are the only ones in existence. Garrett Albertson, a local 
elder, dwelt here some years, and then removed to Alma, Wiscon- 
sin, where he died. Many residents of the town are communicants 
in the Catholic church at Wabasha. 

On November 9, 1868, a meeting of citizens was held to arrange 
for the establishment of a common burialplace. A cemetery asso- 
ciation was formed, with J. A. Cole, G. A. Cook and Henry Graner 
as trustees. The latter was made treasurer, and all have served in 
the same capacity ever since. Two acres of land were purchased 
at fifty dollars per acre, from Henry Frye and Henry Graner, and 
the latter donated one-fourth of an acre. This constitutes Greenfield 
cemetery, and is located on the south side of the Zumbro, in the 
center of the south Ralf of section 20. Lots sixteen feet square at 
first sold for five dollars each, but have materially advanced in valu- 
ation since that time. 

By the spring of 1855 there were many families residing here, 
and the population soon began to increase by natural augmentation, 
as well as by immigration. The earliest birth among Caucasian 
residents was that of Frank, son of H. P. Wilson, and occurred 
June 25, 1855. August 31 of the same year a son was born to 
Carl and Wilhelmina Stauff", and christened Frank Henry. He is 
now associated with his father in business at Lake City. On 
November 16 • a son was added to the family of Levi Cook. 
Augustus was the name given to this child, and is now living in 
Dakota. Frank Wilson is also sup])Osed to be living somewhere in 
Dakota. 

Wherever youth of the opposite sexes are associated together, 
there the little god of the bow and arrow is sure to be found. He 
came to reside in Greenfield probably as early as 1857, for March 
28, 1858, witnessed one of his triumphs in the nuptials of J. Henry 
Wehrenberg and Anna Frye. This couple still resides here, sur- 
53 



■882 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

rounded by a lar<re family of children. Some time during the same 
year Henry Stewart and Augusta Wildes went to Sand Prairie and 
were married without any previous knowledge of their friends that 
such was their intention. This match appeared to prosper, and 
the couple is now living in Dakota. 

The number of births and deaths recorded by the town clerk 
since the law requiring such record went into effect — from 1871 to 
1883, inclusive — is as follows : 

8 i U 1 13 



Births 

Deaths 


16 

5 


14 17 24 17 45 
8 9 8 8 25 

FATALITIES. 


51 

5 


23 


S 
11 


1 1" 
9 



The earliest deaths recorded in Greenfield were due to violent 
causes. The first was that of William B. T. Piers, whose demise 
occurred April 6, 1855, at Wabasha, and was the effect of inflam- 
mation caused by the bite of a dog inflicted here. Madison Wildes 
had two Indian dogs that were very savage, and poor Piers, by 
some means, incurred their displeasure. 

E. JVI. Wildes, the (3wner of these animals, was the second 
resident to bite the dust. Wildes and Geoi-ge Hayes had made 
claims on adjoining eighties, and these were "jumped" by two men 
named Henry Dresser and Aleck Beard. ^These lattei- built a 
shanty on the line between the claims and jointly occupied it. This 
was in the fall of the year 1856. On a certain Friday Andrew 
Wildes, a young brother of Madison, with the assistance of another 
lad, tore down the shanty in the absence of its usurping occupants. 
On Saturday niglit following Hayes started for Wabasha from the 
residence of Ephraim Wildes, father of the boys above named, and 
was met by Dresser and Beard, who had just discovered the destruc- 
tion of their cabin. They told Hayes they would rebuild the 
shanty if they had to shoot every man in the settlement. These 
men were known to be desperate characters, and Hayes became 
frightened and returned to Wildes'. Next morning a ])osse of citi- 
zens was gathered and proceeded to the scene of action, on section 
29, to induce the unlawful occupants to leave. When the party 
approached Dresser was on the roof and his companion inside. 
The former swore he would shoot the first one who touched a board 
of the building. Disregarding this threat, Wildes walked up and 
leaned against the building, whereupon Beard began firing at him 
with a revolver. Wildes was struck above the right groin by a 



GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP. 883 

bullet and sank to the ground. He was carried home by bis friends 
and lingered in agony till the next day. 

Dresser was known as the leader of a gang of lawless claim- 
jumpers, and was finally driven out of the country. Seven yokes 
of oxen were run off by the gang, and Levi Cook's life was saved 
frcjm their attack only by a gun's missing fire. After their departure 
peace continued to reign in the valley. 

A similar tragedy to that above described occurred on the site of 
Teepeota. Dr. Enwright had made a claim there, and his rights 
were disputed by members of the same lawless fraternity. One 
night in the fall of 1856 a party set out for Enwright's shanty, swear- 
ing that, if they could not find him, they would shoot an}- man found 
on the premises. An inoffensive man named Polhemus chanced 
to be staying there that night, in the absence of its owner, and 
received a bullet in his head. Death was instantaneous. A man 
named AVeston came to his death in a similar way from the same 
cause at Wabasha. He was reading a paper one evening in his 
house and was shot through the window. His murderer was never ' 
apprehended. 

In 1866 a man was found one morning on the western border of 
the town, with his head hanging out of his buggy, life being 
extinct. It was ascertained that he was a book agent, and had 
displayed a sum of money on the morning of the day previous at 
Wabasha. It was supposed that he had been followed during the 
day by some covetous wretch, and killed under cover of darkness 
for his money. No clue to the murderer was ever found, and the 
name of the murdered man is unknown. 

It is said that an unknown man died of cholera in the town 
immediately after coming off* a Mississippi steamer in the spring of 
1855. He was in search of land, and came out from Wabasha 
with a settler. He was struck the same evening with the dread 
malady, and succumbed to it within a few hours. Two others died 
about the same time, from, the same cause, in the town of Glasgow, 
just outside this town, and were buried here. While making their 
coffins. Garret Albertson was struck with a chill, through fear, and 
could not go on. It was only through the ridicule of his friends 
that he mustered sufficient will-power to recover. 

An interesting incident of the great flood of 1859 is thus related : 
A very profane man, named Edward Deland, had lost two successive 
crops of small grain on the Zumbro bottoms by flood. In 1859 he 



884 HISTORU OF WAUASHA COUNTY. 

planted forty acres to corn, and on the fii-st of July it was large and 
looking very fine. lie made the remark that morning to a passing 
neighbor, that he thought he had "got aliead of God Almighty 
this year by planting his whole farm to corn," which was now 
beyond damage by high water. In the morning of July 3d, a 
AVabasha ])arty visited him and purchased his farm, the deed to be 
made and money turned over that afternoon at Wabasha. AVhile 
cultivating corn during the forenoon, Deland heard the roar of the 
approaching flood, and looked up to see a great wall of water rolling 
toward him. He was barely able to reach his stable and mount to 
its top in time to escape being swept away. The house, fortunately, 
was beyond the reach of the rushing waters. Finding he could 
not circumvent the Lord, he set about "getting ahead" of his pur- 
chaser before news of the flood reached him. Taking his wife in a 
skifl:", he reached terra firma by rowing a fourth of a mile. They 
reached Wabasha, signed the deed, received the money, and returned 
home well satisfied with the day's events on the whole. 



Is another defunct village of this townsliip. It was laid out in 1863 
by William A. Johnson, and was located on the N.W. ^ of Sec. 27, 
covering some forty acres. This was on land claimed by Orin A. 
Hancock, and the latter built a hotel on section 22 in 1857. He 
sold out to Johnson in 1861, and the latter secured a postofiice there 
in 1862, and proceeded to plat a village next year. Mr. Johnson 
was a shrewd business man and was worth much to the young town 
of Greenfield. He foresaw the building of a railroad, but mistook 
its route and located too far west. He built a store in 1862, and 
soon after sold it to Henry Etting. The latter continued the mer- 
cantile business several years. A number of dwellings clustered 
about the "corners," but the advent of the railroad drew people 
farther east, and there are now only three or four dwellings to mark 
the ancient site of Pauselim. Mr. Johnson did not live to see the 
fulfillment of his railroad prophecies, nor the desertion of his pro- 
jected village. 

KELLOGG 

Rose as Pauselim fell. The first building on its site was erected in 
the fall of 1870 bj^ John Huddleson. It now forms the office of 
Jung's Hotel. In the following year Clement Brass built and 
opened a store, now occupied by his son, J. A. Brass. In the fall 



GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP. 885 

of this year John Mealey built a bhacksmith-shop. From this time 
the village steadily grew in size and thrift imtil the construction of 
the Midland railroad and the Plainview branch of the Winona & 
St. Peter railroad. The trade from a large tract of country in the 
Zumbro valley and on the prairies to the southwest was thus diverted, 
and no progress has been made since. Kellogg is only six miles 
from Wabasha, and is twenty-seven miles from Winona, on the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. It covers an area of two 
hundred and forty-seven and three-tenths acres, and lies on sections 
22 and 27. The assessed valuation of property, according to the 
assessment of 1882-3, is nine thousand six hundred and twelve 
dollars, and the population in 1880 was two hundred. 

Nearly all business except that of the elevators, of which there 
are two, is conducted on Belvidere avenue, running east and west. 
It comprises two dry goods, one drug, one hardware, one liquor and 
two millinery stores, one meat market and three hotels, Jung's 
Hotel being the first to establish in the incorporated village. The 
building is frame, as are all in the place excepting one, and was 
built in 1874. One solitary brick building, the only outcome of a 
brickyard venture, by Geo. Howe, of the same date, marks the 
architecture of Kellogg. 

• This village was incorporated by a legislative act approved Feb- 
ruary 14, 1877. The railroad company had adopted the name of 
Kellogg, in honor of a Milwaukee gentleman who furnished the 
depot signs, and the village took the same cognomen. The act of 
incorporation named J. E. Gage, Joseph Ginthner and John Schou- 
weiler as judges of the first election, and they were elected village 
trustees, with Calvin Potter as president and Edward A. Tupper 
recorder. J. O. Junkin was elected treasurer. On July 24 C. H. 
Coleman was appointed recorder, to fill vacancy caused by Tupper's 
removal from the town. 

In 1878 Joseph Ginthner was made president ; J. A. Schou- 
weiler, William Barton and T. C. O'Leary, trustees ; J. F. Schou- 
weiler, treasurer ; and George Howe, recorder. 

Since then the following have been chosen officers — the presi- 
dent being given first, trustees next, and recorder last : 

1879 : T. C. O'Leary, J. C. Parkhurst, William W. Barton, 
Nich. Smith, J. E. Gage. 

1880 : T. C. O'Leary, N. Smith, D. C. Sweet, J. F. Schouweiler, 
J. A. Schouweiler. 



886 HISTORY OF WAUASHA COUNTY. 

1881 : T. C. OXeaiy, John Kobinson, C. E. Wilcox, Peter 
Tibesar, J. F. Selionweiler. 

1882 : J. O. Juiikin, Louis Jung, J. C. Parkhurst, N. Smith, 
William Canlield. 

1883 : J. O. Junkin, Louis Jung, J. C. Parkhurst, N. Smith, C. 
E. Wilcox. 

1884 : J. O. Junkin, N. Smith, John Gorman, Allen Ilobson, 
C. E. Wilcox. 

One destructive fire occurred at Kellogg in March, 1880. At this 
time Calvin Potter's store was entirely consumed in the night ; noth- 
ing was saved, as the building was wrapped in flames before the fire 
was discovered. There was no insurance, and Mr. Potter lost his 
all. He is now in Dakota, A small blacksmith-shop burned pre- 
vious to this, but the loss was trifling. 

A flne school-building stands on the north side of Belvidere 
avenue, at the west end of the village. About ninety-five ]m]A\s 
attended the school, which is divided into two departments, in the 
winter of 1883-4. 

The assessable lands in the town of Greenfield numbered fifteen 
thousand three hundred and fift3'-eight acres in 1860, and were valued 
by the assessor at sixty thousand six hundred and seventy dollars. Be- 
sides this, two tliousand six hundred and forty-nine dollars were laid 
on town lots, which must have been included in Pauselim or Teepe- 
ota, neither of which had a tangible existence at that time. Personal 
property at that time was assessed four thousand nine hundred and 
seventy-three dollars, making the total basis of taxation sixty-eight 
thousand two hundred and ninety-two dollars. The population then 
numbered four hundred and fifteen. Ten years later it was found 
that one hundred and seventy-six persons had been added to its 
number, making five hundred and ninetj^-one. The next decade 
added one hundred and ten, and Uncle Sam found our people num- 
bered seven hundred and one in 1880. 

In 1883 the assessment of real estate covered twenty-one thousand 
and seventy-two acres, with a value, including structures thereon, of 
eighty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-four dollars. Of this 
amount, nine thousand six hundred and twelve dollars covered town 
lots with their structures. Personal property was rated at twenty- 
eight thousand seven hundred and ten dollars, and the total assess- 
ment lacked but four dollars of reaching one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand dollars. 



GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP. 887 

The territorial election for this section was lield in tlio spring of 
1856, at the house of Ephraim Wildes. The judges appointed to 
conduct this election were William Albertson, Henry Dresser and 
Aaron Cook. The latter was made clerk. At this election Garret 
Albertson was chosen justice of the peace. No record of this elec- 
tion can be found, and nothing further in relation to its action can 
be gleaned from the memories of early settlers. 

On the organization of the town, May 11, 1858, F. J. Collier 
was chosen chairman of supervisors, and Seth C. Tennis town clerk. 

At the gubernatorial election in 1883, the republican candidate 
received thirty-three votes, and the democratic ninety-five. This is 
said to be a fair index to the political sentiment of the town. 

Kellogg Lodge, No. 122^ A.F.A.M., was organized January 13, 
1876. Work, under dispensation, was begun April 24, 1875, by 
the few Masons then resident here. The following were the first 
officers: M. O. Kemp, W.M.; J. E. Gage, S.W.; M. K. Wolfe, 
J.W.; J. O. Junkin, Treas.; Paul Miller, Sec; John Mealey, S.D.; 
J. W. Moore, J.D.; G. B. Albertson, S.S.; William Albertson, J.S.; 
John Kins, Tyler. 

The lodge is now out of debt, with money in its treasury. A 
handsome lodge-room is rented and fitted up in the second story of 
the building on the northeast corner of Winona street and Belvi- 
dere avenue. Since the organization thirty-five persons .have been 
connected with the lodge, and its membership now includes twenty- 
three persons. The present oflicers are as follows : M. K. Wolfe, 
W.M.; J. F. Sehouweiler, S.W.; L. O. Cook, J.W.; J. O. Junkin, 
T.; G. W. Foster, S.; J. Hendricks, S.D.; William Albertson, J.D.; 
Henry Graner, S.S., Charles La Rue, J.S.; W. J. Burns, T. 



CHAPTEE LXXXVI. 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 



The town of El2:in, wliich occupies a central position in that 
portion ot southeastern Minnesota known as Greenwood Prairie is, 
with the exception of the town of Plainview, the only one in the 
southern tier of towns in Wabasha county ; being bounded by the 
town of Oakwood and a part of Zumbro on the north, Plainview on 
the east, and Olmstead county on the west and soutli. Elgin is 
described on the government survey as T. 108 N., R. 12 W., and is 
a town of thirty-six sections, which come very near containing 640 
full acres each, and thereby making the town exactly six miles 
square ; but the survey of H. Amerland, Jr., made in 1875, which 
is doubtless correct, shows that both the northern and western tiers 
of quarter-sections fall short by 278.14 acres of containing the 
requisite number for making a full township ; being an average 
deiiciency of about 5.92 acres to each of these quarter-sections. 
This deficiency, when taken as a whole, is but a slight one, and has 
been little noticed by the average resident, who generally describes 
Elgin as a " full government township, six miles square," and for 
all ordinary purposes we agree with him in saying that this descrip- 
tion is near enough correct. 

The quality of the soil of this town is excellent ; a rich, dark 
loam, with sufficient sand mixed in with it to create that degree of 
warmth so necessary to productiveness ; while the land, viewed from 
an elevation, as it gradually rises and falls as far as the eye can 
reach, reminds the spectator of the huge billows of the far-distant 
ocean ; truly is it called "rolling prairie.'' 

Its productive soil and pleasant location, with a surface suf- 
ficiently undulating to secure excellent natural drainage, renders 
Elgin's agricultural advantages second to none in the county. The 
north branch of the Whitewater river enters the town from Olmsted 
county at section 33, and flows in about a northeasterly direction 
through section 33, and across the northwest corner of section 34 
into section 27, south of the village of Elgin, when it takes an 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 50^ 

easterly course through sections 27, 2G and 25, into the town of 
Plainview. This stream, together with Dr}^ creek, which empties 
into the north branch of the Whitewater on section 27, drains the 
southern part of the town, while the streams in the nortliern part are 
tributary to the Zumbro. 

The town is fairly timbered in different portions, and since settle- 
ment of this section of the country has prevented the disastrous 
prairie fires that used to sweep every blade of grass and sprouting 
tree from its surface in bygone days, this growth has sprung up, 
while the constant irrigation of the soil starts new growth. The 
only timber of which Elgin can justly boast is a grove of oak covering 
about six hundred acres, located near its center. 

During the first part of April, 1855, George Bryant, Henry H. 
Atherton, Curtis Bryant and George Farrar, four hardy sons of the 
Green Mountain state, set out from St. Charles, where they had 
been stopping a few days, to find a suitable place to locate farm- 
sites and establish homes for themselves on some of the land so 
generously offered by "Uncle Sam.'' When these energetic pioneers 
reached the portion of Greenwood Prairie where the town of Elgin 
now stands, they were struck with the great natural advantages the 
country afforded, and determined to seek no further, but to take all 
■the necessary precautions toward securing their rights of pre- 
emption then and there ; and after camping out for the night they 
commenced bright and early with the dawn of the next day to get 
out logs for a house, in the construction of which George Farrar 
acted as "boss carpenter." This took place about April 8, 1855, 
and was the first settlement made in the town. The log house 
referred to, being the first erected in the town, was shingled with 
elm bark, and put up on the claim of Henry H. Atherton, and not 
only served as a dwelling-place for the pioneers who built it, but 
also was the shelter of other early settlers and their families, who 
came later. The place where it stood is between the present resi- 
dence of John Q. Richardson and the Whitewater, but no vestige 
of the old house now remains. 

On April 21, 1855, the following filings were made : George 
Bryant, on the N.W. ^, Sec. 27, in which section the village of 
Elgin now stands. Henry H. Atherton, on the N.W. J, Sec. 34, 
and Curtis Bryant on the N.E. J, Sec. 28, where he still resides. 
George Farrar took a claim about April 9, 1855, consisting of an 
eighty on section 26, and an eighty on section 27, but neglected to 



890 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

file, and during Mr. Farrar's absence in tlie east, wliere lie went 
about December 6, 1855, his claim was jumped by Leonard Laird. 
This occurred in the early spring of 1856. Mr. Farrar had, however, 
filed on a claim in the timber-land during the ftxll of 1855, consist- 
ing of the E. ^ of S.W. i of Sec. 17. 

Immediately after locating, George Bryant returned to his native 
state of Vermont for his family, returning to the prairie in May of 
the same year ; with him also came Leonard Laird and his family, 
when the female population of the little settlement was, in the 
presence of Mrs. Polly Bryant and Mrs. Laird, increased from zero 
to two. 

During the month of June, 1855, the settlement was further 
augmented by the arrival of E. L. Clap]) and wife, Byron A. Glines 
and wife, Henry H. Stanchfield and family, and ('arlosB. Emei-son and 
family, and work was commenced in the erection of other log houses, 
the next being erected on Leonard Laird's eighty, on the S.W. part 
of Sec. 26. During the summer of this year two additionallog houses 
were built, one on the claim of George Bryant, on the N. W. ^ of Sec. 
27, and one on the claim of Henry H. Stanchfield, on section 26. 
A log house was afterward built by Carlos B. Emerson, on section 
35. William D. Woodward had a claim on section 33, but did not 
move on it until the summer of 1856. In October, 1855, John 
Bryant, the father of George and Curtis Bryant, arrived and took a 
claim. In March, 1856, Orvis V. Eollins and Irving W. Eollins 
came over from Plainview, where they had first located, the former 
pre-empting on section 22 and the latter on section 27. 

At this time the little settlement numbered thirty souls. Not a 
horse or a dog was in the town, while at the present day the town 
can justly boast of its blooded cattle, and as far as dogs are con- 
cerned, the records of 1864 showed twenty-three licensed. It is 
said that owing to the beauty of the country the early settlers first 
called the settlement '' Paradise," but owing to the large prepon- 
derance of Vermont people, it was for awhile more generally known 
as " Tankee JSTeighborhood." The first white child born in the 
town was Arthur D., son of Byron A. and Zama M. Glines, who 
came into this world on June 30, 1856, but who never reached man- 
hood, dying about five years thereafter. On May 27, 1856, the little 
settlement was shocked with the sad intelligence that the first death 
had occurred in its midst, when Miss Matilda Bryant, aged twenty- 
nine years and three months, daughter of John and Lavinia Bryant, 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 



891 



passed away, after having been for years a sufferer from that fatal 
disease consumption. At her funeral were performed the first 
services of a religious nature conducted in the town, a minister by 
the name of Blunt, from that part of the '^Tumbleson Neighbor- 
hood,'' now known as Haverhill township, officiating. Thirty per- 
sons were present. On September 28, 1S59, occurred the death of 
Wilber B., infant son of Carlos B. and Orissa A. Emerson, caused 
by dysentery. This was the first death of a white child born in 
Elgin. The first marriage of residents of the town was that of 
George Farrar to Miss Emeline Bryant, daughter of John and 
Lavinia Bryant. The ceremony took place at Winona, Minnesota, 
on August 13, 1856. 

In the summer of 1856 the first frame house in the town was 
built by George and Waldo Farrar, on the N. W. J of Sec. 28. This 
house, which is still standing, was, after completion, opened by 
George Farrar for the accommodation of travelers until 1860, when 
it was closed to the public. It is therefore justly called the first 
hotel. Zebina Weld, shortly after the closing of Farrar's house, 
started a hotel on the N. W. J of Sec. 27, in the house where David 
Houghton now resides. 

From the first settlement of the town the hardy pioneers showed 
their great regard for spiritual welfare by holding religious services 
in the little log cabins whenever the opportunity offered itself, and 
regular services were commenced some time during the summer of 
1856, at which time Rev. Mr. Lloyd held a series of Methodist 
meetings at the house of George Bryant. The first church society 
organized was the Congregational, the organization being eftected 
by Rev. Jonathan Cochrane, a Congregational clergyman, at the 
house of John Bryant, in the spring of 1857. In this connection, 
we may as well add, as the future history of this society, that after 
conducting services in private houses and in the schoolhouse on its 
erection, the society built a parsonage and began preparations for 
the erection of a church, in 1870, but the edifice was never com- 
pleted, and the society is virtually out of existence. Its clergymen, 
since Rev. Jonathan Cochrane ofiiciated, were Revs. Palmer Lifts, 
Holcomb and Henry Willard. 

The early settlers, with a view to securing such education for the 
young as the new town could afibrd, moved over a claim shanty and 
placed it on the northwest corner of the present schoolhouse lot, on 
section 27, and here the first school was taught by Miss Almeria C. 



892 HISTORY OF wabasiia county. 

Gould, ill the summer of 1858. The buildmg was in after-years for 
a long time occupied as a woodshed for the more commodious school 
building of the district. 

Before the organization of the town, and as early as the month 
of August, 185G, the first circumstance of a political nature occurred 
in the shape of a caucus to choose delegates to attend a convention 
for the nomination of candidates to the territorial legislature. Mr. 
Irving W. Rollins was chosen one of the delegates and attended the 
convention, which was held at Winona, Minnesota, on September 1 
of the same year. October 14 following, the election (then called the 
precinct meeting) took place at Greenwood (now Plainview), the 
towns of Plainview, Elgin, Highland and Oakwood comprising the 
precinct ; representatives to the territorial legislature, county and 
precinct officers were chosen at this election. 

On May 11, 1858, a meeting was held at the house of John H. 
Pell for the purpose of town organization and the election of town 
officers. George Bryant was appointed moderator and Robert C. 
Stillraan clerk, and William Brown and John H. Pell judges of 
election. 

At this election the town was named, each voter placing on the 
back of his ticket his choice of a name. The whole number of votes 
cast was fifty-four, of which the number naming the town Elgin was 
fifty ; but the question as to who first suggested the name seems to 
be in doubt. 

Following is a list of the first town officers elected : O. P. Craw- 
ford, chairman board of supervisors ; Joseph Leatherman and Will- 
iam Cook, supervisors ; George Bryant, town clerk ; Robert C. 
Stilhiian, assessor ; C. W. Dodge, collector ; I. W. Rollins and 
Morgan Culbertson, justices of the peace ; B. H. Gould and Jasper 
Elliott, constables ; John II. Pell, overseer of the poor. Thirteen 
days after this town meeting (Maj^ 24, 1858) the first meeting of the 
board of supervisors was held at the house of the town clerk, and 
they proceeded to divide the town into the following road districts : 
the north half of said town to comprise road district No. 1. The 
southwest quarter of said town to comprise road district No. 2. The 
southeast quarter of said town to comprise road district No. 3. The 
board then appointed tlie following overseers of roads : William 
Town, district No. 1 ; William Brown, district No. 2 ; Gurden 
Town, district No. 3. 

The first assessment of taxes was then made by this board, who 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 893 

levied a tax of one-half of one per cent on every dollar of the assess- 
ment roll of the previous year, as received from the office of the 
register of deeds for the county of Wabasha, and also taxed each 
man liable to the same two days' labor on roads. This was doubt- 
less in addition to the district tax, but whether it was optional to 
commute for it or not does not appear. 

The first election after the admission of Minnesota as a state was 
held in the fall of this year, October 12, 1858. Elgin participated 
in this election, which was to choose a senator and representatives 
to the legislature, a judge of probate, a county auditor and a coroner. 
The first petition for a public road was made to the board of super- 
visors at their first meeting. The petition was dated May 22, 1858, 
and was signed by twelve persons. By order of the supervisors the 
proposed road was regularly survej^ed by one J. A. Sawyer, and on 
June 16, 1858, he made his report. The day following the board 
examined the route, and, having found the same well suited for a 
public road, declared it opened as such, and ordered all fences or 
obstructions on the route removed by December 1, 1859. This 
road, the first laid out in the town, was known as town road No. 1, 
and was described as follows: "Commencing on the east line of 
the town, at a stake one hundred and six rods north of the section 
stake in the southeast corner of section 13, and running southwes- 
terly 314 rods, to a stake in latitude forty-three and one-half 
degrees ; thence southwest 272 rods to a stake by I. W. Rollins' 
land, in latitude fifty-two and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 48 
rods to a stake on the south side of Dry creek, in latitude twenty-one 
degrees ; thence southwest 100 rods to a stake north of John Bryant's 
house forty-three degrees ; thence southwest 24M rods to a stake 
south of George Bryant's house, in latitude forty-six and one-half 
degrees ; thence southwest 190 rods to a stake on the south side of 
the White Water, in latitude nineteen and one-half degrees ; thence 
southwest 40 rods to a stake in latitude twenty-nine and one-half 
degrees; thence southwest 80 rods to a stake in latitude twenty- 
eight and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 84 rods to a stake by 
W. D. Woodward's house, in latitude twenty-nine and one-half 
degrees; thence southwest 29A rods to a stake by Woodward's 
bridge, in latitude fifty-two degrees ; thence west 6 rods to a stake 
west of the bridge ; thence southwest 106 rods to the quarter-stake 
in latitude twenty-eight degrees, where it meets the Olmsted county 
road; said road being five miles thirteen rods and twenty-four 
links in length." 



894 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

The next road laid out, town road No. 2, was accepted by the 
board, and declared to be a public road on August 21, 1858. It 
ran north and south through the center of sections 5, 8, 17, 20, 29 
and 32. 

The first account against the town was allowed by the auditors 
as presented, on Sej^tember 14, 1858, four months after organiza- 
tion. It included the fees and expenses of the supervisors, justices, 
assessor and town clerk, besides the surveyor's bill for surveying 
roads, and amounted to the modest total of thirty-three dollars and 
fifty cents. 

The first postofiice hi the town was established in 1857. The 
office was situated in George Bryant's log house, on section 27, and 
bore the same name as the town. Previous to this time the nearest 
office was Winona, forty miles distant, and the custom was for any 
person who was going to that place from the prairie to take a list of 
the names of the settlers with him and collect the mail for them. 
George Bj-yant was appointed first postmaster, and held the office 
for ten years, when he resigned. The present postmaster is Charles 
S. liichardson. Another postoffice was established in the northern 
part of the town in 18G1, called Forest Mound, with William Town 
as postmaster. This office has since been discontinued. 

Doctors visited this town in early days, but no lawyer has ever 
yet opened an office here. The first resident physician was Dr. 
Nathan Engle, now of Tower City, Dakota. ' W. T. Adams, M.D., 
administers to the sick at the present date. 

In 1857 Benjamin H. Gould built and conducted the first black- 
smith-shop in town. It was erected on the northeast quarter of sec- 
tion 34. Mr. Gould afterward built a blacksmith-shop for D. R. 
Sweezy on the same section, which the latter occupied in 1858. 

A flouring-mill was built on what is known as the mill lot, on 
section 27, on the north brancli of the White Water, in 1860, by 
Parr & Ellis. They conducted it until 1866, when business was dis- 
continued on account of failure of sufficient water-power, and the 
machinery removed to Elba, Winona county. 

Up to 1863 no person had opened a store for the sale of any 
kind of merchandise in Elgin. In the fall of that year D. F. Fer- 
guson went to Minneiska for Albert Glines, and brought over a load 
of goods, and the first store was opened in John Houghton's house, 
on section 27. During the following winter Mr. Glines moved his 
granary over from his farm, to what is now the northeast corner of 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 895 

Main and Mill streets, in tlie village of Elgin, fitted it up for a 
store, stocked it with general merchandise, and commenced business 
in the spring of 1864. 

This old building is still standing, and now forms the front part 
of the store conducted by H. G. Richardson & Co., dealers in drv- 
goods, groceries and clothing, besides being the building in which 
the postotiice is situated. 

i^othing of historical interest in the way of business or other 
enterprise occurred until 1866 ; on October 6 of that year the 
Elgin circuit of the Methodist church, which had theretofore been 
connected with the Plainview circuit, being organized. It included 
the following appointments : Forest Mound, Farmington, Pleasant 
Prairie, Fitch's schoolhouse and -Stone schoolhouse. A board of 
trustees were legally constituted, and the new circuit took imme- 
diate measures toward the erection of a parsonage at Elgin, for 
which George Bryant gave the land. Labor was commenced Oc- 
tober 15, and on November 10 the minister's goods were removed 
into the house when only a part of the roof was on. E'ovember 19 
the building was completed. In 1878 the circuit contracted with J. 
W. Dickey for the erection of a church edifice, including foundation, 
for twenty-three hundred dollars, and this edifice was completed 
about September, 1878, but was totally demolished by the cyclone 
of July 21, 1883, an account of which is elsewhere given. The 
ministers of this church are given in the order of their succession, 
viz : Revs. Nahum Taintor, J. G. Teter, Geo. S. Innis, O. A. Phil- 
lips, J. W. Mower, J. W. Stebbins. Elgin cemetery is situated on 
section 27, but is not connected with any church organization. 

Large quantities of grain are raised in and shipped from this 
town, the principal crops now being wheat and barley, there being 
but little difference at the present day in the amount of wheat and 
barley grown. But this was not the case a few years ago when 
wheat was by long odds the principal crop. The 1872 yield of 
wheat of this town statistics show to have exceeded that of any 
other town in the world, while the best wheat crop, as to quality, 
was that of 1877, which averaged as high as twenty-five bushels to 
the acre, while some acres produced forty bushels, all number one 
wheat. The first blighted wheat was the crop of the year following 
(1878), while the best crop since 1877 was that of 1883, with an 
average of about twenty bushels to the acre. 



896 IIISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

The first grain-buying of any account was commenced by the 
firm of Bryant Brothers & Johnson, of Elgin village, in the fall of 
1877, before any railroad ran through tlm town. They bought from 
the farmers and conveyed the grain to Eyota, eleven miles distant, 
the nearest railroad station, with teams. During that year this firm 
bought and carried to Eyota one hundred and sixty-five thousand 
bushels of wheat. 

During the fall of 1878 the railroad was built through from 
Eyota to Elgin and Plainview, and the grain-buying from this time 
has been carried on by Richardson Brothers and Bryant Brothers & 
Johnson, with the exception that the latter firm was dissolved in 
1880, J. W. Bryant & Co. buying them out at that time and con- 
ducting business in their place since. John "W . Bryant attends to 
all the buying and running the elevator for his firm in Elgin, while 
Thomas Mathieson acts in a similar capacity for Richardson Brothers. 
Since the year 1877 the average shipped by both these firms of all 
grains is about two hundred thousand bushels ])er year. Richardson 
Brothers, who handle the greater quantit}^, ship to the Chicago and 
Milwaukee markets. J. W. Bryant & Co. ship to these points and 
to Minneapolis also. Besides wheat and barley the farmers in this 
town raise a considerable amount of timothy, also oats, flax and 
clover ; but no more corn nor vegetables are grown than is necessary 
for iiome consumption. Hogs have of late years been raised and 
shipped in considerable quantities ; while the raising of sheep and 
cattle is carried on with success. In fact the farmers are now pay- 
ing much attention to stock-raising, and, from present indications, 
the day is not far distant when this will be a great stock-raising 
country. 

No railroad privileges were enjoyed b}^ the town of Elgin until 
about November 16, 1878, when the Winona & St. Peter railroad 
completed its branch road from Eyota to Plainview. This railroad 
enters the town on section 33, and runs in a northeasterly direction 
through the village of Elgin, and leaves the town on section 13. 

This railroad company and the town are engaged in considerable 
litigation over town bonds amounting to forty thousand dollars issued 
by the town to the company. It seems that previous to the building 
of the railroad the board of supervisors granted the company the 
right-of-way through the town. An act of the legislature was in 
force under the provisions of which a majority of the tax-payers of 
a town, by petition to their board of supervisoi's, could bond the 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 



897 



town. Under this act petitions were circulated for the issue of town 
bonds of Elgin to the Winona & St. Peter Kailroad Company in 
forty thousand dollars, with interest at seven percent, payable on or 
before twenty years from January 1, 1879, upon the condition that 
the railroad company complete its road as agreed upon. After the 
completion of the road, and upon the petition mentioned, the town 
board issued the bonds, which were transferred by the company to 
parties outside the state. The town, claiming that the petition re- 
ferred to was not signed by a majority of tax-payers, refused to pay 
interest on the bonds, and the matter is now in the courts. The 
supreme court of the state has held that the act under which the bonds 
were issued is unconstitutional ; while tlie United States district 
court has held that the bonds having been transferred by the com- 
pany before the act was so declared unconstitutional, the holders of 
the bonds have a right to recovery against the town. Four judg- 
ments for interest and costs, amounting to $8,431.78, have so far been 
obtained against the town, and a fifth suit has just been brought, 
and in this unsettled state the matter now stands. 

The first record of any vote being taken on the question of the 
licensing of intoxicating liquors is that of the town meeting held 
April 5, 1859, the record showing that it was then voted that "no 
license shall be granted by the county board to any individual for 
selling spirituous liquors in the town of Elgin during the ensuing 
year." ISTo vote on the question appears to have been taken after 
this until 1876, for which year and the years thereafter the vote 
stood as follows : 



1876, License 63 

No license 95 

1877, License 70 

No license 55 

1878, License 51 

No license 64 

1879, License 102 



1879, No license 48 

1880 No vote taken 

1881, License 74 

No license 70 

1882, License 79 

No license 73 

1883 No vote taken 



On May 13, 1874, Elgin Lodge, No. 115, A.F.A.M., was organ- 
ized, and it worked under special dispensation until January 13, 
1875, at which time the lodge received its charter from the grand 
lodge of the state. Following is a list of the first officers : George 
Bryant, W.M.; Enoch Dickerman, S.W.; H. G. Kichardson, J.W.; 
George Farrar, Treas. ; J. Q. Kichardson, Sec. ; D. A. Hart, S.D. ; 
Geo. Engle, J.D. ; Ezra Dickerman, S.S.; O. V. Rollins, J.S. ; R. 
54 



898 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

G. IticliardsoH, Tyler. The lodge then numbered eighteen. The 
present membership is iifty-two, and the officers are as follows : H. 

C. Richardson, WJM. ; J.^V. Bryant, S.W. ; H. W. Gilman, J.W.; 
H. G. Richardson, Treas. ; Alex. Scott, Sec. ; D. F. Ferguson, S.D. ; 
Geo. Farrar, J.D. ; Arzio Lamb, S.S. ; William Barker, J.S. ; 
Frank Streeter, Tyler. 

A lodge of Good Templars was organized here on November 28, 
1883, by Col. Lang, G.W.C.T. It is known as Elgin Lodge, 
No. 76, I.O.G.T. Following is a list of the officers : Wesley Lyon, 
W.C.T. ; George Farrar, P.W.C.T. ; Alice Lyon, W. V.T.' ; Wm. 

D. S. Safford, Chaplain ; Frank Rollins, Rec. Sec. ; Pauline Sen- 
rick, Ass't Sec. ; Frank F. Farrar, Fin. Sec. ; Mary Rollins, Treas. ; 
Eugene Hutchinson, Marshal ; Jennie Seeley, W.I.G. ; Rufus Steb- 
J)ins, W.O.G. ; Flora Rollins, R.H.S. ; Guilford Pratt, L.H.S. 

The town offices of Elgin are tilled by the below-named gentle- 
men, respectively, at the present date (February, 1884) : Col. Wm. 
H. Feller, chairman board of supervisors ; Joseph Richardson and 
John Gregor, supervisors ; Dorr Dickerman, town clerk ; August 
Ludke, treasurer ; Julius Radke, assessor; J. B. Norton, justice of 
the peace ; Clark Champine and C. W. Westover, constables. 

While this town has been generally free from crime, excepting 
that of self-murder, yet it has had its share of cases of this nature, 
as well as accidents and casualties. Below we append a list of these 
cases : On August 4, 1863, Samuel M. Thompson, a young man of 
twenty-eight years, who had resided in that state only two years, was 
struck by lightning and killed while driving home with his team. 
Fie was a native of Mercer county, Pennsylvania. 

On the afternoon of January 19, 1866, Robert B. M. Bray, 
twenty-five years of age, a native of Anson, Maine, left the school 
where he had been teaching, about eight miles south of the village 
of Elgin, on his way homeward to that village, where he intended 
to spend Saturday and Sunday. 

A heavy snowstorm was in progress, the weather was bitterly 
cold, and young Bray was not warmly clad. He never reached his 
destination. Evidently he lost his way on the trackless prairie, and, 
benumbed with the cold, he was forced t(i succumb to the unrelent- 
ing elements. 

The next day his lifeless body, frozen stiff, was found by a 
search-party on section 35, southeast of the village. 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 899" 

January 15, 1S68, Jenny, infant daiigliter of David W. and 
Martha E. Lattimore, aged two years and two months, was fatally 
poisoned from eating matches. 

On May 9, 1871, Iva Grace, daughter of Robert C. and Martha 
D. Stillman, aged four years and seven months, born in Elgin, was 
accidentally shot by a pistol in the hands of a man in her father's 
emplo^^ The accident was the result of gross carelessness on the 
part of the man. The little girl lingered until the day following, 
when she passed away. August 26, 1873, Thomas S., son of 
Joseph and Ursula E. Richardson, a bright young lad, lacking one 
month of being fourteen years of age, was accidentally killed by 
running against a hay-rack ; while on September 21, 1877, Eddie 
Feller, a boy two years younger, son of Ezra and Maria Feller, now 
of Plainview, was killed by falling down stairs. 

On July 24, 1870, John H. Winter, a single man, twenty -five 
years old, born in Indiana, and a farmer by occupation, committed 
suicide with a shotgun. 

March 21, 1880, John D. Hedeman, a married man, thirty-six 
years of age, born in Germany, committed suicide by shooting him- 
self in the head with a revolver. He was a clerk in the employ of 
H. G. Richardson & Co., and used to sleep in their store nights, 
and it was in the morning on opening the store that his lifeless re- 
mains were found. On June •!, 1880, another' German, named 
Peter H. Hansen, who was also married, forty-three years old, and 
a farmer by occupation, met his death, though accidentally. In 
crossing the White Water, which was considerably swollen by 
freshets, near his farm on section 25, he drove his team into the 
rushing current, and was drowned. This completes the sad list, 
with the exception of the death of Mrs. Z. S. Thayer, who was killed 
in the cyclone of July 21, 1883, more particular mention of which 
terrible event will be found in the separate account given in this 
work of the Elgin cyclone. 

The population of this town is about one thousand. 

As far as educational advantages are concerned, the town of Elgin 
can justly boast of having kept pace with her sister towns in the pro- 
gressive strides they have made toward giving to the young the most 
comfortable schoolhouses and advanced system obtainable. Six 
well-furnished schoolhouses presided over by competent and experi- 
enced teachers are conveniently located in different parts of the 



"900 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

town, while the one in Elgin village, erected in place of the building 
totally destroyed by the cyclone, and conducted by a princi})al and 
teacher also, is a model of modern school architecture. 

ELGIN VILLAGE. 

The history of this village is so intimately interwoven with the pre- 
ceding history of the town, and so many various matters pertaining to 
the village were necessarily treated therein, that a very brief sketch 
is all that remains to be penned in order to complete the record of 
the only settlement in the town that aspires to the title of village. 
The village of Elgin, as platted, is situated on section 27, commenc- 
ing at a point near the center of the section, the exact center of the 
section being at the intersection of South and Main streets, in the 
southeastern part of the village, — the greater part of the village 
lying northwest of the center of the section. According to the 
census of 1880, which was taken from the old village plat, and did 
not include all the territory properly within the village limits, it 
had a population of one hundred and forty -four, while the present 
population is about two hundred. Elgin is a station on the Plain- 
view branch of the Winona & St. Peter railroad, eleven miles north 
of Eyota, and five miles southwest of Plainview, and is the only 
railroad station in the town. The village has never put on the 
dignity of incorporation, but has always been under the town 
government. The location of the village is all that can be desired, 
nestling as it does in the valley of the White Water, and shaded by 
handsome groves of young trees. The streets are generally wide 
and laid out at right angles. Park street, School street and INIain 
street being the principal business streets. 

We append a list of the principal business houses : Richardson 
Bros., grain elevator and lumber-yard ; J. W. Bryant & Co., grain ele- 
vator and coal-yard ; E. Ordway & Son, hardware, tinware and pumps ; 
Landon, Burchard & Co., drugs and medicines ; H. G. Bichardson 
<fe Co., drygoods, groceries, clothing, etc.; Fred. Meyer, blacksmith 
and horseshoeing ; M. II. Moody, harnessmaker and carpenter ; 
Alex. Scott, wagonmaker ; F. A. Amsden, harnessmaker; William 
Beantler, boots and shoes ; Frank Bessler, butcher ; E. O. Morton, 
carpenter, painter and windmills ; Mercer Bros., blacksmithing and 
horseshoeing ; John Graham, carpenter ; Frank Kiernan, saloon 
and billiards, and E. Meilke, saloon and pool. There are two 
hotels in Elgin, the Eureka House, M. IT. Safford, proprietor, and 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 901 

the Northwestern Hotel, E. Meilke, proprietor. Dr. W. T. Adams, 
who is one of the firm of Landon, Burchard & Co., above named, 
has his private oflice in the rear of their drugstore, while J. B. 
Norton, Esq., justice of the peace, maintains the dignity of the law 
in the office of Kichardson Bros., west of the depot. Dorr Dicker- 
man, town clerk, has an office partitioned oiF in the rear of E. Ord- 
way & Son's store on Park street. This village was almost entirely 
destroyed by the great cyclone of July 21, 1883, a full and com- 
plete account of which follows. For many of the details contained 
in our account of this terrible event we are indebted to the files of 
the " Plain view News " and the Kochester "Kecord and Union." 

THE ELGIN CYCLONE. 

From the manner in which Saturday, July 21, 1883, was ushered 
in, no one in Elgin would have imagined that anything remarkable 
was about to happen. The weather had been unsettled for some 
days previous, light rains had fallen, and the morning of the 21st 
was cloudy. School had been dismissed for the usual summer 
vacation, and before the hour of twelve arrived the business men, 
clerks, farmers and other occupants of the place, wended their way 
homeward to partake of their noonday meal. About this time the 
heavens commenced to darken greatly, the rain to fall, the wind to 
rise and the thunder to roll, and people began to quicken their steps 
in order to seek shelter from what they imagined would prove to be 
an ordinary midsummer thunder and rainstorm. Lucky for them 
it was that they did so ; lucky it was that the school was closed ; 
providential it was that the devastating wind struck the village at a 
time when nearly all the people had reached their homes, and 
together with their wives and children, had been afforded a few 
seconds' time in which to fly for refuge to their cellars. 

At about ten minutes past twelve o'clock the furious wind burst 
upon the village ; and here the imagination l\iils to find words which 
can convey, even in the slightest degree, an approximate idea of the 
circumstances attending the bursting of this wind-cloud. With the 
pent-up force of whirlwind and tornado, hurricane and cyclone com- 
bined, lashed up to a degree of fury indescribable, and hitherto 
wholly unknown in this section of the country, whirling, twisting, 
wrenching and tearifig, it broke upon the defenseless village, and in 
less than two minutes time literally blew it to atoms. So wholly 
unexpected was the frightful occurrence that there was no time for 



902 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the exercise of any thought save tliat of i)ersonal safety, aiid but 
barely time for that. In far less time than it takes to write it, the 
prosperous little village was a scene of dire wreck and desolation. 
Within the brief space of two minutes' time whole rows of buildings 
were leveled to the ground, some piled on top of others ; houses lifted 
up bodily by the force of the wind, overturned, and their inmates 
violently thrown out and injured ; other houses crushed and actually 
ground to pieces, as though they had been run through a mill ; acres 
of crops throughout the town laid waste ; large trees twisted off at 
the trunk, five feet from the ground, leaving the roots in the soil ; 
every business house in the place wrecked or unroofed, not one 
escaping ; horses, cows and other cattle mangled and killed, and 
some of these, together with heavy timber from the lumberyard, 
parts of buildings and other weighty articles, picked up by the wind, 
lifted high in the air, and sent whirling through space, to come 
crashing to the earth at forty rods and more distant ; and when we 
consider that these few incidents give but a faint idea of the irresist- 
ible and unheard-of force and power of the wind, the reader can form 
in his own mind something like an approximate idea of what it really 
was. The general line the storm took through the town was from 
about west to east, bearing slightly toward the north, nor was its 
greatest degree of force attained until it reached the village of Elgin, 
where it burst and scattered in different directions. 

The loss of pro])erty was simply appalling, but when we contem- 
plate the fearful disaster and are called upon to record but one 
human life lost, although many were more or less injured, it almost 
staggers credulity, and we are forced to repeat that, frightful as the 
calamity was, it was providential indeed that it came at the time 
and during the season of the year it did. 

As suddenly and without warning as the cyclone struck did it 
pass away, and as it swept off, the noonday sun, in all its glory, burst 
forth only to shine on the wreck and desolation we have described. 
People hurrying hither and thither to extricate their families and 
friends from the ruined debris of what was once their homes, many of 
them made houseless and homeless at one fell blow, with no place to 
eat or sleep ; all within the space of two short minutes. Some were 
there who had by hard work and economy saved enough to build 
them homes for their families, who said they had not a dollar left 
in the world, but even then the feeling within them was hopeful, 
and they said they knew how they had worked for and built them 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 903 

homes, and with continued health and strength they could do it 
again, and they were thankful that there were no more accidents 
and deaths with their other misfortunes. 

To add to their losses as well as deplorable situation, the sun 
disappeared after the storm almost as suddenly as it had appeared, 
the skies became overcast and a heavy rain beat down upon the 
unsheltered residents of the desolate village, which lasted all that 
day and night, and until the Tuesday following. 

The arrival of the 1 p.m. train going north to Plain view was the 
first means the inhabitants of Elgin had of communicating the terri- 
ble news of tlie disaster to the outside world, the telegraph poles 
and wires being blown down for the space of about a mile and a 
half, and tlie electrical elements having affected the wires as far 
north as Plain view. At about 1:30 p.m. Mr. E. T. Rollins, wlio 
was then telegraph operator at the Elgin office, in the railroad depot, 
by going along the track to about a mile south of the village, 
managed to make connections with the broken wires and telegraph 
the fact 01 the occurrence to Eyota, and by these means was the 
news first made known. The response was as generously and 
promptly made as it was needed ; money, clothing, food, merchan- 
dise and lumber from different parts of the northwest was sent in 
by kind hearts, to be received by willing and thankful hands. The 
afternoon train from Plain view brought at least two hundred persons 
from that place to the scene of the disaster, eager to render all the 
immediate assistance so needful, while from all portions of the 
adjoining country people began to pour into the unfortunate village 
and help in the work of clearing away the wreck and aid in providing 
means of shelter for the homeless. The injured received all the 
attention and care possible from a big-hearted, whole-souled people, 
and ere night arrived there were none but who had at least been 
temporarily provided for. As soon as some of the leading citizens 
could be assembled together a relief committee was organized, com- 
posed of Elijah Ordway, Alex. Scott, IT. G. Richardson, Dr. W. T. 
Adams and Dorr Dickerman. 

The people of Plainview and neighboring towns entered into the 
good work with remarkable generosity and enterprise, and at a 
meeting held in the Methodist Episcopal church at Plainview that 
night upward of two hundred dollars in cash was raised for imme- 
diate use. Early next morning a large delegation of men volun- 
teered their services, came to Elgin and labored all day in the rain 



904 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in the work of providing shelter for the houseless, and helping to 
save much of the perishable goods that stood exposed to the weather. 
Following we give a full account of the destruction wrought t)y 
this fearful storm in the town of Elgin : 

IN THE VILLAGE — CASUALTIES. 

The only person killed was Mrs. Z. S. Thayer, about thirty-iive 
years of age, and a native of Elgin. She kept a millinary store on 
Park street, adjoining the drug-store occupied by A. L. Kimber. 
Mrs. Thayer was found lying partly across the counter, crushed 
beneath the roof. Her little girl, Maud, was found in the ruins, 
under a counter, unharmed. 

Miss Edith Dillon, aged about twenty, had her skull fractured ; 
William Bowen, seventy-six years of age, had a thigh broken, and 
John Townsend's child, about eight years old, was injured about the 
spine. K. W. Chapman, A. L. Kimber, and a few others, were more 
or less injured. 

In attempting a description of the fearful havoc wrought by the 
storm we will take the principal streets of the village, commencing 
with Park street, the leading business street, which runs east and 
west across the railroad track. On this street stood a large two-story 
frame building, owned by E. O. Morton, the first floor of which was 
occupied by Frank Ressler as a meat market and F. A. Amsden as 
a harness-sho]:), and the second by P. W. Chapman as a dwelling. 
Here, no doubt, was the most miraculous escape in the whole dis- 
aster. The building was pulverized as you would crush a head of 
ripe grain and then hurl it to the winds ; and yet four persons, Mr. 
and Mrs. Chapman and the Misses Edith and Hattie Dillon, were 
thrown out with the wreck and escaped with their lives ; two of the 
four only. Miss Edith Dillon and P. W. Chapman, being injured, as 
before stated. On the same side of the street were two one-story 
frame buildings, one belonging to and occupied as a dwelling by 
Frank Pessler, and the other owned by A. Y. Felton, of Plainview, 
and occupied by Thomas C. Udell as an agricultural machinery 
warehouse. The front of Ressler's dwelling was thrown ten or 
twelve feet off the foundation and the building partly unroofed, 
while Felton's was racked nearly to pieces. On the other side of 
the street the storm played sad havoc. The two-story frame building 
belonging to George Bryant, the lower part of which was occupied 
by Mrs. Z. S. Thayer as a millinery store, and the upper floor by 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 905 

John M. Townsend and family as a dwelling, was left a total wreck, 
as was also the other two-story frame building next door, owned by 
Richardson Bros. , and occupied by A. L. Kimber as a drugstore and 
dwelling. Mrs. Kimber saved herself and child by seeking the 
security of the cellar ; but Mr. Kimber and John M. Townsend's 
family escaped by mere chance. Mr. Kimber was caught between 
the two buildings, which stood not over two feet apart, and it was 
with difficulty that he was extricated from the debris unharmed. 

Mr. Townsend's family, like Mr. Chapman's across the way, 
were indoors at the time the house was struck. They were not 
thrown out, however, but came down with the wreck, and with the 
exception of the one child mentioned landed safe and sound. Mrs. 
Thayer, who was in the store below, met her death as already stated. 
A little farther west, on the same street, stood E. Ordway's new 
two-story frame building, the lower part of which was used by 
Ordway, Dickerman & Co., as a storeroom, and the upper floor as 
the lodge-room of Elgin Lodge, No. 115, A. F. and A. M. This 
entire building was destroyed. Ordway, Dickerman & Co's hard- 
ware store was unroofed, and the second story of Frank Kiernan's 
saloon and billiard-room blown ofl', while Bryant Bros. & Johnson's 
large store, which had but lately been occupied by A. Ludke, was 
.badly racked, and the second story partly blown down. The railroad 
depot received but slight damages. The north end of J. W. Bry- 
ant & Co's grain elevator was demolished, and the structure racked. 
Richardson Bros', grain elevator was slightly damaged, their lumber 
office and sheds were all down, and much of the lumber in the sheds 
picked up by the wind and scattered in every direction. Yan Dusen 
& Co's coal-sheds near the depot were a total wreck, and E. Meilke's 
Northwestern Hotel, west of the depot, was partly unroofed and 
badly used up. Fred. Meyer's blacksmith-shop on grain street, and 
Henry Claussen's house and barn on Van Dusen street were com- 
pletely destroyed. H. G. Richardson & Co's house, occupied by 
A. Meilke, had the front torn off and was otherwise damaged, while 
Henry Claussen's shoe-shop was not particularly injured. Capt. 
J. B. Norton's house opposite was racked, chimney down, stable 
and outbuildings leveled to the ground, hay lost and buggy broken 
to pieces. This includes all of the buildings on Park street, and 
those north of Park street and west of "the railroad track. Another 
street about as greatly devastated as Park street, and also a business 
street as well as a street of residences, was Main street, which is in 



906' HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

tlie eastern part of the village, running north and south. Commenc- 
ing on this street where it is crossed by Dry creek, tlie bridge over 
which was torn to pieces, the first house is that of David Houghton, 
which was somewhat damaged, and a fine barn completely demol- 
ished. The next place is that of Benjamin II. Gould, which fared 
somewhat better, but was racked, a post from David Houghton's 
barn crashing through its north side. Mark liichardson's outliouses, 
sheds and stables were all demolished. At W. B. Porter's and 
W. H. Gilman's, trees two and a half feet through were broken ofl:' 
near the ground and thrown in all directions. The houses were not 
greatly damaged. Mr. Porter's barn was completely ruined, and a 
corner of Mr. Gilman's house was badly broken from the fall of a 
large tree. The corner of Main and Center streets, where stood 
"William Bowen's house and barn, was swept clean. A few pieces of 
boards and a few sections of roofing scattered pell-mell, together 
with a few broken articles of furniture, was all that was left to indi- 
cate that a dwelling once stood on the gaping cellar. Mr. Bo wen 
was alone in the house when the storm struck it. He was picked up 
unconscious on the road, covered with mud and sand. Further 
southward on Main street is the residence of John M. Houghton ; 
the house was partly unroofed and badly racked, barn unroofed and 
outbuildings completely destroyed. On the corner of Main and Mill 
streets stands the store of H. G. Kichardson & Co., where the post- 
office is also situated. The new main part of this building was 
unroofed, and the back part badly racked, and the barn back of it 
completely demolished. Mrs. Woodward's dwelling across the way, 
owned by H. G. Richardson & Co., escaped as free from injuries, 
probably, as any house in town, as did also the blacksmith-shop 
south of it owned by Richardson Bros., and occupied by Mercer 
Bros. ; but the next building, which was also the property of 
Richardson Bros., and occupied as a wagon-shop by Alex. Scott, was 
unroofed and several new carriages badly damaged. The residences 
of Charles S. Richardson, E, O. Morton and Mrs. Seeley, then 
occupied by William Baker, on Mill street, were comparatively 
uninjured. John Graham's house escaped very fortunately. The 
trees were so badly broken, that at first one had to cut his way to it 
with an ax, but the house was all right. George Farrar's old house, 
occupied by Fred. Westover, was unroofed, and the second story 
partly torn down, and Dr. W. T. Adams, south of this, had his 
barn and outbuildings completely demolished and his house slightly 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 907 

racked. Opposite were E. W. Westover, whose house was pushed 
back six or eight feet from the foundation, and F. A. Amsden, 
living in a house belonging to Richardson Bros., which was 
unroofed and had one corner blown oft. We will now take 
South Street which runs east and west along the southern bound- 
ary of the village plat. On the north side of the street, and just 
west of the railroad track, stood the large barn owned by George 
Bryant, which was almost entirely demolished. The residence in 
front of it escaped with but slight damages, as did also Miss Mary 
Ann Bryant's residence ; but her other house, occupied by Fred 
Meyers, was left half unroofed. Dorr Dickerman's new house, just 
enclosed, was laid flat on the ground, but the Congregational par- 
sonage, which he occupied, received no material damage. The 
Methodist church, a beautiful little edifice which cost about four 
thousand dollars, was a total ruin, hardly a stick left standing, but 
the parsonage on the lot adjoining, occupied by Eev. J. W. Steb- 
bins, escaped with partial damages. George Farrar's fine barn and 
sheds were unroofed and some of his outbuildings blown down, but 
his house weathered the storm very well. N. H. Moody's house 
escaped comparatively uninjured, but the handsome and commo- 
dious schoolhouse south of it, at the head of School street, was a 
sad and complete wreck. Had the storm struck it at a time when 
school was in session, we shudder when we contemplate what the 
loss of life would doubtless have been. E. Ordway's residence was 
but little damaged, but the Eureka house, north of it on School 
street, owned by Thomas Mathieson and managed by M. H. Safford, 
was considerably racked and used up. The southern portion of the 
•building was shoved back twelve feet from the foundation, and the 
barn leveled to the earth. Farther east on South street, on the bank 
of the White Water, lay the wreck of Charles S. Richardson's barn 
and windmill, and just east of this, on the north side of the street, 
was a most remarkable example of the unparalleled force of the 
wind. Alex Scott's residence, a strong story-and-a-half frame build- 
ing, on a stone foundation, was built here on rising land overlooking 
the village. It was taken up bodily from its foundation by the 
wind, turned upside down and hurled through the air with tremen- 
dous force a distance of several rods, when it was dashed to the 
earth, and, together with all its contents, was i-educed almost to 
splinters. Mr. Scott, who, with his wife and child, had sought 
refuge in the cellar, suddenly found themselves exposed to the beat- 



908 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ing rain, their liouse having been lifted oif their heads with as much 
ease as if it had been made of paper. 

This conchides our account of tlie disastrous eifects of this ter- 
rible cyclone in the village, and is necessarily but a brief summary 
of its fell work, for in the limited space allowed in this history it is 
impossible to record in detail an event which would make a history 
in itself. Imagine, therefore, the trees mangled and twisted in all 
sorts of shapes and felled to the ground, window-panes shattered, 
shutters broken, shingles torn off and scattered, the chimneys all 
down, fences laid low, plank walks torn u]), and all along the streets 
and on the vacant lots the ground strewn with broken lumber, sluugles, 
jnllows, bed quilts, household utensils, clothing, fragments of fur- 
niture, in fact a mixed assortment of anything and everything, and 
take all this in connection with the destruction of buildings we have 
related, and the reader will be enabled to form a slight idea of the 
appearance of the village of Elgin after the cyclone passed over it. 

EASTWARD INTO TIIK COUNTRY. 

The one-story house occupied by Mrs. Proctor and owned by 
Charles S. Richardson, east of the village, was unroofed and about 
half a story torn off. The house of Lucien Metcalf was half wrecked, 
his barn and cribs unroofed, his hay-sheds all torn to pieces and the 
place mangled up generally. Walter Dunn's house was racked and 
his barns unroofed. The hay-sheds and windmills of O. V. and I. 
W. Rollins, Jose]jh and H. G. Richardson were all more or less 
damaged, and Abner Smith's granary, sheds and corn-cribs were 
down flat. George Wedge's barn received some damages. H. D. 
Wedge lost a mile and a half of fence. J. E. Brown had his barn,, 
granary and sheds blown over. J. R. Hunter lost his stable, and 
a few others suffered to a greater or less extent as far as Jacob 
Haessig's farm, but no serious damage was done in this direction 
outside what we have mentioned, and we will now return to the vil- 
lage and follow the path of the disaster westward. 

Half a mile west of the village is the farm of Curtis Bryant. 
He lost a large barn, together with corn-cribs and other buildings, 
while four of his horses and two colts were killed. One of the colts, 
a three-year-old, was taken by the wind from in front of his house 
and carried north about forty rods, over fences and buildings, and 
found dead. Col. W. H. Feller's barn was unroofed, liouse dam- 
aged, granary moved off the foundation, and another building down 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 909 

flat. Frank M. Bigelow's large barn was down to the plates and 
partly moved on the foundation ; house considerably damaged and 
windmill all to pieces. Fred C. Hartson's house, occupied by Jud- 
son Hudson, was taken by the wind thirty feet from its foundation 
and utterly demolished, and, wonderful to relate, Hudson, his wife, 
child and sister escaped from the flying debris safe and sound. A 
place occupied by Mrs. Amelia Drake had a stable and granary 
blown down, besides trees destroyed. William Tornow, tenant on 
William Brown's farm, suflered severely, and Mr. Brown had a 
barn and granary demolished, containing four hundred bushels of 
oats, one hundred and fift}^ bushels of wheat and fifteen tons of hay, 
which were all destroyed. The storm made terrible havoc among 
his trees and timber. At this point there appeared to be a succes- 
sion of storms constantly forming, which spread out nearly two 
miles in width. H. G. Eichardson & Go's house west of this — 
Gus Warner, tenant — had the barn and granary blown down, 
besides trees badly damaged. Charles Dobbins had his stable, hog- 
house and granary blown down, house partly wrecked and partly 
unroofed, liis stock hurt and trees badly injured. A plank 
2x6 inches, broken from a ha^M-ake, was carried from about one 
hundred and fifty feet southeast of the house and crushed a hole 
through the west side of the house. The granary of Harrison Rice 
was blown down and his stable destroyed. He lost thirty tons of 
hay and twelve acres of corn, and his house was partly unroofed. 
Henry C. Woodruff" had his barn blown down, which was a great 
loss, as he had water- works in the barn attached to his windmill, 
which was also blown down. His house was partly unroofed, and 
his loss in timber and fruit-trees was irre]iarable, as it had taken 
him nearly twenty years to grow them. Pursuing farther westward, 
we have ascertained in brief the following damages wrought by the 
relentless wind : William Cook, machine-shed and corn-crib in- 
jured, wagonhouse, henhouse and windmill down, roof on barn 
moved, and fine grove destroyed. William Searles, barn unroofed, 
corn-crib and stable partly unroofed, hay and machine sheds and 
windmill torn down, seventy-five tons of hay destroyed, and thirty 
acres of timber badly damaged. August Swanke, house badly 
racked and shingles torn off', barn partly unroofed, granary, shed 
and stable destroj^ed. A, B. Hart, house, machine-house and sheds 
blown down, and fifteen acres of timber damaged. Mrs. Hart and 
child escaped by going down to the cellar. E. Raymond, a tool- 



910 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

house, -iS.X CO, and a cow-slied and stable, 25 X 200, blown down. On 
another place he lost two houses and a barn, seventy tons of hay 
and a windmill, and had forty acres of timber destroyed. A, Park, 
barn unroofed, sheds partly unroofed, ho<!;house moved, henhouse 
destroyed. H. Southwick, barn unroofed, sheds down and live 
acres of timber destroyed. Mr. Patrick, stable blown down and 
house injured. M. Nasli, house partly unroofed and the furniture 
damaged. Mr. Fitch's shade-trees down, and a number of cherry- 
trees torn out by the roots. A. Demke, granary badly broken up. 
James W. Finney, on Mr. Taylor's farm, house partly unroofed and 
moved off the foundation, and barn, granary and corn-crib wrecked. 
August Barrent, on Henry Dewitz's place, lost everything he had. 
The house, two granaries and barn were demolished, all the furni- 
ture destroyed and clothing blown away. Mr. Barrent and family 
were caught up by the wind and hurled skyward with the flying 
debris, — one of the boys being carried by the wind southeast about 
forty feet, then northwest about sixty feet and south twenty feet, 
landing him on a wood-pile ; then he was seized again and carried 
about twenty-five feet and left in a ditch. Another boy was carried 
about sixty feet and dropped in a small creek. Strange to say, neither 
was much hurt. John Twitten, hay and sheep sheds blown down, 
besides a hoghouse, 16x80, and the house partly unroofed. Thomas 
Brooks' farm, occupied by Joseph Hines : the house was carried from 
the foundation fifteen or twenty feet, where it struck a willow-tree, 
and was hurled about six feet beyond the tree, that kee])ing it 
from entirely falling, only a part of it being blown off. The family 
were in the house, and the tree keeping the building from falling- 
doubtless saved their lives, although some were quite badly hurt. 
The barn, sheepshed, 30x40, granary and hoghouse, 16x80, were 
destroyed. At another farm, owned by Thomas Brooks, a granary 
was blown down. The Fitch schoolhouse was laid perfectly fiat, 
the bell alone remaining to show the site. Duane W. Searles' 
buildings were partly down, while F. Bennike lost his barn, 
granary and part of his house. W. H. White, barn blown down, 
granary injured, shingles torn off the house and the windmill 
blown down. A hired man in the barn wat carried with it, being 
injured about the head. A horse was hurt, fences on one side of 
the farm carried off, and the fruit-trees nearly all destroyed. Forty 
tons of hay were scattered. A. B. Stacy, house racked, chimneys 
blown down, wagonhouse, granary and hay-sheds leveled, and 



TOWN OF ELGIN. 911 

buggy and machinery broken, fences and thirty tons of hay blown 
away. Amos Welch, windmill torn to pieces^ Harry Dodge, fruit- 
trees injured and hay blown awaj^ S. Snow, house partly unroofed 
and kitchen blown down ; barn, hay-sheds and stable entirely 
destroyed, machinery, wagon and cutter demolished and hay blown 
away. The two houses, barns, sheds, granary and machine-house 
of D. M. and F. G. Harvey were laid flat, not a vestige of the build- 
ings being left. Their lia}^ was blown away, machinery broken and 
crops destroyed. Fred and James Harvey's house was swept down, 
Mrs. Harvey being caught and held by timbers, but fortunately but 
little hurt. George Harvey's windmill and three sheds were blown 
over. On the Dieter place, occupied by E. F. Dodge, the house 
was carried eighty-five feet, and the L demolished. Mrs. Dodge, 
with her baby and girl ten years old, ran down the cellar as soon as 
the doors of the house blew open, and Mr. Dodge started for the 
same place with another little girl, but did not reach it, being carried 
away with the house, luckily escaping injury. After the storm was 
over one of his boys ci-ept from the debris of the L unhurt. 

The stone schoolhouse on the Lake City road was almost entirely 
demolished. Having now described the effects of the storm to a 
point about ten miles west of the village of Elgin, we will abandon 
further description. Not that there is no more devastation to be 
written up, but for the reason that it does not come within our prov- 
ince to extend outside of the limits of the county regarding which 
this history is written. 

RELIEF W^OKK. 

We previously alluded to the appointment of a relief committee 
at Elgin immediately after the cyclone, and the generosity of the 
contributions. Below we append a list of the donations received by 
the committee for distribution: 

Wabasha county (special) $200 00 

Plainview 489 00 

Viola 258 00 

Eyota village (cash) Ill 50 

Eyota village (stove) 17 00 

Eyota ladies 23 25 

St. Charles 161 00 

St. Charles ladies 46 00 

Dover 75 00 

Rochester 100 00 

Kellogg 8 00 



912 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Kellogji village $ 23 00 

Chatfield 92 50 

AVinona (lumber) .* 800 00 

Winona (cash) 395 00 

AVinona (merchandise) 50 00 

Minneiska 26 50 

St. Paul 500 00 

August Leitz' committee J 85 56 

J. G. Lawrence, Wabasha 25 00 

J. C. Bartlett, Wabasha 15 00 

John Stewart, Wabasha 5 00 

F. P. Foster, Hyde Park 5 00 

S. A. Foster, Plainview 5 00 

E. C. Ellis, Fairweather 3 00 

David ]McCarty, Plainview 5 00 

James McCarty, Plainview 5 00 

John Gregor, Elgin 5 00 

Hibberd, Spencer, Bartlett & Co., Chicago 25 00 

Markley, Ailing & Co 25 00 

Trcdway & Sons, Dubuque 10 00 

AV. W. Braden, St. Paul 10 00 

E. AV. Crocker, Parker, Dakota 5 00 

H. B. Thayer (to Maud) 5 00 

Mrs. Hyde, Mazeppa, a lot of clothing 

3,714 31 

This concludes our history of the disastrous cyclone which 
passed over Elgin and devastated the country from as far west as 
the Dakota border. One month afterward, to the day, the fearful wind- 
storm known as the "liochester Cyclone," a full account of which 
appeared in our history of Olmsted county, swept over the country, 
but did no damage at Elgin, although it blew hard but steadily 
there. 

After the storm the work of reconstruction and repairing was 
pushed forward with a degree of enterprise and energy that few at 
the time would have predicted. A commodious and im]50sing 
school-building has been reared from the ruins of the one destroyed, 
and now stands as a majestic witness of Elgin's enterprise, while 
arrangements for the construction of a new church edifice have been 
definitely made, and as soon as spring opens the edifice will be 
pushed to completion. With this exception, and excepting also the 
Morton building, the Bryant building, which was occupied by Mrs. 
Thayer, and the Richardson building, which was occupied by Kim- 
ber's drug store, every building was partly demolished has 



HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP. 913 

been made better than before, and all those that were completely 
destroyed have been replaced with new structures, so that the time is 
near at hand when the last trace of this terrible event will have 
been completely obliterated, and the Elgin cyclo]Cje will have lost all 
of its interest, excepting as an historical event. 



CHAPTER LXXXYII. 



HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP. 



The township of Highland is a regular township, being six miles 
square. It is known as T. 109 N., of R. 11 W., and is bounded on 
the north by Glasgow, on the east by Watopa, on the south by 
Winona county and Plainview township, and on the west by Oak- 
wood. The township was organized in 1858, under the name of 
Smithfield, which cognomen was not long retained, the Smiths being 
at that time numerous, but not very popular, and the more euj^ho- 
nious title of Highland was substituted, which also truthfully 
implies the fact of its elevated surface. 

The soil is a black loam with a clay subsoil, heavier in the 
northern and central portions, and lighter on the more open prairie- 
like portions in the south. The surface is undulating, and in the 
north and east broken by blufls and high hills that hedge in more or 
less narrow valleys. Along these bluff ledges grow timber, chiefly 
oak. The entire surface was originally covered with short, stubby 
oaks and other woods, and more or less undergrowth. Through 
these valleys flow such streams as pay tribute to the Zumbro on the 
north. The largest of these is known as "West Indian creek ; it 
rises in the southern central part of the township and flows down a 
beautiful valley, from twenty to one hundred rods in width, to the 
northward, turning on its way one gristmill, and for several years 
two. 

The first town meeting in Highland was held May 13, 18.58, at 
the residence of I. Smith, in the southeast portion of the township, 
near where the Smithfield postoflice is located. W. L. Cleav^eland 



"914 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

presided over the meeting and was elected chairman of the board of 
supervisors, of which C. G. Dawloy and II. M. Doane were also 
chosen members. The other officers elected at this meeting were as 
follows : J. E.. Cleaveland, clerk ; M. Baldwin, overseer of poor ; 
Voluey Crandall. assessor ; James Felton and A. C. Smith, justices 
of the jieace ; George Begg and OHver Nelson, constables ; and 
George Begg, collector. The township expenses for that year were, 
all told, fifty dollars. 

The first settlements were made' in Highland early in the spring _ 
of 1855, by the Nelsons or Olsons, near the soutliern line, and 
Patrick McDonough in the very northeast corner, in Cook's valley. 
Oliver Nelson and Patrick McDonough both erected log houses very 
early in the spring of this year. The first birth of a white child in 
the township occurred some time in the spring or summer of 1855, 
the child being Maria Sullivan, daughter of Thomas and Mary 
Sullivan. The first deaths of settlers also occurred during this 
season, the victims being two men by the respective names of Pugh 
and Green, who had come on to build them homes in the western 
Eldorado. They had scarcely more than had time to rear a humble 
habitation when they were stricken down with cholera morbus and 
lived but a few hours. Fear of tlie disease seized the few neighbors 
that surrounded them, and they were buried by a few faithful friends 
at night in Cook's valley, near their deserted domicile, without 
funeral rites. 

It was not until the opening of another season that the tide of 
immigration seemed to set in toward Highland ; but in 1856 and 
1857 there flocked in from the states a large number of Irish and 
Germans, and a fair sprinkling of Yankees. 

The people who settled Highland were for the most part reli- 
giously inclined, and at an early day began to display their 
zeal in spiritual matters by organizing churches. The Catholic 
church undoubtedly was the first to occupy the field with a society. 
They held services first at the residence of Mr. Timothy Kyan, on 
whose premises the Catholic church of Highland was afterward 
erected. Father Tisheant officiating. This society early erected their 
first church edifice, a structure of no imposing exterior, but suffi- 
cient to satisfy the humble sons of toil who came with happy hearts 
to worship there. It was 20x30 feet. A fine new building now 
occupies tlie site of this i)ioneer cathedral — a beautiful little white 
church, with green blinds, and a belfry. Across the street from the 



HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP. 915 

church stands the parsonage, which was erected at a cost of 
sixteen hundred dollars a few years since, and is a nice home 
for the priest whose good fortune it is to have charge of this rural 
society. Father Trobec and Eev. Peter Jeran are among the pas- 
tors who have done much for the building up of this little Catholic 
church of Highland, which is styled the Church of the Immaculate 
Conception. Its members are chiefly of Irish and German descent, 
of which the larger part of the inhabitants of northeast Highland is 
composed. Back of this church and in the same inclosure with it is 
the Catholic cemetery, which has received the remains of many 
worthy pioneers of Highland township, some of whose graves are 
marked by pretentious monuments. The church is located on sec- 
tion 10, and is at present presided over by the aged Father Mur- 
ray. Everything in its surroundings and circumstances proclaims it 
to be in a highly prosperous condition. 

The Protestant societies oi-ganized in this township have been 
many. But they were less prosperous than that hardier religious 
plant Catholicism, and too numerous for so meager a population to 
sufficiently nourish. And today the remnants of the once thriving 
Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist and Lutheran societies are scat- 
tered, and have been gathered into other christian folds, principally 
located in the neighboring village of Plainview. Preaching is occa- 
sibnally held in tlie Highland schoolhouse, in southeast Highland, 
and the Methodist Episcopal society (chiefly Norwegians) have a 
parsonage and sustain regular services in the southwest part of the 
township ; while at Hamps' Mill there still stands the old log church 
erected by the German Peform or Evangelical congregation in 1866, 
and still supplied with a pastor, who resides in West Albany, but 
holds services here biweekly. The Presbyterians in an earlj^ day 
were also sufticiently strong to sustain preaching at the Appel Mills 
schoolhouse, but have not been able to keep up their organization ot 
late years. Each society of three — Baptist, Methodist and Congre- 
gationalist — has taken its turn at conducting revivals in the Highland 
schoolhouse, and much vigorous religious work has been done within 
its walls. 

The first preaching in the Highland district was done by the Rev. 
Mr. Dyer in the fall of 1859, at the residence of Mr. Stillman 
Hathaway ; and the following year the Methodist and Baptist soci- 
eties were organized. A Sunday school was also established about 
this time, with A. T. James as the first superintendent, which has 
since continued to exist. 



916 HISTORY OF WABASHA COCTNTY. 

The Methodist society liave continued to monopolize most ot 
the preacliing up to the present time. The Baptist society num- 
bered at one time some seventy members, but has been practically 
inetticient since 1872. The ])astors of the Plainview Congregational 
church have had, during a portion of the time, regular services in 
this dictrict. Of late years the community have been more united, 
and have given a cordial support, regardless of denominational 
views, to that sect, whichever it might be, so fortunate as to be able 
to have a pastor to till their pulpit, and a greater degree of harmony 
is noticeable. 

Highland is justly ])roud of her common schools, of which there 
are at present seven. The first teaching was done by Miss Ursula 
Metcalf, now Mrs. Levi Emery, in district 39, known as the Rich 
district, in the southwestern portion of the township. In district 37, 
or the Stanfield Spring school, the first teaching was in a log house 
near the site of the present building, in tlie spring of 1860, by Miss 
Aurora Albertson. In the Highland district. No. 40, Ann 
Robbins taught a school in the summer of 1859. The schoolhouse 
was an octagonal structure, provided by Wm. T. James, then a 
prominent man in that part of the township. It was fram.ed in 
Wabasha and drawn to the place of erection in sections, and for 
years did duty as both church and schoolhouse. In the year 1869 
this district erected a large and handsome substitute, for the better 
accommodation of their many scholars. This new building stands 
near the center of the district, which is three miles square, and cost 
fifteen hundred dollars. The Ilarapi Mill district, JSTo. 64, and the 
AppeFs Mill district, No. 66, both located in West Indian Creek 
valley, were also pioneer districts. These last-named districts have 
since been somewhat weakened by the establishment of two new 
districts, the one in the Grarey neighborhood, and the other in the 
McNallan neighborhood. Without exception, the schoolhouses in 
Highland are in excellent condition, and are in marked contrast 
with the rude log huts that only a few years ago attested the high 
regard which the poor but intelligent pioneers of this township had 
for education in early days. 

The entire tract, since embraced by this township, was included 
in the Sioux half-breed Indian reservation that stretched for some 
thirty miles along the general course of the Mississippi river, from a 
point in the township of Greenfield, section 18, east, northward, and 
it was due to this fact that the first white settlers in Highland for 



HIGHLAND TOWNSHIP. 917 

several _years made only moderate progress in the improvement of 
the claims . Fearing that the ' ' half-breed script " would be success- 
fully ' ' laid upon " their new possessions by the land-sharks that in- 
fested the country, it was but natural for them to delay their work 
of clearing the land and making the more permanent improvements, 
until the validity of their titles should be declared and peaceable 
possession of their new homes be vouchsafed them. Some of them 
finally bought up scrip and "laid it" themselves, thereby securing 
an unquestionable title, but the majority of the new-comers were too 
poor to solve the problem so easily, and were occasionally induced 
by those holding this scrip to surrender one half of their quarter- 
sections in order to have the title to the remaining half perfected. 
Here and there a settler more gullible than the others was induced 
by threats and false representations to abandon his claim and go 
elsewhere. In this way many of the best claims were temporarily 
controlled by speculators, to whom tribute was sometimes paid. 

In 1858 the first road in the township was laid out and worked; 
the same being the road that connects Appel's (then Watkins') Mill 
with Canfield Springs. It is now well provided with suitable high- 
ways leading out in all directions ; many of them following the 
course of ravines. 

The valuation of property in Highland was in 1860 as follows : 
12,027 acres, valued at $39,460 ; personal property, $2,479. In 
1883, 22,792 acres, at $228,742; personal property, $32,519 — an 
average of $10.03 per acre. At the fall election in 1883 the polling- 
list shows 160 voters. 

Besides the Catholic cemetery before mentioned there is another 
near the Lutheran or Reform church in West Indian Creek valley, 
and one grave is to be found marked by an unpretentious marble 
slab on ground that A. T. James once gave to the settlers for burial 
purposes, in southeast Highland, near Smithfield. 

The only tragedy that has occurred within the township of High- 
land since its settlement, occurred in 1866, on the Canfield Spring 
road. A book agent was riding along this road when some one, 
secreted iij the bushes that skirted the highway shot him and rifled 
his pockets. The author of this dastardly act was never discovered, 
but years afterward a rusty rifle was found in the bushes on the top 
of a neighboring bluff, from which it is surmised the murderous 
bullet was fired. 



918 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

SMITH FIELD POSTOFFICE, 

In 1858 the inliabitunts of Highland petitioned the postal author- 
ities for the establisliment of a postothce in southeast Highland, 
along the Rochester and Wabasha stage route. The ])rayer of the 
petition was granted, a commission was issued to Israel Smith as post- 
master, and the office was dubbed Smithheld ; before the arrival of 
this commission Mr. Smith left the country. Soon after Mr. Thomas 
Smith opened a little store on section 24, and was about to be ap- 
pointed to this office when his store burned down, and he also 
departed from the country. The third petition in the sunimer of 
1859 resulted in James S. Felton becoming the first postmaster. 
This same summer the Dugans, of Wabasha, who had quite an 
extensive landed interest in this part of the county, erected a store 
and a hotel ; a blacksmith-shop was also a feature of this pioneer 
hamlet. In 1862 the Jameses bought out the Dugans, and about 
three years later abandoned the store and closed up the hotel, thus 
terminating the busniess life of Smithfield. The postoffice is still 
retained, with C. G. Dawley as postmaster since 1865. Daily mail 
is received from Plain view in the morning, and Wabasha in the 
afternoon. 

LYONS, OR WATKINS' MIJ^L. 

In 1856 Daniel J. Watkins erected a sawmill on West Indian 
creek, on section 16, in Highland. Five years later Mr. Watkins 
found that the community had greater need for a gristmill than they 
had for a sawmill, and at once proceeded to remove the latter and 
erect in its stead the first gristmill of Highland. This same season 
Alfred Lathrop opened a store near by, and the following year, 1862, 
Lj'ons postoffice was established here, with Mr. Lathrgp as post- 
master. In 1865 Mr. Watkins sold his mill to John Yale, who 
continued to run it for nine years. The proprietorship was then 
transferred in rapid succession from Yale to Richard Kalf, and 
through C. W. Hackett's hands to Stephen Appel, its present pro- 
prietor. The store has continued to exist without interruption — 
under various proprietors — since it was first opened, and without 
local competition. E. W. Cleaveland is its present owner. The 
postoffice was discontinued in 1881. 

HAMI'P: MILL. 

In 1866 Henry Hampe erected a gristmill on Indian creek, 
about two miles below the Watkins mill. This mill was burned 
down in 1881, February 19, and has not been rebuilt. 



HIGHLATSTD TOWNSHIP. 919 

INCIDENTS. 

The early settlers were not only annoyed by parties holding 
half-breed script, but by cliques of land-sharks who often sought 
by force to drive oft those settlers who had come without an 
invitation from these would-be lords of all the rich and fertile lands 
in the county. They were sometimes successful, but not always. 
An incident illustrating their manner of proceeding is the case of 
John Eedden. Mr. Eedden had taken a claim near the McNallans 
in Highlijnd, which was erected by certain Wabasha parties ; and 
"Blind-Charley " Lessling and a man by the name of Harrecaine. 
with a posse of congenial spirits, called upon the intruder Eedden, 
after first giving him due notice to quit, and were in the act of hang- 
ing him to a tree, when John McNallan and his father Thomas 
McNallan appeared upon the scene, and by a vigorous protest, 
backed by a threat to brain with axes which they carried the first 
man that laid a hand on their intended victim, succeeded in eftect- 
ing Eedden's release, though the cowardly gang of mobbers 
retired threatening to renew the attempt on Eedden's life unless he 
should speedily leave the country, which he soon after did. 

Though the Indians were numerous they were never guilty of 
committing depredations on the farmers of Highland, but annoyed 
them by incessant begging. The whites were afraid to deny their 
requests, and occasionally became the butt of the redskins' practi- 
cal jokes. On one occasion an old squaw and two young bucks 
called on Mrs. Patrick McDonough during the absence of her hus- 
band, and by signs induced her to prepare .them a meal of victuals, 
which she did with much trouble. As soon as it was ready they 
laughed at her and bolted out of the cabin, leaving the meal un- 
touched. 



CHAPTEE LXXXVIIL 



THE VILLAGE OF PLAINVIEAV. 



The charming little village of Plainview is found in the heart of 
that delightful tract of country in the southern part of "Wabasha 
county known as Greenwood Prairie. The place now (in 1884) 
has a population of probabl}'^ eight hundred, the result of a steady 
and wholesome development through 'a period of twenty-eight 
years. It is located in the township of Plainview, on parts of sec- 
tions 7, 8, 9, 16, 17 and 18, about four miles north of the White 
Water, the nearest river. It is the terminus of the Plainview divi- 
sion of the Chicago & Northwestern railway, which has its junc- 
tion with the main line at Eyotain the adjoining county of Olmsted. 

In the spring of 1856 J. Y. Blackwell, an Iowa lawyer, pos- 
sessed of pioneer proclivities, arrived with his family on what is now 
the village site, and erected an insignificant domicile, half logs and 
half boards, near the present location of Geo, S. La Rue & Go's 
drug store, corner Broadway and Jefferson street; and the same 
season Levi Ormsby constructed a claim shanty a half-mile farther 
west. Mr. Blackwell was possessed of some means and at once set 
about getting out the timbers for a hotel, which was raised on the 
site of the present Plainview House, on the ensuing 4th of Jul v. 
Ozias Wilcox arrived that summer, bought forty acres opposite the 
hotel, on section 8, from Hugh Wiley, and erected a store and 
dwelling combined. David Van Wort put up a carpenter-shop, 
and a Mr. Bray a blacksmith-shop. A few others had located on 
land that has since become a part of the present village of Plain- 
view ; among these were Edwin Chajjman, Lloyd Yale and David 
Ackley ; Dr. Gibbs was also an early comer. Thus populated the 
embryo city encountered the terrible winter of 1856-7, which 
opened up in November with a terrific snowstorm. The snow 
lay to a depth of about four feet on the level until the following 
April, and in places was drifted so 'as to nearly bury the poor little 
shanties of these humble pioneers. Communication with the out- 
side world was practically cut off, and fortunate was this little com- 



THE VILLAGE OF PLAINVIEW. 921 

muiiitj in having Mr. Wilcox and his well stocked store of groceries 
and provisions to draw upon in its extremity. This store is the 
same building now occupied by the Plainview bank. Throughout 
the entire winter of 1876-7, it was surrounded by a narrow court, 
swept bare by the same sporCTng winds that banked the snow sev- 
eral feet high on every side. Into these walls of snow, hard packed 
and frozen, steps were cut, that proved a substantial means of exit 
from the court below until an April sun destroyed them. 

The severity of this first winter disheartened many people in the 
settlement, and but for poverty and a beautiful spring another 
winter would have found Plainview quite deserted. However, with 
the return of spring came new pioneer reinforcements from the 
States, other industries were established, and a delightful and pros- 
perous season reassured all save Mr. Blackwell, who shrank from 
encountering the hardships of another winter, and busied himself 
in the disposal of his Plainview possessions, that he might be off 
before the approach of cold weather. In this he succeeded, and at 
once left for his Iowa home, deserting forever his little prairie 
protege. 

The new town was first dubbed Centerville, and was platted 
under that name^ which was changed to Plainview — signifying its 
.sightly location — upon learning that another Minnesota town had 
also been christened Centeiwille. So successful have the inhabitants 
of Plainview been in arboriculture, that the plain view of early days 
is in these times much obscured ; indeed the little city is fairly encom- 
passed by groves of beautiful trees that effectually moderate tlie 
blasts of winter and parry the fierce heat of the midsummer sun, 
adding much to the physical beauty of the town. 

The platting of the village of Plainview in the summer of 1857 
was the conjoint work of J. Y. Blackwell, Ozias Wilcox, T. A. 
Thompson, Lloyd Yale and Dr. Gibbs. Additions to the village 
have since been made by T. A. Thompson on the west, 11. P. Wil- 
son on the east, and A. P. Foster on the south. 

Its existence was at first menaced and its prosperity retarded by 
Greenville (afterward Greenwood), a rival aspirant for urban honors, 
located two and one-half miles east of Plainview. 'Fortunately for 
the latter town, Greenville could not give an unquestionable title to 
her real estate, as it was a part of the Sioux balf-breed tract, and 
capitalists seeking investments for their money in village property 
were prone to pass her by. Plainview, on the other liand, had no 



922 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

such unfortunate circumstance to contend against, and thus having 
decidedly the advantage of her rival, soon vanquished her in the 
race. A few years later and Greenville is a thing of the past, while 
her leading spirits have augmented the industrial ranks of her elated 
and nourishing rival. 

xVs early as the summer of 1858 we find a school established in 
the village. David Van Wort's carpenter-shop sufficed for a school- 
room, and a young Yermonter by the name of Hale wields the 
ferule. An old building that still stands on High street became 
the next schoolhouse ; prior to this it had served duty as a drug- 
store for Dr. Gibbs. The district when iirst established was known 
as No. 60, and retained this number until it was organized into an 
independent district in 1869. The present school-building was 
erected on the public square, near the center of the village, in 
1867, at a cost of nearly sixteen thousand dollars. The follow- 
ing year the school was graded. A few years ago the high school 
was created, and the required course of studies adopted, and today 
the Plainview public schools rank high among the schools of 
Minnesota. 

The first religious organization of any kind in Plainview was 
efiected by the Rev. O. P. Crawford, of Forest Mound, in August, 
1857, and consisted of a class composed of the following named 
ladies and gentlemen, namely, J. Y. Blackwell, Guerdon Town, 
Sophronia Town, S. Lattie, Mrs. Lattie, Matilda Todd, Mrs. Thomp- 
son and Edwin L. Ball. This class afterward developed into the 
Methodist Episcopal church society of Plainview, which opened the 
first Sunday school in the village in April, 1861, with Franklin Syl- 
vester as superintendent. The present Methodist church edifice was 
erected in 1866; it is 33x60 feet, and cost four thousand dolhirs. 
The society have also a parsonage that cost them one thousand dol- 
lars, which was built in the summer of 1867. 

In 1863 the Rev. Henry Williard organized the Congregational 
church society, whicii has since become the leading church of Plain- 
view. In 1871 their present church edifice was built, at a cost of 
seven thousand dollars. Its dimensions are 36 X 56 feet, with a ves- 
try (the gift of the Rev. H. Williard) 28x32 feet. 

The Society of Christians was organized in Plainview February 
1, 1864, with twenty members. The first pastor was Abraham 
Shoeraacher. In 1866 they purchased the old schoolhouse and 
converted it into a church. 



THE VILLAGE OF PLAINVIEW. 923 

The Metliodist and Congregational societies support regular 
weekly preaching. 

A Catholic society is organizing and preparing to build a church. 

Both the Odd-Fellows and Masonic fraternities have good healthy 
organizations in Plain view. Plainview Lodge, No. 63, A.F.A.M., 
was organized December 24, 1866, and Plainview Lodge, No. 16, 
I.O.O.F., was instituted with fifteen chartered members on Decem- 
ber 26, 1866. 

Several lodges of Good Templars have had brief existences ; and 
the Ancient Order of United Workmen once flourished in Plainview, 
but is now defunct. 

While the prevailing spirit is anti-rum, there is yet no organized 
temperance society in the town except a branch of the Women's 
Christian Temperance Union. 

The first attention to the banking business in Plainview was in 
1864, when E. B. Eddy established a small bank in connection with 
his hardware store. In 1867 we find Mr. Eddy giving his exclusive 
attention to the management of the first and only bank in the 
place, which is known as the Plainview bank. The business has 
seemed to prosper from the very first; has changed hands several 
times; at present the firm is Henry Amerland & Co., of which the 
Hon. W. E. Wording is the managing s])irit, with a capital of 
twenty-one thousand dollars. 

Long before the advent of the Plainview railroad the village had 
become an excellent market for the productions of the large and 
extended tract of rich farming lands that surround it. Large quan- 
tities of grain were bought by Plainview buyers, who hauled it with 
teams to shipping points on the Mississippi river. In 1878 the rail- 
road was completed from Eyota to Plainview, and the building of 
elevators was commenced, of which there are now three, each 
having a capacity of about thirty thousand bushels. 

In the spring of 1875 Plainview became for the first time an 
incorporated village. The territory embraced within her corporate 
limits was as follows: The S.E. J of Sec. 7, S. i of Sec. 8, S. W. i of 
Sec. 9, N.W. i of Sec. 16, N. i of Sec. 17 and the N.E. i of Sec. 
18. The first election of officers resulted in the choice of E. B. 
Eddy for president, Chas. Weld, Dr. J. P. Waste and Wm. Law- 
ton for trustees, A. C. Cornwell for recorder, R. Burchard for treas- 
urer and A. B. W. Norton for justice of the peace. Three years 
later the municipal organization was abandoned, in order that the 



924: HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

residents of the village might vote with the remainder of Plainview 
township, the bonds required to further the building of the Plain- 
view & Eyota railroad ; and since 1878 the village has had no 
municipal government. 

The first newspaper ever published in Plainview was a campaign 
sheet, edited by N. E. and M. Stevens, of AVabasha, and issued, for 
a few weeks in the early part of the year 1804, from a local office, 
where it was printed. It was named the Plainview "Enterprise," and 
was a half-patent six-column folio. The next newspa]:»er venture 
was made by T. G. Bolton, who issued the iirst copy of the Plain- 
view "News" on the 16th of November, 1874. This paper was the 
same size as the defunct "Enterprise"; was issued monthly, printed 
in Wabasha, and designed especially as an advertising medium for 
Mr. Bolton's drug business. It has been issued weekly since April 
18, 1877, when F. A. Wilson became its proprietor. The follow- 
ing June the Plainview " News " printing-office was established, and a 
few weeks later the ready-print featui-e of tlie paper was discarded. 
April 1, 1878, H. J. Byron purchased the office, and six months 
later took into partnership Ed. A. Paradis, to whom he sold the 
interest which he had retained in the " News " in April, 1882, since 
which time Mr. Paradis has continued sole ])roprietor of the busi- 
ness. 

The village of Plainview now contains about forty places of busi- 
ness, has three physicians, one lawyer. The business buildings are 
chiefly wooden, but are for the most part respectable both in size and 
appearance. Its growth seems to have been moderate but whole- 
some. The people of Plainview are cultured and sociable, industri- 
ous and prosperous. But even in such a well balanced and intellec- 
tual community as this there is usually enacted, sooner or later, some 
bloody and deplorable tragedy, and Plainview has had its tragedy. 
This occurred on the 22d of January, 1870, when Frank Hatha- 
way, aged 24, son of a Highland township farmer, with a revolver, 
shot and killed Nettie Slayton, a highly respected young lady of 17, 
who had refused his hand in marriage, and immediately thereafter 
made an unsuccessful attempt with the same weapon upon his own 
life. It culminated tliree days later in the hanging of young Hath- 
away to a tree at midnight, by an orderly gang of disguised men, 
supposed to have been composed of many of the best and most 
prominent citizens of both Plainview and Highland. 



CHAPTER LXXXIX. 



THE PRESS OF AVABASHA. 



The first newspaper ever printed in Wabasha county was the 
"Journal," established in the autumn of 1856, at Read's Landing, 
bj H. J. Sanderson, and moved to Wabasha in the spring of 1857, 
where it was published till some time in the fall of 1858, when it 
died. The city records show that it was made the official paper of 
the city of Wabasha April 27, 1858. Some time during the 
summer S. S. Burleson bought an interest in the paper, and later in 
the same season acquired entire control. Not a single number of this 
paper is in existence, so far as known to the writer, and little is 
known of Sanderson, except that he went south, and, when Vicks- 
burg surrendered to Grant, was one of the rebel troops captured 
there, and was recognized by several of his old Wabasha acquaint- 
ances. 

. On Christmas day, December 25, 1858, Burleson issued No. 1 of 
the Minnesota "Patriot," which was made the official paper of the 
city May 3, 1859. It died a natural death some time during the 
summer. .Burleson was a lawyer of fair ability, but at a later date 
studied theology, and became, and still is, an Episcopal minister. 
Both the " Journal " and the "Patriot " were democratic in politics. 

October 29, 1859, H. C. Simpson commenced the publication of 
the Wabasha "Weekly Journal," a six-column quarto, republican 
in politics. On November 23 of that year the newspaper was made 
the official organ of the city. In the spring of 1860 one G. W. 
Marsh bought an interest with Simpson, and the paper was published 
by Simpson & Marsh. The old residents of the county will remem- 
ber that this was the year of the first contest between Wabasha 
and Lake City for the county seat. Simpson and Marsh were both 
reputed to be commercial gentlemen, and some Lake City gentlemen 
made some investments in them, which did not prove to pay largely; 
but the Wabasha people were unreasonable enough to be very angry 
when they got wind of the matter, and the two newspaper men came 
very near being drowned in the Mississippi. Wabasha about this 



926 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

time was not a good field for the "Journal," and it subsided here 
December 8, 1860, and started again at Lake City Januar}^ 3, 1861. 
Simpson soon after enlisted in the 2d regt. Minn. Vols., and passed 
from sight of his Wabasha friends, though " to their memory dear." 
Marsh went to Wisconsin, and at a later date was crippled by an 
accidental gunshot. These early papers were of use in their time, 
but their influence died with them, and they have long since been 
almost forgotten, even by those who used to read them week by 
week. The only paper ever published in Wabasha that has had 
much influence in molding public sentiment is the " Herald," and a 
sketch of its career is really about all that is of especial interest in 
connection with the subject of this article. 

In the early spring of 1857 the late Mr. McMaster, a north of 
Ireland Presbyterian, and a man of liigh character and indomitable 
energy, settled at Read's Landing, with his wife and a large family of 
children, several of whom were already young men. Two of his 
sons were ])rinters, and they either brought with them, or soon ob- 
tained, a press and material, and made arrangements to publish a 
news])aper. It was at that time proposed to call the village of Read's 
Waumadee, and the newspaper was named the Waumadee "Herald," 
and the first number was published during the first week in May. 
On the 12th day of that month the Messrs. McMaster were drowned 
in the Mississippi by the accidental upsetting of a skifi:' in which 
they were crossing the river, and with them died the Waumadee 
"Herald." Norman E. Stevens, a young printer from Illinois, arrived 
at Read's some two months after the death of the McMasters, and 
with the assistance of the business men of the village, especially T. 
B. Wilson and F. S. Richards, made arrangements to purchase the 
oflicefrom Mr, McMasters senior, and on June 27, 1857, he published 
the first number of the Wabasha county "Herald." More than 
twenty-six years have passed, and the little seven-column sheet then 
started has never for a single week failed to greet its readers, and 
not a few of its original subscribers are still on its list, and have 
received and read every number. Mr. Stevens was an eager repub- 
lican, and the pa])er was from the start devoted to the advocacy of 
the principles of that party ; and though it changed owners repeat- 
edly it remained true to the ofiice until April, 1881, when it ceased 
to be a party paper. 

Mr. Stevens was a thorough printer and a fair writer, and the 
"Herald," under his control, was fully up to the average of country 



THE PRESS OF WABASHA. 927 

papers at the time in point of ability, and was exceptionally well 
printed. 

In the fall of 1860 the people of Wabasha, being disgusted with the 
course taken by the publishers of the "Journal," determined to have 
a paper that could be trusted to assist in the development of their 
town instead of their rival Lake City, and such arrangements were 
made with IVV. Stevens, that in December he moved his material to 
Wabasha, and on the 12th day of that month the paper appeared, 
with Wabasha and Reads at its head as joint places of publication, 
and it was so published until the spring of 1S63, when the name 
Read''s Landing disappeared from its head. 

Some time during the year 1861 the issue of a semi-weekly edi- 
tion was commenced; the exact date cannot now be fixed, as no 
complete file even of the weekly exists, and not a single copy of the 
semi-weekly can be found here. It was, however, continued until 
the close of 1862, and was a very bright, newsy sheet. During the 
year 1862, U. B. Shaver, now the publisher of the Dodge county 
"Republican," was sole publisher for a few weeks, and Stevens 
started a paper at Plainview, but it was not a success and he returned, 
and Shaver and Stevens were joint proprietors up to about April 1, 
1864, when Stevens sold his interest to his partner Shaver and 
moved to Paxton, Illinois, where he has ever since resided. He 
was highly esteemed here as an honest, upright man, and was thor- 
oughly identified with the interests of the town and county. In 
1863 he was an alderman from the first ward and was a useful mem- 
ber of the city council. 

Under Shaver's management the paper failed to maintain the 
standing given it by Stevens, and the addition, for a few weeks in the 
summer of 1864, of R. H. Copeland, familiarly known as "Dick," 
did not improve matters. August 3, 1865, Shaver sold out to two 
young men of character and ability, E. W. Gurley and Frank E. 
Daggett. Both were eager republicans and had served in the 
Union army, and Daggett had won a lieutenant's commission by 
gallant service. Gurley was a pleasant writer and did most of the 
editorial work during the short time he remained connected with the 
paper, and Daggett, who was an excellent printer, attended to the 
mechanical department. Mr. Gurley was not in good health and 
soon retired, and at a later date went south, and is now a resident of 
North Carolina. Henry W. Rose, the purchaser of Gurley 's inter- 
est, was a writer of very much more than ordinary ability. Under 
56 



928 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

his editorial management the "Herald" was at its best, and was 
generally regarded as the ablest country j^aper in Minnesota. 
About January 1, 1S6S, Daggett became ambitious of a larger field, 
and, disposing of his share in the "Jlerald" to Rose, went to La 
Crosse and purchased an interest with Lute Taylor in the " Repub- 
lican and Leader," of that city. The " Herald " remained under the 
sole management of Mr. Rose from this time until his death, in 
April of the same year. 

Henry W. Rose was a native of Wyoming county, New York, 
and was about thirty years old at the time of his death. He had 
been carefully educated, was a man of fine literary ability, and 
developed a rare talent for journalism. There was in him the mak- 
ing of a great editor if he had lived. For a few weeks during Rose's 
illness, and after his death, J. K. Arnold had charge of the office ; 
but Daggett, whose La Crosse enterprise had not ])roved a success, 
soon returned and purchased the office from Lorenz Ginthner, 
administrator of Rose's estate, and was sole proprietor until the 
summer of 1.S70, when he sold to Amasa T. Sharpe and Willis D. 
Palmer. 

At a later date he started the Litchfield '' Ledger," and continued 
its publication until his death in 18S0. Frank Daggett was no 
ordinary man; with no education except that acquired in the com- 
mon school, supplemented by the knowledge picked up at a com- 
positor's case, he was yet a very intelligent man, and could, and did, 
write pithy, pungent English. Long editorial articles were not in 
his line, but in short paragraphs he was thoroughly at home. He 
was gifted with a rare fund of wit and humor, and was the life of 
any com])any. Though sorely affiicted with increasing obesity (he 
was only five feet six inches in height, and weighed very nearly two 
hundred and fifty pounds when a resident here) he was a great 
worker, accomjjiishing far more than nuin}- men of ordinary size. 
He was a zealous republican, and an eager, though not always, or 
even generally, a prudent politician, and made the "Herald" red- 
hot in all political campaigns. In the county-seat contest of 1867 
he rendered so valuable services to Wabasha, that after the election 
lie was presented with a valuable gold-headed cane by the citizens as 
a token of regard; he was very proud of the cane, and always car- 
ried it to the day of his death. Mr. Sharpe, the senior member of 
the new firm, was a democrat, as became the son of that old wheel- 
horse of the party, Gen. A. T. Sharpe. and had been appointed 
mail agent by favor of Senator Daniel S. Norton after he followed 



THE PRESS OF WABASHA. 929 

Andrew Johnson into the democratic ranks ; but Wabasha was still 
a republican county, and as most of the subscribers to the "Herald" 
were republicans, he did not think it prudent to change its political 
course. Palmer was a printer, and had charge of the office ; Sharpe 
was neither printer nor writer, but he was a shrewd, keen business- 
man, and soon became an excellent newspaper manager. The lead- 
ing editorials during the two jears following were furnished by John 
N. Murdoch, a well-known lawyer of Wabasha, and a republican of 
the straightest sect, and he did not allow the "Herald" to become 
lukewarm in its politics. Later, in the autumn of 1872, Sharpe and 
Palmer left Wabasha for Ottawa, Kansas, where they established 
the Ottawa "Republican," which is still conducted as a daily and 
w^eekly paper by Mr. Sharpe, who has become a prominent leader 
in re])ublican circles, and has been very successful in making 
money. For years past he has been a member of the Kansas State 
Board of Charities, and he is always prominent in county and state 
conventions. Palmer remained with him less than a year and then 
drifted to the Pacific coast. W. S. Walton, the new proprietor of 
the "Herald," was and is a thoroughly wide-awake man, an educated 
gentleman, trained to literary work, and under his jurisdiction the 
paper was kept fully up to its mark, and in some respects surpassed 
it. Though he is still a resident here, it is not improper to say that 
he made the "Herald" a better local paper than it had ever been 
before. It became more than ever an eager advocate of everyth.ing 
which, in the judgment of its editor, could tend in the slightest 
degree to increase the prosperity of Wabasha. It was tilled week 
after week with articles urging the development of the surrounding 
country, and never ceased to impress upon the people of Wabasha 
and the Zumbro valley the importance of a railroad fi-om Wabasha 
westward ; nor was it in the paper alone that Mr. Walton worked 
for a railroad up the Zumbro valley ; for that object he used up 
reams almost of paper and boxes of envelopes, and his postage bills 
were encrmous ; for it he traveled far and near, and never rested 
until his efforts were crowned with success. 

To the "Herald " and its then editor and proprietor Wabasha is 
Ideally indebted for inaugurating and putting in motion the move- 
ment which resulted in building the Midland railroad from Wabasha 
to Zumbrota. It was his work almost alone, and, as is the fate of 
most public benefactors, he got more kicks and curses than coppers 
out of it. During a part of the time his brother, Mr. H. H. Walton, 



930 HISTORY OF AVAIJASIIA COUNTY. 

was associated with him in the paper, aiul June 1, 1878, ^\. L. 
Lewark, who for several months had been foreman in the office, 
bought a third interest in the establishment, which he has ever 
since retained, witii charge of the mechanical department, and 
the job office. Aj)ril 1, 1879, Mr. Walton took to the road again 
in his old business of publisher's agent, W. 11. 11. Matteson having 
bought his two-thirds interest in the "Herald.'' Matteson and 
Lewark ran the paper not very successfully for just two years, or until 
April 1, 1881, when Mr. O. F. Collier purchased from Matteson 
and assumed the business management, with Mr. Lewark control- 
ling the types and presses. Under their management the "Herald" 
has been a paying property, and there is no present reason to expect 
any other changes. Though " O. F. Collier & Co., Editors and 
Proprietors," appears at the head of the paper, it is imderstood that 
the main editorial work for the last three years has been done by 
John N. Murdoch. The "Herald" has had for ten years past a 
circulation varying from seven to twelve hundred, the latter being 
about the present figure. It has always been a good property, and 
never better than now. There would seem to be no good reason 
why it may not continue to furnish the weekly news to the grand- 
children of many of its present subscribers. Perhaps it would not 
be right to close this sketch without noticing the "Federal Constitu- 
tion," a democratic journal published for a few weeks in the summer 
of 18G4, by Dr. F. H. Milligan and John W. Tyson ; it was short- 
lived, had no office, and was printed on the "Herald" press, 
Wabasha has not been fortunate in democratic papers, but there is 
one more to notice. Li the summer of 1879 one Sigler commenced 
the publication of the "Bulletin," a paper which under his control 
devoted its main energies to abusing the best citizens of Wabasha. 
Sigler had a little type, a poor press, no money and no credit ; 
his paper had a circulation of perhaps two hundred and was a 
failure from the start. In the latter part of 1880 it passed into the 
hands of J. R. Pennington, an ex-preacher of the Hardshell Baptist 
persuasion, and became less vulgar and more dull. Later C. J. 
Haines ran it for awhile, but grew tired of the uphill job and left for 
Dakota, where he is doing well as one of the proprietors of the 
Pierre "Signal." 



CHAPTER XC. 



TOWN OF MINNEISKA. 



This townsliip is situated in the soiitlieastern part of Wabasha 
county, and is bounded as follows : On the north by the town ot 
Greenfield, on the east by the Mississippi river, on the south by 
Winona county and on the west by the town of Watopa, and is known 
on the government survey as T. 109 N., of E. W, 

Minneiska is a fractional town, and falls far short of containing 
the requisite number ot sections to constitute a full government 
township, there being but thirteen comj^lete sections in it, while the 
eight other parts of sections, which form its eastern boundary, are 
much curtailed by the course of the river. 

The lirst settlement within the limits of what is now known as 
the town of Minneiska was made as early as 1851, Michael Agnes 
coming up from St. Louis in August of that year, and building a 
■shanty on the southeast corner, on the river side. Louis Krutely 
followed the same summer, settling near Agnes. During the same 
year Charles R. Reed, of Reed's Landing, purchased a claim some 
four miles further up the river. These men only built shanties to 
shelter themselves while cutting wood for the steamboats that plied 
up and down the river, and broke no ground for cultivation during 
their first year. Their mainstay for subsistence was the rod and tlie 
rifle, and very often they had nothing but lisli and fowd, and con- 
sidered themselves fortunate if they could occasionally trade their 
game for some flour and other necessaries with the stewards of the 
steamers. Tlie total sale of their wood during the summer did not 
buy enough food to supply them during the winter, and they had a 
hard time to pull through until the following spring. Steamboats 
were not as plenty on the rivers in those days as now, and the ad- 
vent of a steamer passing at intervals of weeks was a godsend to 
these hardy men. They used to climb a tree on the island opposite 
to where now is built the prett}'^ village of Minneiska, commanding 
a view of the river up and down for several miles, to sight a coming 
boat, and it was with feelings of anxiety, as their supplies would 



932 HISTOUY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

run low, that they would watch for the first sign of smoke or the 
pant-pant of the steamer. 

1S52 brouglit B. C. Baldwin, Abner Tibbetts, B. II. Reppe and 
Joseph Schurb, wlio all took up land on tlie river bank. A year 
later John Cook, Albert Pomeroy and others came in, and Reed, 
Baldwin, Tibbetts and Reppe laid out their claimff into a town site. 
During the summer a steamer had come to grief and sank just 
opposite their claims, her pilot-house remaining above water, with 
her name, "West Newton," in large letters, so they christened their 
embryo town AVest Newton, and proceeded, through the agency of 
speculators in New York and Chicago, to dispose of "city lots." 
The old settlers, in speaking of these men, dubbed them "land gulls." 
Elaborate plan s were drawn showing reservations for ]-»arks, magnificent 
streets, public buildings, hotels, etc., and a large number of these "cit}' 
lots " were disposed of The scene described by some old pioneers 
would be laughable, if it were not sad, of the landing of a purchaser 
of a city lot asking for the city, and being pointed to the sunken 
steamer and the half-dozen shanties on the low shore. Reed built 
a store and hotel in 1853, and Reppe building a store in 1854 ; 
settlers in the meantime taking up land in which is now the town- 
ships of Minneiska and Mount Yernon. 

In 1855 West Newton was doing well. Shanties liad multiplied, 
a tavern, two stores and a sawmill was in operation. A road had 
been opened to Rochester ; considerable lumber was being cut, and 
West Newton postoffice was established in 1853, with Win. Runnell 
as postmaster. Everything pointed to prosperity foi* the city and its 
promoters, and it looked as if at a very early date the place 
would become one of considerable ini])ortance ; but it turned out to 
be that the bona fide town was built on as slim a foundation as the 
one on paper, and retributive justice fell quickly on West Newton 
and its projectors. The city had been laid out on the low fiat border- 
ing the river, and the Father of Waters resenting the fraud, as it were, 
rose it its mighty wrath and swept the city of West Newton out of 
existence forever. Not a vestige of the place remains, and to this 
day it is covered with water. The proprietors moved higher up, but 
never again attempted to resurrect West Newton. 

Michael Agnes and Louis Krutely, the two first settlers, were 
more fortunate in their laying out and planning operations. In 185-i 
they laid out what is now known as the village of Minneiska, called 
after the river Minneiska that runs through the township, which is 
the Indian for white water. 



TOWN OF MINNEISKA. 933 

A sad fate befell Louis Krutely, who was drowned in Buffalo 
slough, and his body was found some three days afterward by 
Charles Jacobs. 

In the same year that the town site was laid out Dr. Childs and 
a few others located here. But very little improvement was made 
from this time until' the year 1856, which date chronicled the arrival 
of Pliny Putnam, who built a hotel in the fall of the same year. S. 
A. Houck commenced mercantile operations the same season, and 
H. B. Slater opened a store in 1856. The first blacksmith-shop 
was built and put in operation by Albert Pomeroy during the year 

1855, but he had not remained in the business long when he sold out 
to Peter Peterrein, The first warehouse was built by Dr. Childs in 

1856, and was occupied by Timmerman & Swart in 1857, this being 
the year that the hrst grain warehouse was erected in Wabasha 
county. _ In 1856 a steam-sawmill was erected by the firm of Biglow 
& Son, which was continued in operation about four years, when the 
business was closed up and the machinery removed to Chippewa. 

As early as the year 1854 the first birth occurred in the town. 
This was a daughter of Jacob Schurb, christened Mary, born in the 
month of January. The first marriage was that of Peter Schenk to 
Mary Leyes. The ceremony took place on July 16, 1856. The 
first death was that of the wife of John Meyer, which took place in 
January, 1855. Religious services were held here as early as 1856 
by Elder Mallinson. 

The first school was taught by Miss M. Adams, in the summer 
of 1858, in a building owned by C. Anderson. No regular school- 
building was erected until the year 1866. A church edifice was 
erected by the Roman Catholics in 1867, costing $1,100. Prior to 
this date services had been held hy that denomination for a period 
of ten years. 

Minneiska is a fine brisk business town, containing within its 
limits two villages, one of which bears the same name as the town, 
while the other is called Weaver and is situated about three miles 
northwest of the village of Minneiska, the latter village being situated 
in the extreme southeastern corner of the town. Both Minneiska and 
Weaver are stations on the line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul railway. The village of Minneiska is built on the banks of 
the Mississippi river, and has one of the finest natural boat-landings 
to be found on the great ' ' Father of Waters " from Lake Itaska to 
the Gulf. The village extends for about a mile along the river's 



934 HISTORY OF wauasiia county. 

bank, and contains but one street of any consequence. So abrupt is 
the ascent of the high bluffs which at this pouit rise ahnost from the 
river shore and tower over tlie vilhige at an altitude of live hundred 
feet, that it was impossible to do otherwise than confine the limits 
of the village to this narrow compass. During the winter months 
the sun, shortly after noon, hides her face behind these steep bluffs, 
not to ap})ear again until she peeps over the AVisconsin hills on the 
following morning, while during other seasons of the year she is lost 
to Minneiska at a correspondingly early hour, and it may therefore 
be truthfully said that in this village " the sun never sets." 

Following is a list of the first officers of the town of which there 
is any official record. They were chosen at a town meeting held at 
the house of S C. Brown, on April 5, 1859: A. Z. Putnam, chair- 
man of supervisors ; G. E. Kaeding and James M. Douglass, super- 
visors ; Linus Bascom, town clerk ; Linus Bascom, assessor ; Aaron 
F6x, collector ; Peter Wurstlein, overseer of poor. The present 
town officers are : Benjamin Jacobson, chairman of supervisors ; J. 
P. Nepper and A. Roselock, supervisors ; D. H. Ingalls, town 
clerk : AVilliam McKenney, treasurer ; W. E. Wright, assessor ; D. 
H. Ingalls and S. P. Jones, justices of the peace ; William Fitzgerald 
and J. C. Gentzkow, constables. 

On the morning of January 6, 1884, at ?:30 o'clock, occurred a 
disastrous fire in the quiet little village of Minneiska, which resulted 
in the loss of considerable property. The fire was discovered 
by Nick Rouck, dealer in dry goods and notions, between his store 
on Main street, known as the Agnes building, and the large elevator 
of Brooks Bros., the belief being that it originated in the former 
building, which, besides being occupied as a store and dwelling by 
Nick Rouck, was also occupied as a dwelling by the Bowman and 
Agnes families. 

The night was clear and extremely cold, the thermometer regis- 
tering 30° below zero, with a light wind blowing from the bluffs, 
and both the Agnes building and the large elevator were soon envel- 
oped by the fiery element ; the flames then crossed the street, and, 
despite every eftbrt of the people, caught on the large three and a 
half story hotel, owned by Joseph E. Becker, of St. Charles, and 
managed by John W. Short, and this structure was soon reduced to 
ashes. Luckily, the fire spread no farther than this on the main 
street ; two other buildings, one a warehouse, owned by Brooks 
Bros., lying northeast of their elevator, and the other an icehouse, 
lying north of that, were also razed to the ground. 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 935 

Twenty-five thousand bushels of grain were destroyed in the 
elevator, besides all the machinery, which was very valuable, and 
Other appurtenances. Dr. D. F. Brooks, who, in partnership with 
Dr. Jas. B. Cole, had an office in the elevator building, lost a valua- 
ble medical library, wjdle Dr. Cole lost all his surgical instruments, 
valued at $250, on which there was no insurance. 

Brooks Bros, were insured as follows : Elevator building, $3,500 ; 
machinery, $500; grain in building, $12,500; Dr. D. F. Brooks, 
library, $1,500 ; Nick Rouck, on stock, was insured for $2,500. 
Mrs. Agnes, on building, was insured for $1,000, and Joseph E. 
Becker, on the hotel, had insurance to the amount of $1,000. 

Mr. Short, the hotel proprietor, carried no insurance on his 
household goods, and, together with the Agnes and Bowman fami- 
lies, lost nearly everything in tliis kind of property. Edwin Zim- 
merman, an employe of Brooks Bros., lost all his clothes. 



CHAPTER XCI. 

THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

One of the pioneers of the northwest was Duncan Graham, who 
was born in Scotland. He came to this country in the early part of 
the century, and to \Yabasha about 1834. He was engaged for a num- 
ber of years in carrying the mails between Prairie dii Chien and the 
Red River of the North. His travels extended throughout most of 
the northwestern states, and one of the islands in Devil's Lake bears 
his name. The occasion of his final location at Wabasha was the 
residence of a daughter at that place, who had married Joseph Buis- 
son, an Indian trader and voyager, who had established a trading 
post at the place as early as 1832. 

An interesting item in the history of Wabasha is the naming of 
the town by Mr. Graham, who wrote the name of the future city and 
an account of some of the transactions that had taken place here, 
sealed them up in a glass bottle and buried the same in the ground 
near the bank of the river. Over the spot he planted a post, which 
has been seen by some of the early settlers now living, but it is now 
gone and the exact location is not known. It is supposed, however, 



936 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

to be near the river bank and just back of the First National Bank 
building. Mr. Graham was an educated gentleman and kept 
detailed diaries, in one of which he describes the occasion of the 
burying of the record, as above stated. He resided here until about 
1847, when he removed to Mendota, where he died December 5, 
of above date, at the age of seventy-five years. 

Joseph Buisson, named above, married the daughter of Mr. Gra- 
ham, Nancy Lucy Graham, in 1832, and ])ermanently located at 
Wabasha a few years later. Mr. Buisson was born in Montreal in 
1797, and at the time of Ins location here was engaged in carrying 
goods from St. Louis to different trading posts on the Upper Miss- 
issip])i. For a number of years after his location here he was 
engaged in the Indian trade and farming. He was one of the origi- 
nal proprietors and owned M'hat is known as Lot No. 4. 

They had seven children, six of whom are still living. Their 
names are Harriet Lariviere, Heni-y, Mary Louise, Antoine, Joseph, 
Cyprian and Mary Jane. Henry, Joseph and Cyprian still reside in 
Wabasha and are engaged in steamboating, all -in the capacity of 
master and pilot. They run the best class of raftboats on the 
rivei- between Stillwater and St. Louis. 

Joseph married Mary Elizabeth Stevens, November 22, 1872. 
They have four children. The names of those living are Clara 
Louise, Angeline, Ethel and Daniel Shaw. Henry married Emily 
Lariviere. They have had two children, one of whom is dead, and 
the other, Hattie, is married. 

Cyprian married Libbie Stone, daughter of Philo Stone. 

The elder Joseph Buisson died in 1857, and was buried on the 
summit of (Quarry Hill, just west of the city, where also lies the body 
of Augustine Rocque, a sketch of whom appears in another part of 
this work.* His widow, and mother of the family noted, is at this 
writing seventy-five years of age and enjoying good health, and is a 
resident of Fort Totten, Dakota. 

The following extract from the Wabasha " Journal" of July, 
185S, cannot but prove interesting : 

Joseph Buisson, now deceased, settled at Wabasha in August, 1839. lie 
was born at Prairie Madeleine, Lower Canada, about fifteen miles above Mont- 
real; he was of French parentage. In the many conversations I have had 

* Since the writing of the above the remains of Joseph Buisson, Sr., have 
been removed by his sons, and reinterred January 17, 1884, in the Riverside 
cemetery. 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 937 

with him, I learned much of this country. He came to Minnesota at the age 
of seventeen, and was in the employ of the American Fur Company for eight 
years in succession. A man of strong natural sense, but uneducated; audit 
will readily be supposed the society in a country without the border of civili- 
zation was not favorable to the formation of correct habits in a young man of 
the ardent temperament of Monsieur Buisson. He was possessed of an iron 
constitution ; bold, courageous, quick in his resentments, and ready to conciliate 
in sincerity. He was social to a great degree, and as a neighbor ever ready to 
oblige; hospitable to an extent that was injurious to his prosperity, as profli- 
gate and undeserving shared equally with their betters. The credit of inviting 
emigration on the Half-breed Tract, and assisting to shelter the new comers, is 
well known to many of the early settlers, and is vouched for by the writer. 
Himself, in connection with Oliver Cratte, were the original proprietors of the 
town. His decease happened on the 10th day of October last — the day of our 
annual election — at the age of fifty-three years. 

David Cratte, city marshal since 1878. David Cratte is the son 
of Oliver Cratte and the grandson of Duncan Graham, both of whom 
were residents in this part of the northwest during the first quarter 
of the present century, and of whom frequent mention will be found 
in the earlier chapters of this history. David Cratte was born near 
Minnehaha Falls, in this state, March 15, 1837, and came with his 
father to Cratte's Landing (now Wabasha) when he was between two 
and three years of age, and this place has been virtually his home 
for the past forty-four years. He was frequently absent from 
Wabasha when a child, there being no opportunities for instruction 
here, and spent some of his childhood years with thePrescotts at Fort 
Snelling, and also with Alex. Faribault, an nncle by marriage, at 
Mendota. He was also with James Wells, another nncle, at what 
is now Frontenac. During these years until 1845, he was sent to 
school as opportunity offered. In 1846 he returned to Wabasha, 
and tlie same fall was sent to Knox College, at Galesbnrg, Illinois, 
where he remained four years, and then came home. In 1853 Mr. 
Cratte went upon the river as a raft pilot, which occupation he fol- 
lowed for twenty-six years, — nntil 1870 as pilot of floating rafts, 
from 1870 to, 1877 piloting raftboats, — his first steamer down the 
Mississippi being the L. W. Bardin. He retired from the river in 
the fall of 1877, and the following spring was made marshal of the 
city, and so continues. Mr. Cratte's prowess in all athletic sports, 
and his unusual fleetness of foot and great powers of pliysical endur- 
ance, were frequently evidenced in the early days of Wabasha, and 
mention of them will be found elsewhere. David Cratte married 
Eliza J. Harrell, February 5, 1858, at Hannibal, Missouri. Their 



938 HISTORY OF WAUASIIA (BOUNTY. 

diildreii are: Ed. D., born January 20, 1859; Alfred IT., born 
February 28, 1861 ; Oliver P., born February 17, 1863 ; Wm. T., 
March 29, 1865; Elizabeth F., born August 20, 1868; Nancy J., 
born September 30, 1873 ; Harry D., born March 7, 1877. 

Charles R. Read, the ])ioneer independent white settler of 
Wabasha county, if not of that portion of the northwest now in- 
cluded in the territorial limits of Minnesota, was born in the i)arish 
of Farnsborough, Somersetshire, England, March 20, 1821. In 
1.S32 he came to Canada with his brother's family, spending his first 
winter in Little York (now Toronto), and the following season locat- 
ing in the old Niagara district, near the forks of the Chippewa, 
some forty or fifty miles from its entrance into the Niagai-a river. 
From there at sixteen years of age young Read came into the 
United States. Returned to Canada the following year, 1838, in 
the army of invasion that crossed the frontiers during the Canadian 
rebellion of 1837-8. Was taken prisoner, and narrowly escaped 
hanging. Experiencing the queen's clemency (on account of his 
youth), he came to the United States ; enlisted in the army for the 
defense of the southwestern frontier, and was in service in the Indian 
Territory and Texas until ls44, when he settled at Nelson's Landing, 
just opposite Read's Landing (named in his ho!ior), and to which he 
came three years later, 1847. The after history of Mr. Read is 
closely interwoven with that of the locality named for him that it 
will be found incorporated. Mr. Read had a very early acquaint- 
ance with public affairs in this county. He was the first justice of 
the peace appointed in this section after the organization of the ter- 
ritory, receiving his commission from Gov. Ramsey in 1850. lie 
was county commissioner upon the organization of the county in 
1853, and held that position either by appointment or election until 
the year 1860, serving as the first chairman of the board of super- 
visors for Pepin township, and so by virtue of his office was county 
commissioner (virtually). He was major of the 6th Inf. regt. from 
1861-3, and in that capacity was temporarily in command of the 
defenses on the frontier for some weeks. He was also elected 
colonel of the 8th regt, state militia. May 3, 1863, but the regiment 
was soon legislated out of existence. He was married June 7, 1849, 
at Read's Landing, to Miss Sarah Williamson, by whom he had 
twelve children, eleven of whom are living. Mrs. Read died January 
'6, 1870, after a married life of thirty years, which Mr. Read declares 
to have been to him one of almost unalloyed happiness. The chil- 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 939 

dren now living are : Jane, born June 27, 1851 ; C. P. (the only one 
married), born November 7, 1853 ; Wm., born June 30, 1857 ; 
Geo. W., born March 12, 1859 ; Ed. M., born October 10, 1860 ; 
Emily O., born November 6, 1862 ; H. B., born April 26, 1864; 
Frank M., born October 14, 1865 ; Silas S., born April 13, 1867 ; 
Ralph R., born October 13, 1870 ; H. H., born June 20, 1872. Mr. 
Read resides on the old homestead, about one mile from the land- 
ing, on a beautiful elevation overlooking the entire prairie between 
the Minnesota bluffs and the Mississippi river, as far down as the 
Zumbrota river, taking in the swell of the bluffs on the Wisconsin 
shore, and affording a lovely view of Alma, twelve miles distant, at 
the foot of the twelve-mile bluffs, one of the grandest ranges of cliffs 
on the upper Mississippi river. 

F. S. Richards, postmaster. Mr. Richards was born in Weather- 
field, Genesse county, April 21, 1822, and came west with her 
fatlier's family, who settled at Prairie du Chien as early as 1836. In 
their journey to the Mississippi they passed the present site of 
Chicago, then a growing village, and Mr. Richards recalls earning 
some money picking up the roots and chips of those who were grub- 
bing where the ]u-oudest city west of the Alleghenies now stands. 
In 1850 Mr. F. S. Richards, then twenty-eiglit years of age, came up 
the Mississippi river with a large stock of general merchandise, 
having a United States license to open trade with the Indians, and 
settled at Read's Landing. His store was on what is now railway 
property, very near the northeast corner of Water and Richards 
streets. Business was successfully conducted until the financial 
crash of 1858 swept him off his feet and mined him financially. 
Since then Mr. Richards was variously employed until 1870 in 
^nsiness — from 1860 to 1868 at Downsville, Wisconsin — since 1870 
principally farming, cutting grass on the bottom lands, taking out 
cordwood, etc., until he received his second appointment as post- 
master at Read's Landing. (See article on postofhce). He was the first 
village president upon the incorporation of Read's Landing in 1868, 
and at all times, during his residence of over a third of a century, 
has taken an intelligent interest in public affairs. Mr. Richards 
married Miss C. A. Moses, November 5, 1850, in Grant county, 
Wisconsin. They have six children, five of whom are residents of 
Read's Landing : Ida, born March 15, 1856 ; Walter B., born June 
22, 1858; Lloyd S., born October 23, 1860; Emma May, born 
October 4, 1864 ; Ruth D., born April 5, 1867 ; Grace, born April 
3, 1869. 



9-iO HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTi'. 

Francis Talbot, dealer in hides, furs and peltries ; office on Alle- 
gheny street, south of Main. This business was established here in 
1858, five years after Mr. Talbott came to this city as clerk for Mr. 
Alexis Bailly, in the Indian trade ; so that his residence here dates 
from 1853, a period of fully thirty years. Mr. Talbot was born in 
1835, at Stoneluill, County Westmeath, Ireland, where he received a 
good common English education, a tutor being employed in his 
instruction until his fourteenth year, when he came to America, 
arriving at New York in 1 849. Coming to Chicago, he was engaged 
in clerking there for John H. Kinzie, son of the founder of 
that city, from whom, in 1853, he brought letters of introduction to 
Mr. Alexis Bailly, who was engaged in trade with the natives at this 
point. Three years later, in 1856, he bought out Mr. Bailly's 
stock and engaged in general merchandise for himself, until, with 
thousands of others, he went nnder in the great financial crash of 
1858. For some time Mr. Talbott was not engaged in business, and 
since 1858 has only been conducting general merchandising about 
six years, part of that time in company with Mr. B. Eddy, during 
his connection with general business here, other than furs, hides and 
peltries, in 1870. He owns one of the principal corners in the city. 
at the intersection of Main and Allegheny streets, fronting eighty 
feet on Main and one hundred and forty on Allegheny. Mr. Talbot 
has never married. His early association with the natives, in the 
conduct of trade, led him to take a very deep interest in all the his- 
torical legends and landmarks of the early French and aborigines 
occupants of this territory. For the past eight or ten years he has 
been quite constantly engaged in collecting data for some future his- 
torian who should attempt the narration of the early story of this 
region. This matter has been placed in the hands of the compilers 
of this History of Wabasha County, who gratefull}^ record their 
appreciation of the services thus rendered by Mr. Talbot. 

F. H. MiLLiGAN, M.D. ; office and consulting rooms corner of 
Main and Pembroke streets. Dr. F. H. Milligan was born in Phila- 
delphia, December 8, 1830, removed to St. Louis with his parents in 
1835, completed his course in the high school of the latter city in 
1846, and subsequently entered Jefferson Medical College, Phila- 
delphia, graduating M.D. in 1851. The class of that year contained 
many names that have become eminent in the medical profession ; 
among whom may be mentioned Dr. Thomas A. Turner, Dr. Fleet, 
surgeon U. S. N., and Dr. James A. Meigs, who has a national 



THE PIONEEKS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 941 

reputation as a medical author. Dr. Milligan immediately located 
for practice in St. Louis, was in that city for two years, and then 
removed to this place September 1, 1853, where he has now been prac- 
tising his profession a little over thirty years. With the exception 
of Dr. John II. Murphy, of St. Paul, Dr. Milligan has practiced 
medicine more years in this state than any other physician now 
living. The doctor was the original president of the Wabasha 
County Medical Society, assisted at the organization of the State 
Medical Society in 1868, and was centennial president of the State 
Society, holding office from February, 1876, to June, 1877. As 
president of the society in 1877, Dr. Milligan urged upon that 
body the importance of securing the passage of a state pharmacy 
law, prohibiting all druggists and apothecaries, who could not 
pass a prescribed pharmaceutical examination, from dispensing 
medicines. The recommendation was acted upon by the State 
Medical Society, and a committee presented the matter to the 
state legislature only to have it slaughtered in committee-room. 
When the doctor located for practice in Wabasha his circuit rivaled 
that of the liistoric " Methodist circuit rider," extending southward 
to the Iowa line, eastward to Chippewa Falls, west to Faribault, and 
northward toward Red Wing. It was three years later before any 
•other physician located within the present county limits. Dr. Milligan 
was commissioned assistant surgeon of the 3d Minn. Inf., October 15, 
1861, and served until April of the following year, when he resigned 
and returned home. In December, 1861-, he was again in the service, 
holding commission as assistant surgeon in the 10th Minn. Inf., and 
remained with that command until it was mustered out at the close 
of the war, when he returned home and resumed his active practice. 
Dr. F. H. Milligan in 1853 married Miss Lucy Ann, second daughter 
of Alexis Bailly, of this city, who died in 1865, leaving no children. 
May 1, 1866, the doctor married Miss S. D. Abrams, of Steubenville, 
Ohio. They have had four children, two only of whom are living, 
Dora B., born December 19, 1868, and Wm. Francis, born October 
15, 1870. The family residence is on the bank of the Mississippi, 
just above the city, within the corporate limits, in what is here 
known as the old Judge Yan Dyke homestead. 

Charles J. Stauff, clerk of the district court of the third judicial 
district of Minnesota, a position he has now held by successive 
re-election since 1869, is a native of Germany. Attended scliool 
there until he was eleven years of age, when he came to America 



942 lIISTdKV OF WAUASIIA COUNTV. 

witli Ills fatlier's family, who settled in Greenfield township, in this 
county, on the farm now owned by George Albertson, The date of 
their arrival at Head's Landing, Wabasha county, was June 20, 1854. 
Charles was still living on the old home farm when the war broke out 
in 1861, and on the VMh of February of the following year he enlisted 
in the 5th Minn. Inf regt., followed the fortunes of that command 
until the close of the war, and, having successively promoted through 
all the intermediate grades, was mustered out as first lieutenant 
September 27, 1865. Returning to the old homestead he remained 
one year, then came to Wabasha and was clerk in the general 
merchandising house of Prindle, Mullen & Co. until 1869, when he 
was nominated and elected clerk of the court, and still holds that 
office, his present term expiring in 1886. October 27, 1869, Mr. 
StaufF married Miss M. I. Durand, of Cook's valley, in this county. 
They have one son, Homer C, born December 25, 1874, and now 
attending school in this city. 

G. II. Amerland, farmer, N.W. i of Sec. 10, R 10 of T. 110. 
This farm was taken as a homestead May 22, 1854, the old log 
house, still standing in good repair, was erected that same season 
and did duty as the family residence twenty-two years, when the 
present comfortable brick structure was ])ut up. The farm now 
embraces two hundred acres. His barns were built in 1873, his 
granary and wagon-sheds in 1883. Mr. Amerland was born in 
Germany, came to America in 1846 and settled in New Orleans, 
and was there until 1851 ; then came up the river to Illinois, and, 
after s])ending two years there, came to Minnesota, to Point 
Douglas, and made a claim which he did not perfect. That same 
fall, 1853, he went to New Orleans to meet his brother, who had just 
come over from Europe, and in the following spring they made 
their claims on the prairie just east of the present corporate limits of 
Wabasha. September 3, 1856, G. H. Amerland married Christine 
Frank. Their children are : Mary, born September 13, 1857 ; 
Emma, born November 20, 1858 ; Lucy, born September 22, 1861 ; 
Kate, born December 1, 1862 ; William H., born July 20, 1867, 
now attending high school at Wabasha. 

Oliver Nelson came to Wabasha county in 1854, and was 
probably the first settler in Highland township. He was born in 
Norway January 27, 1835. His parents were Nels and Anna 
(Oliverson) Olson ; Oliver, according to the custom of liis native 
country, taking the given name of his father and appending thereto 




LUGAS KUEHN. 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 94^; 

the suffix son for his surname. He was fifteen when he came with 
his parents to America. The family iirst settled near Madison, 
Wisconsin, and remained two years. In 1852 removed to Decorah, 
Iowa, coming from there to Wabasha county in 1854. The subject 
of this sketch was married to Isabella Hulgerson in 1856. She died 
October 28, 1868, and two years thereafter he again married, this 
time to Mary Ann Halverson, also a native of Norway. Mr. Nelson 
is the father of a numerous family ; of those born to the first wife 
only three survive, namely, Nicholas, Mary Christina and Anton 
C. ; of the second marriage there are living, John Henry, Albert, 
Otis, Joseph, Alfred and Cyrus. In 1855 Mr. Nelson pre-empted 
the farm on which he now resides, one hundred and sixty acres on 
section 32, to which he has added, by purchase, forty acres. The 
first year of his sojourn in Wabasha county he went to mill twice, 
to Decorah, Iowa, a distance of one hundred miles, and the nearest 
neighbors were ten or twelve miles distant. Mr. Nelson is a mem- 
ber of the Methodist church and votes the republican ticket. 

Abner Dwelle, retired farmer, one of the founders and the 
pioneer settler of Lake City, was born in Greenwich, New York, 
January 2, 1805. His grandfather and father bore the 
same name — the former was a sea-captain — and both served 
through the revolutionary war. They were of Massachusetts birth. 
The mother of this subject was Miriam Martin, of New York birth. 
Her son, of whom we write, passed his youth on a farm, attending 
the primitive common schools about three months during the winter 
till eighteen years old. He then entered a woolen carding and 
spinning establishment, and continued in this kind of occupation 
sixteen years. January 8, 1829, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Electa C. Lawrence, a native of Onondaga county. In 3 837 he 
went to Kalamazoo county, Michigan, and cleared a farm in Texas 
township. Here he remained until his removal to Wabasha county 
in 1854. Ten years after his location in Michigan, death took away 
his faithful helpmeet. She was the mother of nine children, of 
whom seven survived her and are still living, all save one in this 
state. The eldest and youngest, Carrie M. and Jennie, reside 
with their father. The eldest son, Elijah, is at Pittsbury, G. M., 
Henry and Thomas L. are in Lake City, and Albert A. in Chicago.' 
February 17, 1849, Mr. Dwelle espoused Zilpha Knapp, born in 
Cliase, New York. Since the time of his settlement here he has 
dwelt on the same spot. He purchased half-breed scrip and secured 
57 



944 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

three quarter-sections of land for himself and sons, on sections 4, 8 
and 9. His residence is on 4, within a rod of the site of the original 
log cabin. In partnership with Samuel Doughty and Abner Tib- 
betts, he platted the city in 1856, and has sold oft' a portion of his 
estate in town lots. He still retains a handsome farm on the out- 
skirts of the city, and takes a deep interest in both rural and city 
affairs. Although seventy-nine years of age, he walks erect, with- 
out a cane, and is in the full enjoyment of all his faculties. Every 
day, summer or winter, rain or shine, he may be seen on the streets 
of the beautiful city which he founded. His last birthday anniver- 
sary was celebrated at his home by a family reunion, at which were 
present children and grandchildren, to the number of nearly a 
score. During his residence in Michigan Mr. Dwelle was an active 
member in the Congregational church, and earned the title of Dea- 
con, by which he has ever since beep known. He is now a firm 
believer in the Spiritualistic faith. Politically he was a whig and 
abolitionist, and is a republican. 

Thomas L. Dwelle, fourth son of Abner Dwelle, was born in 
Michigan, September 12, 1840, and was therefore nearly fourteen 
years of age when he came with his father to the site of Lake City. 
Immediately after the attack on Fort Sumter he enlisted in the three- 
months service of the United States. As soon as his time expired 
he was enrolled in Co. I, 1st Minn. Vols., and served in the army 
of the Potomac. At the battle of Ball's Bluff he received a bullet 
wound through the right shoulder, by which he was disabled, and 
was discharged in February, 1862. Returning to Lake City he has 
ever since been occupied in the management of his farm. He now 
has over two hundred acres, part of his farm being within the city 
limits, where he resides. He is now doing a profitable business in 
su])])lying the city with milk. In October, 1877, he married Laura 
M. Sears, who was born in Caledonia, Wisconsin. Mrs. D. is a 
daughter of "William Sears, who was born in New York. One 
child, a daughter, was born to Mr. and Mrs. Dwelle April 29, 1880, 
and christened Addie Pearl. 

William McCracken is the firsW nian who made any improve- 
ments in Glasgow township ; he was born in Scotland, August 15, 
1815, which was the last day of the great battle of Waterloo. The 
last of the old family died a few months ago at the advanced age of 
ninety-six years. Mr. McCracken landed at St. Johns, New Bruns- 
wick, April 1, 1841 ; from there he went to Canada and lived there 



THE PIONEEES OF WABASHA COUNTY. 945 

for twelve years, and came from there to Glasgow township June 7, 
1855. He first lived in an old house near where his house now 
stands. He was united in marriage, March 24, 1847, in New York. 
After getting ready to be married the minister they called on to marry 
them had no license to marry them in Canada, so they crossed over 
the river into New York and were married. His wife's maiden name 
was Magdaline Scott, a native of the State of Ohio, of Scotch descent. 
Of the five children of this union but two of them are living. The 
eldest is Ann, who is the wife of William Jacobs ; have three chil- 
dren and live in West Albany township, Hannah married James 
Gray ; have two children and live in West Albany township. Mr. 
McCracken's wife died June 14, 1857, and was married to Hannah 
Jacobs in October, 1860 ; she was a native of Germany. Nine 
children have been the fruits of this union ; six of them still living : 
Minnie, William, Margaret, Jennie, John and Eobert. Mr. Mc- 
Cracken has a farm of two hundred and forty acres, where he lives, 
and three hundred and twenty acres in a prairie farm. The narrow- 
gauge railroad runs through his home place, the cars of which ran 
over and killed one of his children (Mary) a few years ago. 

Edward B. Murray was born in County Down, Ireland, in 1818. 
His parents were Edward B. and Margaret Murray. He came to 
America in 1853 ; worked successively in bleaching at Falls River, 
Massachusetts, in wagon-shop at Montreal, Canada, and two years 
as a house-carpenter in Bramford, Canada ; by trade he was a ship- 
carpenter. He came to Wabasha county in 1855 ; having a few 
hundred dollars, he bought some town lots in Wabasha ; erected a 
house and resided there until 1857, when he removed to Highland 
township and pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres on section 
14. He now owns a farm on section 16 in the same town- 
ship, on which he resides. He received a good common school 
education. The farm on which his parents lived in Ireland had 
been in the possession of the Murray family for five hundred years. 
Mr. Murray married in Ireland in 1851 to Margaret Bartley, by 
whom he had five children, viz : William, Daniel, John, Patrick and 
Magg}'. Daniel is the only one at home, the three youngest resid- 
ing with their mother in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and William 
is a dealer in agricultural implements at Minneapolis. 

Ora^lle D. Ford was born in the town of Lebanon, Madison 
county, New York, where he received a common school education and 
lived till September, 1855, when he came to Mazeppa; here he pre-emp- 



946 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ted one Imndred and sixty acres of land in section 30 ; subsequently 
he bought three eighties and settled on the south half of section 6, 
where he still lives. He and his father Jose])h ])latted the village 
of Mazeppa, including the water-power, which is furnished by the 
north branch of the Zumbro. This land was bought by the Fords 
of Judge Welch, of Redwing, who owned it under original patent. 
O. D. Ford sold a number of town lots from his purchase of three 
eighties, and now has about three hundred acres left of valuable 
lands. In 1873, in connection with his son Edward L., he estab- 
lished a boot and shoe store under the firm name of E. L. Ford & 
Co., and which name still continues. At first the trade was small, 
but increased from year to year, and in order to keep pace with the 
growth of business and the demands of their customers they have 
enlarged their space and added to their stock till it now comprises a 
full line of dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, hats and caps, and 
clothing, etc., and are doing a good business. Mr. Ford has always 
taken a lively interest in the growth and welfare of his town and has 
had much to do toward shaping its destiny. He was at one time 
engaged in milling, he and his associate having built and operated 
the first merchant mill in Mazeppa. In 1880 he sold his interest in 
the mill and retired from the business. He was the first president 
of the village council after its organization in 1856, and held the 
office of register of deeds for Wabasha county for five years. In 
1858 he was elected to represent his district in the legislature of 
Minnesota and served till 1861, when his services were alike credit- 
able to himself and acceptable to his constituents. 

Joseph Ford, the father of O. D. Ford, was born in Delaware 
county. New York. His father was a cloth-dresser, of whom he 
learned the business, and afterward moved to Madison county, New 
York, where he established and carried on the same business for a 
number of years, when he turned his attention to farming, at which 
he continued till 1855, when he came to Mazeppa, arriving in the 
fall of 1855. He at once pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres of 
land in the north half of section 6, which he improved and for a 
number of years carried on farming operations, supervising in per- 
son his entire business till he was about eighty years of age, when 
his son, O. D. Ford, attended to his business up to the time of his 
death, which occurred in 1882, he being at the time about eighty- 
three years old. As a friend and neighbor he was greatly esteemed 
by all who knew him ; in intercourse he was urbane and genial ; his 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 947 

convictions were strong but sincere, and his reputation for probity 
and fair-dealing was above reproach ; his daily line of conduct did 
honor to his community, his country and his Creator, and is well- 
worthy the emulation of all mankind. 

E. L. Ford, of the firm of E. L. Ford & Co. , general merchants, 
was born in Madison county, State of New York, in 1851. When 
four years of age he came With his parents to Mazeppa, where he 
grew to manhood, meantime obtaining the rudiments of an educa- 
tion in the school of the village. From here he went to the State 
University of Minnesota for two or three years, after which he took 
a course at the Commercial College of Minneapolis, from which he 
graduated. On returning home in 1873 he and his father established 
a boot and shoe store under the firm name of E. L. Ford & Co. At 
fij'st the trade was small, but, being handled with skill and executive 
ability, it has grown to large proportions ; additions in space and 
also in variety of goods have been added from time to time till it is 
now large and comprises a full line of dry goods, boots, and shoes, 
hats and caps, clothing, crockery, queensware, etc. etc. Mr. E. L. 
Ford is still a young man, but nevertheless has exhibited in his 
business career capacity and the elements of success, which do him 
great credit. 

G. Maxwell, contractor and builder, and agent for DeLong & 
Co., lumber dealers, was born in Franklin county, Massachusetts, 
August 20, 1829. He acquired a limited education at the common 
schools, and was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade. Much of his 
spare time was devoted to the study of mathematics and civil 
engineering. After learning his trade he worked at it till he was 
twenty-eight years of age, when, in the spring of 1855 he came to 
Mazeppa and pre-empted a quarter-section of land in section 29, in 
the town of Chester, a short distance from Mazeppa. After working 
his land for a few years he traded it for property in Mazeppa, where 
he has since resided, and carried on the business of contractor and 
builder, having erected the greater and finer part of the village, 
including some four or five churches. In connection with his build- 
ing operations he and his brother, K. F. Maxwell, run a lumber 
yard, dealing in such lumber as was in demand, also sash, doors, 
blinds, building-paper, etc. On the opening of the railroad to this 
point in 1877 they sold out their lumber business to DeLong & Co., 
for whom he has since acted as agent. In Chester he was town 
treasurer two or three terms. He has been county commissioner, 



948 



HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 



and several times town supervisor for Mazeppa. He was the first 
justice of the peace in Mazeppa and served two terms, and was the 
lirst treasurer of the village. In 1877 he was elected to the legis- 
lature and served one term. 

L. GiNTHNER, merchant tailor, and dealer in ready-made clothing 
and gents' furnishing goods, south side Main, midway between 
Allegheny and Pembroke streets. Property fronts twenty feet on 




Main street, and has a depth of sixty feet. This business was estab- 
lished, as a tailoring establishment, by Mr. Ginthner in 1855, and 
the ready-made clothing department was added eight years later. 
Business has been conducted ct)ntinuously since its establishment 
twenty-eight years since. Two hands are employed in the manufac- 
turing department. Mr. Ginthner is a native of Baden, Germany, 
learned his trade as clothier there, came to America in 1852, and 
after three years, spent principally in the Middle States, came to 
Wabasha August, 1855. His present store-building was built in 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 949 

1867 ; his residence, the finest in the city, corner Allegheny and 
Third, was bnilt in 1882. It is a modern two-story brick, solid stone 
basement, sills and caps, plate-glass windows, and finished in first-class 
style throughout. The main L's, two stories in height, are 24x34 
feet and 20x30 feet respectively. Mr. Ginthner was married in 
1857, to Lugerde Nord. They have six children : George, born 
November 22, 1858 ; Anton, born April 11, 1860, at work in his 
father's tailoring establishment ; Anne, boa-n April 11, 1862, at 
home ; Emma, born March 31, 1866, clerk in the postofiice ; Clara,_ 
born April 23, 1871 ; Julia, born September 27, 187-, both attending 
the Sisters' school in this city. 

Francis W. Shaw, son of Oliver and Jane S., was born in New 
Hampshire, May 26, 1836. In May, 1855, he came with his parents 
to this state and township. They were hardly settled when the 
father died, leaving Francis (the eldest son) the responsibility of 
caring for a large family. Many were the trials and hardships of 
those early days. Mr. Shaw settled on a farm in section 3, now 
owned by Isaac York, and there built the first house and dug the 
first well in the western part of Wabasha county. He was married 
July 4, 1856, to Mary A., daughter of William York, and to them 
have been born two children, William F. and Ethal. In 1861 Mr. 
Shaw enlisted in Co. C, 4th Minn. Inf , and served three years and 
eleven days. He was at the siege and battle of Corinth, Mission 
Ridge, Altona, siege of Vicksburg, and many others. Upon return- 
ing to this county he engaged for several years in agricultural 
pursuits. In 1878 he opened a general merchandise store at Jarrets, 
and has been doing business there since that time. Mr. Shaw is 
one of the oldest and most enterprising citizens of the county. 

Benjamin La\\tjence was born October 16, 1813, at Freetown, 
Bristol county, ten miles east of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He 
was the son of Spencer and Mary P. Lawrence, who, when Benjamin 
was seven years old, moved to Plainfield, Yermont, in the year 1820. 
He had little opportunity to acquire an education. In reciting poetry 
it would be difficult to find his match, his memory is so true. At 
the age of twenty, for four weeks and for the last time in his life, he 
attended school at Marshfield, Yermont, while working as a farmer. 
The next summer he worked at farming near Bangor, Maine, and 
during the winter in an iron foundry in High street. Providence, 
Rhode Island, which he continued for the next two years. In 1837 
he went to Yan Buren county, Iowa, then part of the territory of 



950 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Wisconsin. To reach this he started with an emigrating company 
of Freethinkers, led by Abnon Neeland, editor of the Boston "Inves- 
tigator." He returned to Montpelier, Vermont, where, through the 
summer, he worked on a farm, and the following year was em- 
ployed in Fairbanks (scale) foundry. In 1855, with A. P. Foster 
and others, he came to Plainview. He left immediately to settle 
his business in Vermont, and returned for a permanency in October 
of the same year. His lifetime has been one of continuous hard 
work, being known to have repeatedly worked drawing stakes, 
etc. , as early as two and three o'clock in the morning. His ambition 
for business life prompts him now, even in his feeblest moments, at 
tlie age of threescore and ten, to entertain prospects and devise 
plans for building a gristmill, hauling ten thousand feet of lumber, 
etc. etc. He was the first overseer of the poor by appointment of 
the board of supervisors. May, 1858. It was Uncle Ben, as he is 
now styled, who, with A. P. Foster, stopped over night May 31, 
1855, while prospecting for a settlement, at Mr. Bryant's, in Elgin, 
six miles west of the town he helped to found. 

Francis Jerry (deceased) settled in Chester August 18, 1855, 
taking a claim on section 28. He opened up three farms, and left 
his widow eighty acres on section 33, where he died July 24, 1874. 
Mr. Jerry was a native of New York, born July 6, 1814. He was 
reared on a farm in Canada by an uncle, his parents having died 
when he was an infant. He served in the United States forces 
during the Black Hawk war, and afterward settled near Galena, 
Illinois. He was married there May 2, 1838, to Elizabeth Gris- 
haber, who was born in Hoffwehr, Baden, Germany, November 15, 
1819. After farming on rented land in Illinois he came to Minne- 
sota, as above related. He was deranged by a sunstroke in June, 
1867, and was entirely heljjless during the last three years of his life. 
Besides his widow, live children were left to mourn him, now located 
as follows : Francis M., Barron county, Wisconsin ; Basil, in 
Missouri ; Mary (Mrs. William Evans), Plum City, Wisconsin ; 
Joseph (rendered totally deaf by measles while serving in the 3d 
Minn. Inf.) with his mother ; Augustus, Winfield, Montana ; Isa- 
dore, Washington Territory. Basil served through the war of the 
rebellion, and Francis three years in the same struggle. Mr. Jerry 
was reared a Catholic, but did not adhere to that faith. 

George Bailey, Zumbro, is one of the most intelligent an^ sub- 
stantial fanners of this township. His was the second claim made 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 951 

and the second house built in the town, Mr. Bailey is a native of 
Ireland, born in the parish of Lome, County Tipperary, about 1 822. 
He was reared on a farm, and received a fair common school educa- 
tion. When about thirty years old he came with his father's family 
to America, and engaged in farming in Iowa. Here his father died, 
and he set out to look up a home for the family. He arrived in 
Zumbro (then Mazeppa) in June, 1855, and located on section 25, 
where his home has been ever since. He now has two hundred and 
sixty acres here, besides twenty acres of timber. On this he has 
placed large and handsome buildings. He had little means when he 
came here, and has just reason for pride in the success which his 
labor has wrought. His religious faith corresponds with that of the 
Wesley an Methodists. Politically he is an independent democrat. 
In the winter of 1859-60 he married Mary Little, born in New York 
of Scotch parentage. She died in 1864, leaving two children, of 
whom only one is now living, christened Elizabeth. In 1866-7 he 
was married to Isabel, a sister of his first wife. Her father was one 
of the pioneers in the adjoining town of Farmington, Olmsted 
county. Five children have blessed this union, and are named thus : 
Frank, Andrew, John, Kobert and Mabel. Mr. Bailey's parents 
were Thomas and Jane. The latter came here in 1856, and died in 
1864. Benjamin, the eldest son, took land in this town, and died in 
1870, without any family. Thomas and Andrew, two other sons, 
still reside in the town. 

Okrin Pencille, blacksmith, Zumbro, son of John and Fanny 
(Jiickson) Pencille, was born in Waterloo, province of Ontario, May 
28, 1833. His parents were born, reared and died in the same 
locality. Up till nine years of age he remained with his family on 
the farm, and was then apprenticed for twelve years to a blacksmith 
at Kingston. He had opportunity for limited common school train- 
ing before and during his apprenticeship. His preceptor was a very 
severe man, and. discharged him at the end of nine years. The 
cause of this action was young Pencille's interference to rescue a 
favorite son of his employer from the latter's inhuman flogging for a 
fancied offense. Pencille at once bought a shop, four miles away, 
on credit, and at the end of six months had his shop and tools clear, 
and from that time has followed the calling. He came to Lake City 
from Canada, in May, 1855, and built a shop at Central Point. In 
the fiill of the same year he took up his residence on a claim on sec- 
tion 13, which he held over two years, and then sold. Built and 



952 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

operated a shop at Znmbro Falls, which was carried away by the 
flood of 1859. July 19, 1859, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Mary A. Dennison, who was born in Floyd, New York, daughter of 
Alonzo and Mary (Knox) Dennison. Both are members of the 
Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Pencille is a consistent republi- 
can. Has always been active in sustaining and managing the public 
schools. For the last eighteen years he has dwelt on section 25, 
where he has operated a blacksmith-shop. He now has two hundred 
and eighty acres of land in this town, of wliich one hundred and fifty 
are under cultivation. Besides this, himself and son are holding half 
a section of land in Bigstone county under the United States tree cul- 
ture laws. The family includes five children, two having died in early 
childhood. The third, Ida M., married Frank Fisher and resides 
at Castleton, Dakota. The others are at home, their names in order 
being as follows: William D., Anna L., Grace E. and Kate A. 
All the family is gifted with musical faculties. In early years Mr. 
Pencille taught singing schools in the town, and is now considerably 
engaged in the sale of organs and other musical instruments. 

John E. Hyde, retired merchant, is a grandson of Zabdiel Hyde, 
who commanded a regiment of militia during the defense of New 
London when it was burned by the British in 1Y81. William Hyde, 
father of this subject, was born in Connecticut. Early in life he 
went to Maine to engage in teaching. Here he met Miss Julia 
Douglas, another teacher, born within ten miles of his own native 
place. An attachment sprang up between them and the}^ were 
married. William Hyde became well known as a newspaper and 
book publisher, his establishment being located at Portland. Here 
was born the subject of this sketch, in the year 1819. In infancy he 
was small and puny, but grew to be strong and rugged, though 
small in stature, and in early manhood endured great fatigue and 
extremes of heat and cold. In the early years of his business in 
Mazeppa he was compelled to depend on neighboring farmers for a 
team, and could not often get their oxen in winter except on days 
when it was so cold their owners did not care to be out. On these 
days Mr. Hyde was accustomed to go after wood, or to Red Wing 
after goods. At the same time Mrs. Hyde was not much troubled 
with customers in his absence, so a double advantage was gained. 
It grew to be a common remark with the Red Wing merchants on a 
cold morning, "Well, I guess Hyde will be in today." Mr. Hyde's 
early life was passed mostly in Portland, and his education was 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 953 

furnished by the schools of that city, and high school in Boston. 
He was filled with a desire to be a farmer and conceived a great 
liking for stock, especially horses. Great was his delight when he 
was permitted to spend a winter with an uncle in the eastern part of 
the state. When but two or three years old he was one day taken 
to his father's place of business to ride home with him on a horse. 
When ready to go his father seated him on the horse, and before he 
could himself mount the youthful Pegasos seized the reins and 
struck the horse a blow with the whip. The steed at once set 
off at high speed, but was soon stopped by a crowd of men without 
any accident to its rider, who experienced none of the alarm which 
his freak had caused in all the observers. He was kept at school 
and in his father's store as much as possible to prevent his haunting 
livery stables. When eighteen years old he engaged at farm labor 
for very low wages, rather than be confined in his father's business. 
He continued to follow this pursuit and finally purchased a farm. 
He also followed lumbering in winter. In 1 842, at Paris, Maine, 
he married Miss Sarah Stowell, a native of that place. Her father, 
Daniel, was born in Vermont, and Ann Stowell, his wife, was born 
in Paris. In 1849 Mr. Hyde sold out his property and set out for 
the west. His funds sufficed to carry him to Platteville, Wisconsin, 
where he was employed for some time in a powder-mill. At one 
time the mill was blown up, but he escaped without injury. In the 
spring of 1855 he set out for St. Paul, but was induced by a brother- 
in law to stop at Mazeppa. After helping his brother-in-law to 
build a log structure he went back to Galena, Illinois, and secured 
a stock of merchandise, which he brought here with his family in 
October. He soon bought the store in which he was conducting 
business, and afterward the store now occupied by E. L. Ford & Co. 
Here the business was continued till 1872, under the management 
of Mrs. Hyde, from the early part of 1865. In February of this 
year Mr. Hyde enlisted at Chicago, in the 156th 111. regt., as a 
private. He was soon made orderly sergeant, and when his ability 
as clerk and accountant was discovered, he was made captain's clerk. 
This regiment was chiefly occupied in chasing guerrillas, and on 
three difterent occasions Mr. Hyde went through a forced march of 
ninety miles in three days in excellent form. In July, at Cleveland, 
Tennessee, he received a sunstroke, from which he never recovered, 
and is now unable to walk about without assistance. In religious 
faith Mr. Hyde coincides with the Congregationalists. He is an 



954: HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

enthusiastic republican and has always evinced a commendable 
public spirit. It was largely due to his influence that the Mazeppa 
schoolhouse, now inadequate to meet the demands upon it, was built 
as large as it is. He was town clerk for several years, and nearly 
always a member of the village school board while in active life. 
He was the first postmaster at Mazeppa, his commission dating 
January 2, 1856. He came here in debt and secured his indepen- 
dence by untiring industry. He claimed a quarter-section of land 
south of the village, by mortgaging, and afterward redeeming which 
he was enabled to tide over several mercantile billows. As high as 
ten dollars was paid by him for one hundred dollars of exchange on 
Boston. His estate now embraces a large and fine residence and 
two lots in the village. In partial compensation for his loss of 
health the United States government pays him a liberal pension. 
He was one of the most active business men of the town, and his 
inability is regretted by his fellow citizens. His mind is unafiected 
and he is an interesting companion despite his impaired hearing. 
Eleven children were given to Mr. and Mrs. Hyde, of whom nine 
are living, as follows: Eliza, with parents; Mary D., teaching, 
Wilmington, North Carolina; Frank D., Dubuque; Edward S., 
Zumbro Falls ; Anna M. (Mrs. A. T. Pomeroy), Dubuque ; Julia, 
teachei-, at home; Ella F., teacher, Minneapolis; Minnesota S. 
(Mrs. Eugene Ruth), Mazeppa; Lizzie F., teacher, Minneapolis; 
Joseph W., third child, was killed by a fall from a horse, at nineteen; 
Willard, the youngest, lived but one year. 

George Duncan, farmer, is one of the first settlers of Wabasha 
county, having located land in the township of Mazeppa June 8, 
1855. Four years later he sold out and settled on section 28, Ches- 
ter, where he remained till 1876, when he moved to his present 
home on section 27, same township. Here he has one hundred 
and twenty acres, and has a like amount in 26. In 1872 he served 
against his will as town supervisor, being induced to accept the office 
on account of receiving a unanimous vote. He has alwaj's been a 
republican. AVas reared under Presbyterian teachings, to which he 
still adheres. Mr. Duncan was born in Kergill parish*, Perthshire, 
Scotland, November 2, 1830. He was reared to farm labor, and on 
passing his majority (March, 1852) set out for America. He spent three 
years in farm labor in Monroe county. New York, and in the Penn- 
sylvania pineries, and then came here as above related. He butch- 
ered and sold the first beef so handled in Mazeppa in the fall 1855. 



THE PIONEEES OF WABASHA COUNTY. 955 

His capital was very limited when lie came to this state, and his own 
toil and sagacity have made him independent. He was married 
June, 1858, to Martha A., daughter of Lewis Blunt, one of the 
pioneers of Mazeppa. After bearing ten children, Mrs. Duncan 
was taken away by death, March 16, 1875. Of the children eight 
survive, as follows : Minnie (Mrs. William Lancecum, Fort Worth, 
Texas), Cynthia A. (Mrs. H. H. Judd, Chester), George J., San An- 
tonio, Texas; the rest are at home, Ulysses Grant, William W., 
Yerona, Stella May and Libbie. 

William Waskey (deceased) was among the pioneers of Chester 
township, where he died in 1872. In May, 1855, he located on sec- 
tion 32, and fourteen years later exchanged this farm for one on sec- 
tion 35, on which the remainder of his life was passed. The young- 
est of his living children, Margaret Y. (now Mrs. James Bennett), 
resides on the latter farm, which she received by inheritance. Mr. 
Waskey was a native of Maryland, and married Harriet Goodwin, 
of Yirginia. While on an Ohio river steamer, moving west, Mrs. 
Waskey died, and was buried at Covington, Kentucky. The eldest 
daughter, Mary J., died in Illinois. Two sons, Joseph and William, 
died here. The eldest living, Sarah, dwells in Missouri. George 
W. is at Sionx Falls, Dakota, and James M. in Dixon county, 
Tennessee. 

Alexander Waskey, the fourth living son of the above subject, 
was born within one mile of the natural bridge, in Yirginia, August 
8, 1843, and was therefore but twelve years old when he arrived in 
Wabasha county. He was reared on the home farm, and on reach- 
ing his majority traveled over many different states. Tiring of a 
wandering life, he returned, June, 1877, to this locality. May 19, 
1878, he was united in marriage to Miss Almir'a Harrison, daughter 
of Henry and Maggie Harrison, of Zumbro township. Two chil- 
dren have been given to Mr. and Mrs. Waskey, thus : Edward Al- 
exander, June 6, 1881 ; Gussie, July 17, 1883. Mr. Waskey is 
now settled on a farm in Zumbro and is prospering. 

Elijah Lont (deceased) was one of the pioneers of Mazeppa, 
and died in the village March 15, 1878. He was born in Boot, 
Montgomery county, New York. About 1842 he moved to Madison 
county, where he married Martha A. Conick. She preceded him to 
the other shore several years, departing May 4, 1873. Both were 
Spiritualists, and firm in their faith to the last. Mr. Lont was a 
farmer, and a man of sterling integrity. His whole life was a tern- 



956 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

perance lecture, and he died regretted by all. He becamo a citizen 
of Mazeppa in the fall of 1855, and ])assed the remainder of his days 
here. Two children survive him, Stephen O., and Electa, wife of 
Evander Skillmau. 

Francis A. Stowell was one of the pioneers of Mazeppa, taking 
a claim near the village in 1855. Pie was seven years justice of the 
peace in Mazep})a. He is a native of Maine, born in 1818. In 1849 
or 1850 he went to Platte ville, Wisconsin, and there married Eunice 
L. Demraing. He became a resident of Minnesota, as above noted, 
and in 1870 removed from Mazeppa to Lac Qui Parle county, settling 
on a farm near the village of same name. His eldest child is now a 
resident of Chester. Besides a son and daughter near Portland, 
Oregon, six children are with him at home. 

Albert D. Stowell, farmer, was born August 5, 1851, and has 
been a resident of this state since four years old. Until eighteen 
years of age he attended the Mazeppa schools, and afterward spent a 
year and a half at the state university. He is now engaged in 
farming in Chester township. September 19, 1873, he was united 
in marriage to Melinda, daughter of D. L. Philley, named elsewhere. 
His views on theology are as yet unsettled. In public policy he is 
a republican. 

Joseph Caswell, carpenter, was the first postmaster at Bear 
Valley, having settled in the township, then known by that name 
(now Chester), in June, 1855. His father, who bore the same name, 
settled here at the same time. This family is of English descent. 
Mary Mabie, whom Joseph Caswell, Sr., married, was descended 
from the early Dutch settlers of New York. The elder Caswell died 
in Vernon county, Wisconsin, in 1868. The subject of this para- 
graph was born March 19, 1826, in Cayuga county, New York. By 
the time he was ten years old he had dwelt with his parents in four 
states besides his native one. All his early life was passed on a farm. 
On August 14, 1851, he married Mary Nicholson, a native of Wis- 
consin. In 1855 he made a claim on section 26, where he dwelt 
seven years. In 1864 he removed to Waukee, Iowa, where his 
home has ever since been. He is the father of nine children. 
Clarence, the eldest, is in Worth county, Missouri ; Charles, in Otter 
Tail county, Minnesota. The rest are at Waukee. Their names are 
Belle, Jane, John, Herbert, Elsie, Lydia L. and Harriet. Mr. 
Caswell united successively, as circumstances made most convenient, 
with the Methodist Episcopal, Baptist and United Brethren churches. 
He has always been a democrat. 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 957 

Cyrus L. Caswell, farmer, is a brother of the above subject. 
He was born April 4, 1831, while his parents dwelt in La Grange 
count}^, Indiana. His mother died when he was but seven years old, 
and he was brought up by Triplett, who was subsequently one of the 
pioneers of Chester. Messrs. Triplett and Caswell came here at the 
same time as those above mentioned, and made claims. Mr. Cas- 
well's was partly on the Half-breed Tract. In 1861 he traded land for 
the eighty acres on section 27, where his home has been ever since. 
He still retains sixty acres on section 25, where he first settled. He 
was elected supervisor in 1868 ; he is a republican. In theological 
matters he agrees with the Methodists. He was married July 14, 
1856, to Margaret Jenkins, a native of England. They have buried 
three daughters, and have one living, besides three sons. John 
married Carrie Lewis, and resides in the house with his parents. 
The others are William, Charles and Mary. 

John Bricher, one of the numerous well-to-do farmers of High, 
land, is a native of Luxemburg, Germany, where he was born Jan- 
uary 5, 1835. His parents were Peter and Susan (Ley) Brucher, 
(or Bricher), and John was their firstborn of a family of four girls 
and six boys. He received an education in the common branches. 
At the age of eighteen he bade farewell to his old home, and leaving 
his family and old associates behind, came to America. He did 
farm work near Aurora, Illinois, and in Dubuque county, Iowa, until 
the fall of 1855, when he came to Wabasha county, and pre-empted 
eighty acres on Sec. 35, in the township of Glasgow. In 1860, after 
having made many improvements on his pioneer farm, he sold it and 
bought eighty acres in section 2 in Highland, on which he now 
resides. His farm now consists of two hundred and forty-six acres, 
one hundred and thirty of which is in a fine state of cultivation. 
Mr. Bricher's residence is a large two-story brick house; it was 
erected at a cost of about $2,500, when building material was cheap 
in the summer of 1879. Mr. Bricher's matrimonial life dates from 
May 18, 1861, when he espoused Mary Schearts, born in Bohemia 
in 1 845. A large family of children have been born to this worthy 
couple : Lizzie, born June 20, 1862 ; Frank, May 2, 1864 ; Joseph, 
June 5, 1866 ; Elizabeth, April 13, 1868 ; John, August 13, 1870 ; 
Anna, April 3, 1873 ; Susan, November 8, 1875 ; Nicholas, March 
3, 1878; Catherine, July 18, 1880; Christian, May 30, 1883. 
Joseph clerks in Brucher Bros', store at Hammonds on the Zumbro, 
of which firm Mr. Bricher is a partner. The family are members of 



958 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the Highland Catholic church. Mr. Bricher has taught school sev- 
eral terms, and has been township assesssor for six years, and at 
present is a member of the board of su])ervisors. 

Patrick M. McInerney, merchant, Lake City, is a native of Mount 
Rivers, County Clare, Ireland, and was born in 1822. His early 
boyhood was spent on a farm, after which he received a classical 
education, which was completed by a collegiate course at Ennis, the 
seat of government in his native county; soon after he received a 
government appointment as superintendent of public works. These 
works were suspended in 1848, and on April 22, 1849, he sailed on 
the Lady Harvey from Kilrush, on the Shannon, for New York. 
This bark was commanded by Capt. Douglass, who sailed her 
safely into New York harbor on the 2Tth of the following May. 
The first position of trust filled by Mr. Mclnerney in this country, 
was in the Bloonangdale Asylum for the Insane, in the city of New 
York. This position he resigned in a few months,notwithstandingthe 
many and urgent protestations of Dr. Nickols, who was at that time 
at the head of that institution, to acce])t a position as assistant book- 
keeper for a large wholesale house in New York city. For a short 
time in 1851 he was connected with the New York & Erie railway, 
and in 1852 came to Chicago, to take charge of a constnietion train 
on the old Chicago & Galena railroad. He subsequently accepted a 
position on the Illinois Central railway at Freeport, Illinois. In 
1855 he arrived at Pepin, Wisconsin, and there engaged in the 
transaction of a real-estate business ; was postmaster at Pepin during 
the administration of James Buchanan, and, upon the organization 
of the county of Pepin, was appointed clerk of the circuit court for 
the Eighth judicial district. In the fall of 1874 he removed to Lake 
City, and the next spring embarked in a general merchandise busi- 
ness and is now in trade on Centre street. 

Samuel Doughty, president of Lake City bank, was born at 
Rockaway, New York, in 1818. His ancestry on both sides 
includes the earliest emigrants from England to Long Island. His 
maternal grandfather, Henry Nelson, served the colonies through 
the revolutionary war. Samuel and Betsey Doughty, his parents, 
were born on Long Island. Our subject was reared on a farm, three 
miles from any schoolhouse, and there were no free schools on 
Long Island in those days, within eighteen miles of New York city, 
the commercial and literary metropolis of America at that time. 
Thanks to a noble mother, his education was not wholly neglected. 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 959 

It is a matter of honest pride to Mr. Doughty that, through his 
earnest and shrewdly-directed efforts, a free school was established 
in the same district. This was after he had learned the blacksmith's 
trade and set up a shop at his early home. At fifteen he went to 
acquire his craft, and began business, as above noted, before 
twenty. He was soon elected a member of the school board, and 
took great pains to secure to the youth of the community advantages 
which he had himself been denied. In 1839 he married Hannah 
Rider, also a native of Long Island. Thirteen years later he 
removed to Bloomington, Illinois, where he continued to operate 
his craft. In 1855 he came thence to this point, and has been since 
identified with the growth and progress of Lake City. He became 
an owner in the town site, and was many years occupied with the 
care of transfers and other matter, attendant on the upbuilding of a 
thriving city. In 1874 he assumed his present position as president 
of the Lake City bank. In regard to matters of theology, Mr. 
Doughty is a total unbeliever. Politically he was a democrat till 
a few years before the civil war, and has been a republican ever 
since. He has four sons. The eldest, Maj. Edward, and the 
youngest, Frank, reside with their father ; Calvin, at Heron Lake, 
this state, and J. Cole, in business here. 

James L. Kimble (deceased) was the first settler in Chester town- 
ship, where he resided from April, 1855, until his death, which 
occurred May 9, 1881. He was a son of Nancy Ainsley and Eras- 
tus Kimble, and was born in Palmyra, Pike county, Pennsylvania, 
September 23, 1813. His parents were born in the same town, 
where their parents had dwelt since the Wyoming massacre. Up 
to eighteen years of age Mr. Kimble lived with his parents on the 
farm where he was born, attending the common schools ; then 
removed to Marshall, Michigan. Here he was enrolled in the 
United States service for the Blackhawk war, and served until its 
close. Returning to Michigan, he was married, November 8, 
1836, to Miss Maria J. Benson, daughter of Abijah and 
Burneche Benson, all natives of S wanton, Franklin county, Ver- 
mont. After some years of farming in Michigan, he was com- 
pelled to move on account of ill health. A year was spent at Joliet, 
and another at Summit, Illinois, and he then settled at Sheboygan, 
Wisconsin, tilling a farm there nine years. Here he joined the 
I.O.O.F., of which he was an enthusiastic member of full degree. 
In February, 1855, he set out from St. Paul to look up a farming 
58 



960 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

location, and selected one-fourth of section 30, on which, with a com- 
panion, he remained three weeks, with a tent for shelter. A tem- 
porary shanty was put up to hold the claim, and he returned to St. 
Paul for his family, with which he came on the following April. A 
comfortable log house was then built, but this was long since supei- 
seded by a large and handsome frame dwelling. Mr. Kimble was 
many years a great sufferer from asthma, and was therefore 
unfitted for the active life for which he was by nature qualified. He 
was a staunch democrat, but took no part in public concerns. At the 
time of his death the estate included two hundred and thirteen 
acres of land lying on Trout Brook, and most beautifully situated 
for general farming. Six of the nine children are now living. Emily 
J., the eldest, died at four years old. J)e Grove A. served in Co. 
G, 3d Minn. Vols., and died of wounds received in the 
battle of Wood Lake. Albert L. served two and one- 
half years in Hatch's battalion at Fort Abercrombie ; married Ada 
Martin, and resides with mother on homestead ; has one child, 
Jennie Albertie. Nancy B. died at eighteen months old. Sarah J. 
is now Mrs. L. P. Hudson, dwells at Lake city. Erastus B. at 
Aberdeen, Dakota ; Ada and Ida, twins (the former married J. L. 
Phillay), lives in Appleton, this state; latter is Mrs. Hugh E. Bland- 
ing, at Aberdeen. Charles D., the youngest, is at Aberdeen. 

George Washington Judd, blacksmith, is a son of Seymour 
Judd and Abigail Reed, both of whom were born in Lenox, Massa- 
chusetts. Seymour Judd was a blacksmith, and settled in Smyrna, 
Chenango county. New York, where his son, George, was born, 
February, 28, 1815. When the subject of this sketch was but 
fifteen years old his father died, and he became largely responsible 
for the care of the family. He had already worked a great deal in 
the shop with his father, and continued to follow the trade all his 
life. When he was seven years old the family had moved to Nel- 
son, Madison county, and here he remained until 1844, then going 
to Georgetown, same county. He was married June 28, 1840, to 
Miss Amanda; daughter of Elisha and Phoebe (Perkins) Emmons, 
who removed from their native Connecticut to New York, where 
Mrs. Judd was born. Mr. Judd became a resident of AVabasha 
county in the fall of 1855, locating a claim to eighty acres of land in 
section 31, Chester. He built the first blacksmith -shop in Mazeppa. 
It stood on land now traversed by the C. M. & St. P. railway, near 
where Dr. Lont's barn now stands. A room was finished off in one 



THE PIONEEKS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 961 

end of this building, in wliich he dwelt with his family for some 
months. He continued to carry on blacksmithing in Mazeppa 
till 1874, when he rented a farm in Bear Valley, and tilled it three 
years. At the end of this time he moved on a tarm, owned by 
himself and son, in Pine Island township, adjoining the village. 
This estate includes one hundred and thirty acres, of which Mr. 
Judd took eighty in exchange for his claim soon after the latter was 
taken. He is a member of the Mazeppa masonic lodge; has always 
espoused the cause of the republican party. Mr. and Mrs. Judd 
have three children living, and lost a pair of twins at six weeks old, 
while in New York. Lewis, the eldest, has been twice married, 
and lost both spouses. He was united with Miss Cornelia J. Rus- 
sell, who died, leaving one child, Nora Elva, born November 13, 
1866. On the 30th of March, 1868, he married Fannie E. Smith, 
who left four children at her death. They were born as follows : 
George Wells, February 2, 1869 ; Kittie May, December 20, 1870 ; 
Franklin E., January 10, 1875 ; Harry Granville, August 28, 1876. 
Parmelia, second child of G. W. Judd, was born May 10, 1843 ; is 
now the wife of Francis M. Brown, Lake City. Eveline R., 
December 14, 1848 ; married E. M, Woodbury on the 14th of 
December, 1868, and dwells in Zumbrota township. When Mr. 
Judd arrived here ; he borrowed money to pay the freight on his 
goods, but paid it by January following. He is now in indepen- 
dent circumstances, as the result of his blows with the hammer. 

William Wallace Day, liveryman, became a resident of this 
county in 1855, taking a claim on section 31, Chester, which he 
owned ten years. His residence has been most of the time in the 
village of Mazeppa. He has dealt a great deal in horses, and the 
fall of 1883 is the first in twenty-five in which he has not run a 
threshing machine. He now owns two and one-half blocks of village 
property, aside from his residence, and in the fall of 1883 built the 
handsome livery barn on Walnut street which he occupies for busi- 
ness. He is a member of the Masonic order ; has always been a 
republican ; was three years elected ])resident of the village board, 
and is now serving the fourth year as treasurer of the village school 
funds. His father, Marvin Day, was a Connecticut Presbyterian 
of the strictest type, and Mr. Day's theological preferences are 
represent-ed by that sect. Epaphroditus, father of Marvin Day, was 
also a native of Connecticut. The latter married Eliza Dunham, a 
native of the same state, and settled on a farm in Madison county, 



962 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

New York, town of the same name, where Wallace Day was born. 
He was reared on the farm and resided there till he came to Minne- 
sota. His education was received at what was known as the " Frog 
Schoolhouse,'' in his native town. In 1860 he married Eliza J. 
Goodell, who was born in Munson, Maine ; her parents, Joseth 
and Cynthia Hitchcock-Goodell, were natives of Westminster, Ver- 
mont. Their second child, Frank, died when two years old. The 
living were born on the dates accompanying their names below : 
Carrie E., November 9, 1860 ; William Harlan, September 20, 
1864 ; Ernest Ellsworth, October 6, 1868 ; Homer Goodell, January 
14, 1870 ; Herbert Wallace, August 20, 1873. Frank Waren, the 
second-born, died before two years old. 

William Davis (deceased) was one of the pioneer settlers of 
Chester township, taking a quarter of section 33 as his claim, in 
June, 1855, and leaving it to his family at his death. May 20, 1864. 
The birth of William Davis and his wife, formerly Amelia H. 
Bishop, took place in Horton, Nova Scotia, the former in August, 
1796, and the latter February 4, 1799. They were married Decem- 
ber 8, 1818, and shortly moved to New Brunswick and settled on a 
farm. In 1851 went to Princeton, Illinois, and four years later 
came here. Mrs. Davis is still living with her youngest son on the 
original claim. Mr. Davis affiliated with the republicans during 
his brief citizenship in the United States. The family is of Presby- 
terian training. Five of the twelve children are now living, as fol- 
lows: James A., Atkinson, Nebraska; Amy A., Mrs. Alfred J. 
Miller, Zumbrota township; Robert H, noted below; Sarah J., 
wife of Samuel Augur, Atkinson ; Miner, on old hornestead. 

Robert H. Davis, farmer, became a resident of this county at 
the same time as his parents, as above stated. His farm embraces 
one hundred and twenty-seven acres, the residence standing on sec- 
tion 34. This is part of the claim taken in 1855. His birth occurred 
January 2, 1833, in St. Martin's parish. New Brunswick. The 
various removals of his father's family since that time describe his 
own. In April, 1858, he married Maria, relict of Charles Arm- 
strong, and daughter of Benjamin and Sarah Corcer ; she was born 
in Linden, Vermont, in 1827. In February, 1864, Mr. Davis 
enlisted in the United States service and was assigned to Brackett's 
cavahy battalion, serving on the plains until May, 1866. The 
youngest three of his children are at home, the others as below 
noted : Walter, born November 5, 1848, Atkinson, Nebraska ; 



THE PIONEERS OF WABASHA COUNTY. 963 

Sarah, February, 1859, now wife of Thomas Jones, Cavalier, 
Dakota ; Frederick, December, 1S61, same place ; Marj, AjDril, 
1864, wife of Philemon Irwin, at Dmiville, Wisconsin ; Gladys, 
March, 1867 ; Frank, March, 1869 ; Georgiana, August, 1871. 

William Boatman, one of the pioneers of 1855, was born in 
Brown county, Ohio, on February 2, 1817. His parents were 
Henry and Kachael (Laenex) Boatman. His early life was spent on 
a farm in Ripley county, where he received a fair common school 
education. He worked at the carpenter trade for fifteen years in 
Brown county, Ohio, and three years in Indiana. In 1855 he came 
in the early spring to Plainview township, where he located a claim 
on section 11, and was interested with Gen. Sharp, E. B. Eddy, Mr. 
Geisinger and Mr. Todd in the planning of the shortlived town of 
Greenville. In 1861 he disposed of his claim on section 11 and 
bought out the Geisinger claim on section 10, where he continued to 
reside for ten years. In 1871 he removed to Wisconsin, and engaged 
in lumbering, building a sawmill at Humbird. Here misfortune 
visited his enterprises in the shape of fire, that twice destroyed his 
property within a period of five years. He finally sold out his 
Wisconsin interests and returned to Plainview. 

Lucas Kuehn, general merchant, corner Main and Alleghaney 
■ streets. Mr. Kuehn has been a resident of the county since 1855, 
a resident of the city since 1858, and one of its business men since 
1862, at which date he established a bakery, and two years later, 
abandoning that branch of business, engaged in drygoods trade, 
which he has now successfully conducted for twenty years. His 
block, two store-rooms of which are occupied witli stock, fronts 
sixty feet on Main street and eighty feet on Allegheney. It is a 
solid brick and stone structure, two stories and basement, the upper 
s*ory occupied for ofiices, storage, and the composing and editorial 
rooms of the Wabasha "Herald." He has also a branch store about 
sixteen miles from the city in Glasgow township. The corner build- 
ing of the block was erected in 1868, the forty feet on the west in 
1874. In 1879 Mr. Kuehn erected the Commercial Hotel corner 
of Main and Bailly street, which will be more particularly noted 
elsewhere. He is also president of tlie Wabasha bank, and in every 
way, as a liberal and public-spirited citizen, has fully identified him- 
self with the interests of the city. Mr. Kuehn reports a gratifying 
increase of trade over that of 1882, sales in his clothing department 
being twenty-five to fifty per cent, in advance of previous season. 



964 HISTORY OF WABASHA CX)UNTY. 

His establisliinent gives employment to a force of from six to eight 
clerks, and one wagon for the delivery of goods. He is also engaged 
in furnishing tics and timber for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
railway, his contracts averaging about one thousand dollars per month 
for the past ten or twelve months. Mr. Kuehn is a native of Baden, 
Germany, born October 18, 1834, came to America in 1852, and three 
years later settled in this city. He married Miss Clarrie Genthner, of 
his native city, born there December 8, 1840. Marriage celebrated 
in this city November 30, 1858. Their children are: Magdalena, 
born November 23, 1861; Louisa, July 11, 1866; Emil, November 
27, 1868; Clara, August 16, 1871; Frank, April 17, 1877. 



CHAPTER XCII. 



PIONEERS — CONTINUED. 



F. J. Collier, superintendent of the county poorhouse, is a 
native of New York, At six years of age he came into Lorain 
county, Ohio, with his father's family, and thirteen years later into 
Kane county, Illinois. He learned his trade as a cooper, and 
worked at it in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana, until 1855, when he came 
to Wabasha, and opened a hardware store here, which he carried 
on for two years. He then purchased a farm of one hundred and 
sixty acres in Cook's Valley, and farmed it there until 1865, when 
his health rendering farm work impossible, he returned to this city, 
was elected justice of the peace and city recorder, which latter 
ofl&ce he held until 1878, when he was appointed superintendent of 
the county poorfarm. His office as justice of the peace he retained 
until the expiration of his terra in 1879. Was nominated and 
elected to the state legislature in 1870, and was judge of probate for 
the term ending December 31, 1881. May 9, 1852, Mr. F. J. Collier 
married Miss Nancy Purcelle, a native of Prescott, Canada. They 
have five children. W. D. Collier, born July 28, 1854 ; Oliver F., 
born August 6, 1858 ; George O., born April 8, 1860 ; Elmer, born 
February 2, 1862 ; Charles H., born December 2, 1865. The boys 
are residents of the city, unmarried, and with the exception of the 
two eldest, at home. O. F., the second son, is pro])rietor of the 
Wabasha "Herald." 



PIONEERS. 965 

O. F. Collier, senior member of the firm of O. H. Collier & 
Co., editors and proprietors of the "Wabasha "Herald," is a native 
of Wabasha county, born on his father's farm in Cook's Valley, 
August 6, 1858. Young Collier received his education in the public 
schools of this city until he entered the printing-office of W. S. 
"Walton in 1872, with whom he remained until 1866, with the 
exception of a year at school. He then went to Lake city and for 
five years was foreman in the office of the "Wabasha county ' ' Senti- 
nel," until 1881, when he purchased the Wabasha "Herald " from 
Messrs. Matteson and Lewark, which he conducted two years and 
sold a third interest to one of the old proprietors, W. Lewark, and 
by them the paper is now published. Mr, Collier is unmarried and 
quite an enthusiastic sportsman with rad and gun. 

E. M. York, son of John and Eliza York, was born January 6, 
1823, at Webster, Maine. Received his education at the common 
scoools and spent his youth on the farm. In 1851 he removed to 
New Hampshire, remaining there till 1855, then came to Zumbro 
township, this county, settling on section 31. He owns two hun- 
dred acres of land. He has been assessor for some years and 
supervisor once. His political proclivities are democratic. He 
married Mary Sinclair, her parents being natives of Maine. They 
have nine children: Edward N., Jennie L. (deceased), Dora A., 
now Mrs. Oleson, living at South Troy; Mintie, Elnora L., Isaac 
(deceased), Arthur (deceased), Lora A. and Estella A. 

William C. Wright, farmer, is a native of Norfolk county, Eng- 
land, where he was born March 25, 1827, being the second of six chil- 
dren born to William and Ann Wright, the former of whom is still 
living in England. When our subject was ten years of age he lost 
his mother, and shortly after took to the sea. So efficient did he 
prove, that at the age of fourteen he was second mate. His experi- 
ence as a sailor was mainly in the British coasting trade and the 
trade with France, though he also made voyages* to America. 
While lying in the harbor of Quebec he sustained a severe injury, 
which confined him to the hospital six months and ended his career 
as a sailor. The next few years were spent farming in different 
places in Canada, and in the spring of 1856 he located in West 
Albany, where he yet lives, being one of its earliest settlers. He 
was married in Canada October, 18-16, to Christina Smith, a native 
of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, who died September 12, 1869. 
She was the mother of eleven children, eight of whom are living : 



966 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Mrs. Elizabeth Jennings, of Sack City, Iowa, William H., George 
L., of Cass county, Wisconsin, Mrs. Susanna O'Conner, of Polk 
county, Wisconsin, Mrs. Harriet I. Burke, Christina, Jeanette and 
David. In politics Mr. Wright is independent. He has well 
improved farm of one hundred and sixty acres, and is a prosperous 
farmer and a reliable citizen. 

P. G. DicKMANN, farmer, was born in 1811, in Germany. He 
is the third son of George C. and Wiebke Dickman, natives of 
Germany. They came to Cook county, Illinois, when our subject 
was about twelve years old. In 1856 they came to Oakwood 
township. In 1861 Mr. Dickman served in the 8th Minn. 
Vols, for three years on the frontier, in the Bad Lands, and 
in Schotiekrs army at Murfreesboro, Kingston, etc. In 1865 
he was discharged, and, returning home, took charge of the old 
homestead, his father going to Winona. He now has four hundred 
acres, nearly all improved, of very fine land, with one of the finest 
residences in Oakwood. He is a member of the Masonic order. 
He is one of Oakwood's supervisors. He has been a democrat for 
the last few years. He is one of our most enterprising and intelli- 
gent citizens. He was married, in 1867, to Annie Schach, native 
of Germany. They have nine children. 

Isaac J. Cutter was born in Pennsylvania, November 2, 1829. 
His parents were both natives of Pennsylvania. Mr. Cutter is a 
butcher by trade. He moved to Glasgow township in July, 1856, 
and settled where he now lives. He has a farm of two hundred 
acres, well improved. A fine wind-engine furnishes him power 
enough to pump all water for his stock, besides running a small feed- 
mill. Mr. Cutter has also a steam thresher. He was married, in 
1853, to Mary Stowman. Mrs. Cutter has quite an extensive 
creamery. She sells about three hundred and fifty dollars' worth of 
butter per annum, besides what they use on the table. Mr. Cutter 
enlisted in the 2d Minn. Sharpshooters, and was mustered in at 
St. Paul, in February, 1862. From St. Paul he went first to Wash- 
ington City, and then down the Potomac river. He was in the 
battles of Williamsburg, second Bull Run and Antietam ; was in the 
battles in front of Richmond, and was in the seven days' retreat. 
In the battle of second Bull Run a ball passed through the sleeve of 
his blouse, and in the battle of Antietam his gun was struck by a 
ball and broken in two, but he never received a scratch. He was 
discharged March 5, 1865, at Petersburgh, Virginia. He belongs 



PIONEERS. 967 

to the Wapahasa Lodge, Ko. 14, A.F.A.M., of Wabasha City, of 
which lodge he has been a member for twelve years. Mr, Cutter 
has been county commissioner three years. 

William Lokd Cleayeland was born in Royalton, Windsor 
countv, Vermont, December 17, 1814. His father, Jedediah Cleave- 
land, was of English descent, and his mother, Harriet (Randall) 
Cleaveland, of Scotch parentage. He acquired a fair common-school 
education in Vermont by working for his board and attending 
school winters. He then taught a term or two of school in his 
native state ; in 1837 came to Ohio and did carpenter work for a 
year, then went to Clinton, Michigan, where he continued to reside 
for sixteen years, working at his trade, that of a millwright, and 
teaching school. From 1854 to 1856 he followed his trade in Pitts- 
burgh, Indiana. In the fall of 1856 came to Wabasha county, and the 
following spring pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres on section 
17, in Highland, which land he still owns. He married Lucinda 
Hooper at Tecumseh, Michigan, in 1843 ; her death occurred 
November, 1877. Mr. Cleaveland now has a home with his eldest 
son, John D., of Highland. The following are his children now 
living, namely: John D., born in Michigan, June 22, 1875 ; Jen- 
nette C. (Mrs. W. H. Phillips), of Winona, September 1, 1847; 
William E., of Highland, a grocer, November 28, 1849. Mr. 
Cleaveland professes to be a Spiritualist. He has been a justice of 
the peace in Highland township continuously, with the exception of 
.three years, since its organization. He was chairman of the first 
board of supervisors and held that place for three years. He is a 
charter member of Plainview Lodge, No. 16, I.O.O.F. 

George W. Carpenter, farmer and thresher, was next to the 
oldest of a family of four boys and four girls, born to T. P. and 
Emeline (Webster) Carpenter. He was born in Meadville, Pennsylva- 
nia, May 16, 1832. While a small child he was adopted into the family 
of his grandfather Webster, and lived with him on a farm near War- 
rentown, Pennsylvania, where he attended country school winters till 
1846. In the spring of this year he accompanied his grandfather to Mc- 
Henry county, Illinois, and soon found a home, a well-to-do farmer by 
the name of Pliny Hay ward, attending school winters and working 
on the farm summers. January 1, 1855, he espoused Miss Lucy J. 
Judd, a native of Connecticut. In the spring of 1856 he came to 
Wabasha county, and located on a quarter-section in Plainview; this 
farm he cleared and improved, and sold in 1866. He did not engage 



968 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in business again until September, 1870, when he purchased eighty 
acres on section 35 in Highland, where he now has a comfortable 
home. He is widely known among the farmers as a thresher, being 
the lirst man who ran a threshing-machine in Greenwood jjrairie. 
He is a member of the Methodist church, and also of the Plainview 
lodge of Odd-Fellows. Mr. Carpenter has been twice married. By 
his first wife he had three children : Oscar E., a farmer in Big Stone 
county, Minnesota; Clara A. and Willie H., both living at home. 
His second wife was the relict of the late George Clark, of Highland, 
to whom he was married January 2T, 1878. Mrs. Clark had at the 
time of her second marriage two children, namely, Willie F. Clark 
and Lucy A. Clark. 

Matphew Kinsella, Jr., farmer, was born August, 1832. When 
he was about twenty years of age he came to the United States, and 
settled in Madison county, Illinois. After three years he came to Chip- 
pewa lumber region, remaining a few years. He then came to his 
present farm, as one of the earliest settlers of Oakwood township, 
enduring the hardships of those early days. He liked the wooded 
region best, and on that account chose his present farm. It contains 
one hundred and sixty acres, with enough added since his settlement 
to make seven hundred and forty acres of land — five hundred and 
forty under cultivation and some woodland. His farm is well im- 
proved, and one of the best in the township. He is one of the 
most devoted members of the Catholic church, and a leader in public 
enterprises of value. He has been township treasurer and chair- 
man of supervisors for a number of years. He has been a democrat, 
but is now more independent, and is one of our most influential re- 
liable -citizens. He was married (the first in the township) in Sep- 
tember, 1859, to Catherine Finley, native of Ireland. He has four 
children. 

Jas. H, Sandfokd, retired farmer, was born in Topsham, Maine, 
August 14, 1814. He was kept at school until fifteen years of age, 
when, shortly after, his father died, when he went to sea, entering the 
foreign merchant trade. For about twenty-seven years his principal 
occupation was that of a sailor. Occasionally, however, he would 
stop at home for a time, and on these occasions he would make a 
trip or two in some coasting-vessel. He also made several trips into 
the western wilds in the employ of the fur traders. In 1856 he im- 
migrated to Minnesota, and settled in the town of Mazeppa, where 
he pre-emjjted one hundred and sixty acres of land in section 29, on 



PIONEERS. 969 

which he continued to reside up to 1882, when he rented his farm and 
removed into the village of Mazeppa. Mr. Sandford is full of amus- 
ing and interesting reminiscences of the early days. He saw much of 
the Indians, as his place was near the Zumbro, which afforded fine 
camping-grounds for them, and who frequently called at his house for 
the purpose of begging. In those days he had to carry his supplies on 
his back some four miles, and the idea that the lazy Indians had the 
face to beg of him, when they knew how he had to pack his provi- 
sions, was too much for him, so he told his wife, in the hearing of 
several of them, that he would not give them anything more, where- 
upon they, seeming to understand, at once left. Shaska, one of the 
Indians hung for the massacre of settlers, at New Uelen, came to his 
house one day and said he was sick, so Mrs. Sandford oflfered him a 
bottle containing No. 6, composed of gum myrrh, brandy and capsi- 
cum, a very hot, powerful medicine; but Shaska would not take it till 
Mrs. Sandford assured him by appearing to take some herself, where- 
upon he raised the bottle to his mouth and gulped down a good 
dose, before he was aware of how hot it was; it was down, though, 
and he had to stand it; but his grimaces and antics were amusing 
for a few moments. It seems the Indian had faith in Mrs. Sand- 
ford's ability as a doctor, for he repeated the dose for several days, 
till finally one day he came and said he was all right. On one occa- 
sion in the winter, when Mr. Sandford was away, a lot of Indians 
called at his house to warm themselves, leaving their guns outside; 
finally, when they left, Mrs. Sandford went to the door with her son 
George, a small boy, when they suddenly drew up their guns and 
aimed at Mrs. Sandford, who, instead of darting into the house with 
fear, stood and laughed at them, believing they meant no harm, 
while her little boy thought it meant business, and was considerably 
alarmed. Mr. Sandford is now in his declining years, enjoying the 
fruits of an industrious life as he justly deserves, being the owner of 
several farms; his means are ample. He has been twice married, 
and had two sons by his first marriage, one of whom is living. His 
second wife was Miss Arabella Pierce, of Bath, Maine, by whom he 
had one son, George, who is postmaster of Mazeppa. 

J. J. Beaty was born in the State of Massachusetts, in the year 
1856. After receiving a good common school education he learned 
the carpenter trade. He came to this county in 1856, and resided 
for one year in Lake City, where he built the first mill. In 1857 he 
removed to this township, and has since given much of his time to 



970 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

farming. Mr. Beaty enlisted in Co. E, 11th Minn. Inf., in 1864, 
and served until the close of the war. The people of the county 
and township have honored him with many positions of trust, 
all of which he has filled with credit to himselt and general satis- 
faction to the people. He is at present county surveyor, which 
position he has held for eight years. Mr. Beaty is a member of 
the State Grange Association, the Masonic lodge of Lake City, and 
the Good Templars lodge of Oak Centre. Mr. Beaty was married in 
1844, to Mary Snondon, to whom were born twelve children, eleven 
of whom are living. 

John Link was born in England, September 21, 1820. In 1854 
he came with his family to this country, and settled for three years 
in Ogle county, Illinois. In the fall of 1856 he came to Wabasha 
county, and after taking a claim in Gillford township returned for 
the winter to Illinois. On April 18, 1857, Mr. Link and family ar- 
rived at their new home, or rather the place wl\ere their home was 
to be, for there was nothing but the wide fields and the open sky to 
welcome them. In course of time, patient and persevering toil sur- 
mounted pioneer difliculties, for house and barn were soon erected, 
and the land yielded large crops of grain. Mr. Link now owns 
two hundred acres of tillable, well improved land on section 24, 
besides other property elsewhere. He was married Februaiy 17, 
1848, to Margarette Lewis, and five children have been born to 
them, four of whom are living. 

Geo. W. Pkice, farmer and stock-dealer, came to this county 
from Ohio, in 1856. He first settled in Hyde Park township, on 
the farm now owned by Mr. Riley. He removed to Gillford town- 
ship in 1863, where he has since resided. He was married in 1860, 
to Elisabeth C. Craig, and five children have been born to them, all 
of whom are still living. Mr. Price has a farm of one hundred and 
seventy-six acres on sections 27 and 33, and is all under cultivation. 

Alvin Kinney, the genial proprietor of the Franklin House, 
Mazeppa, was born in Otselic, Shenango county, New York State, 
in December, 1831. He received some schooling at the district 
school, and commenced early in life making his own way in the 
world by working on a farm by the month. The season of 1854 
found him in Sangamon county, Illinois, where, in the fall of that 
year, he hired out to Edwards & Felt, at twenty dollars a month 
and board, to feed stock through the winter, with the understanding 
that when the cattle were shij )ped the following spring, if he desired 



PIONEERS. 971 

he could go along as far as Albany at the same pay. The corn for the 
stock was bought of neighboring farmers, and he had to haul it and 
feed one hundred head daily. When the stock was shipped in the 
spring he went through to Albany, and from there he returned as 
far as Utica, from which place he proceeded to his home, where he 
hii*ed out on a farm at which he continued for a couple of years. 
At about that time a great emigration was going on, and mostly to 
Minnesota. He had had no thought of Minnesota, as it had been 
his intention to return to Illinois ; but, being in company of several 
of his acquaintances one Friday evening, who were to start on the 
following Monday, he became enthused and decided that night to 
accompany them. Accordingh^, the next morning, he acquainted 
his father of his determination, who remarked that he thought it 
might be a good idea. The company came by rail to Dunlieth, Iowa, 
and from there by steamboat to Eed Wing, and from there to 
Mazeppa he came on foot, arriving at Mazeppa in the spring of 
1856. Here he pre-empted a quarter-section of land, proving up 
his claim, and subsequent!}' bought up the claim of another man. 
In the fall of 1856 he went to Winona to take out his patent on his 
claim, but found the expenses greater than he had calculated on. 
An acquaintance, named Jost. Smith, was along with him, and 
when their business was completed they took passage by boat to 
Red Wing. On arriving there in the evening, they both discovered 
that they were without money ; this situation required tlie exercise 
of financial ability, so they resolved tliemselves into a committee to 
provide ways and means. They were too much American to beg, 
and too good to steal, so the committee soon decided that their only 
chance was to either walk all night or sleep out. But, it being late 
in the fall and too cold for that, it was not to be thought of The 
night was dark, but on hunting around they found an old shed, with 
nothing in it but a cutter. Here they took up their lodging, one 
sitting for awhile in the cutter while the other walked up and down 
to keep warm. At the first intimation of approaching day they 
started on foot for home, but had gone only about seven miles when 
Mr. Kinney discovered in his overcoat pocket seventy-five cents, 
which, had it been found the evening before, would have been suffi- 
cient to procure comfortable lodgings. In those days prairie fires 
occurred every year, burning over the surface of the whole country 
and leaving it perfectly black, giving it a desolate and somber 
appearance. On going to Red Wing on foot, shortly after one of 



972 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

these fires, he saw in the distance some strange object that appeared 
to be moving, but whicli he could not make out. He had not long 
to wait, however, as he soon discovered that the strange object was 
a party of Indians moving with their families and household goods. 
Here he witnessed for the first time what appeared to him the most 
crude yet novel mode of transportation ; two poles, fifteen or 
twenty feet in length, wer^ fastened one on each side of a pony by 
one end, while the other end dragged on the ground. On these 
poles, behind the pony, was piled the truck, which he partly carried 
and partly dragged on the ground. Here, he thought, was dis- 
played the inventive faculty which indicates progression. In 1873 
he traded farm property for the Franklin House, which he has con- 
tinued to run. He has been deputy sherifi: two terms. In April, 
1857, he was married to Miss Adeline Hutchins, then of Mazeppa, 
but formerly of Shenango county, New York State. They lost their 
only child. 

H. C. Wilcox, captain and joint owner with W. P. Dugan of 
the steamer Lion, carrying passengers, freight and mails between 
this port and Alma, "Wisconsin. The Lion was built here by Capt. 
Wilcox, in the winter of 1876-7, and started running upon the 
opening of navigation in the spring of 1877. She is a small, trim- 
built sternwheeler, 110 feet over all, 16 feet beam and three feet 
hold. Her wheel is 13^ feet in diameter, with 11 feet buckets ; her 
engines, 52-inch stroke, 8^-incli diameter, and she easil}' attains a 
speed of ten to twelve miles an hour against the ordinary Missis- 
sippi current, and can make from fifteen to eighteen miles an hour 
down stream. She cost complete about five thousand dollars, and 
is under regular contract with the United States government to 
carry mails from this cit}' to Alma, Wisconsin, and also delivers a 
special mail at the ofiices of the Mississippi and Beef Slough Log- 
ging Compan}^, at the mouth of the Beef Slough, across the river, 
and a few miles down stream from this point. She makes three 
round trips daily, Sundays excepted, between this place and Alma, 
and triweekly night trips to the mouth of the Chippewa river, tow- 
ing rafts. Her crew consists of Capt. Wilcox, Henry Lashpell, 
pilot; Wm. Worthington, engineer, and two hands. Capt. H. C. 
Wilcox is a native of Jefterson county. New York, a practical engi- 
neer and miller by trade, having acquired his knowledge of these 
industries under his father's direction, who was engaged in the mill- 
ing business at the old home in Jefiferson county. Leaving home 



PIONEERS. 973 

Mr. Wilcox came west, and was employed as a railroad engineer on 
the line of the Illinois Central, before coming to this place in 1856. 
From 1860-3 he was in charge of the milling establishment of W. 
W. Prindle at this place. Since 1863 the captain has been princi- 
pally engaged in river business; as engineer until 1876, when he 
put the little steamer Comet into the carrying trade between this 
port and Alma, to be followed by the larger and better Lion, 
which he built the following winter, as before noted. Capt. Wilcox 
married Adelaide Goodell, December 11, 1855, at Lawrence, Michi- 
gan. They have six children, all living at home. Helen, July 20, 
1858; Hattie, June 4, 1864; Francis M., September 10, 1871; 
Carrie, August 15, 1873 ; Harrie, July 24, 1878 ; Albert, December 
29, 1880. The captain resides at the corner of Second and Lafay- 
ette streets, on the same property purchased by him in 1862, and 
which has been the family residence for over twenty-one years. He 
has just completed and taken possession of his new house, a very 
comfortable and substantial frame dwelling, two stories in height, 
the main building 24x32 feet, with a wing 16x20, and a one-story 
addition, 16x20. 

M. Kennedy, manufacturer and dealer in boots and shoes, also 
in hats, caps and gloves, on Main street, one door west from corner 
of Pembroke street, Herschy's block. This business was established 
by Mr. Kennedy in 1856, and with the exception of one year, 1861, 
has been continued to the present, a period altogether of twenty-six 
years. The house gives employment to two persons. Mr. Kennedy 
is a native of St. Andrews, Province of Quebec, Dominion of 
Canada. He learned his trade as shoemaker in his, native town, 
and came direct from the Dominion to Wabasha in 1856. M. Ken- 
nedy is one of the pillars of the Congregational church in this city, a 
member of the board of trustees, and for seventeen years has been 
superintendent of its Sunday-school. He is unmarried, and one of 
the most universally respected men in the city. 

J. H. Evans, county commissioner for district No. 4, embracing 
townships of Greenfield, Glasgow, and the city of Wabasha ; is of 
Welsh descent, a native of Cambria county, Pennsylvania, and had 
learned the trade of compositor before coming to Wabasha, in A])ril, 
1856, at which time he was eighteen years of age. He had also 
acquired a knowledge of the plasterer's trade, and after coming to 
this city followed that and type-setting for some years, his last 
winter at the case being 1865. His first contracts were taken at 



974 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

nineteen years of age, tlie second year that lie spent in this city. 
In 1857 he commenced work as a mason with his brother-in-hiw, N, 
B. Lutz, and was in partnership with him until that gentleman 
removed to Lake City, in 1864. Since then Mr. Evans has been 
actively engaged in working at his trade, contracting for the erec- 
tion of buildings, either alone or in company with others, superin- 
tending his farms, attending to county business, and in such other 
occupations as his personal inclinations or the public business 
demanded. He owns a farm of three hundred acres in sections 3 and 
4, township 110 and 111, and ranges 10 and 11, and an undivided 
half in a tract of one hundred and sixty acres, owned by the stock 
firm of Evans & Penny. His residence on Second street, just 
north of the public school building, was erected by him in 1862 and 
has been the home of the family for the past twenty-one years. His 
official services rendered the city and county have extended through 
the greater part of the past twenty years, since his first election as 
alderman in 1862. He has been mayor of the city three years of 
that time, alderman of his ward four years, and is now serving his 
seventh year as county commissioner for his district. October 29, 
1860, Mr. Evans married Miss Sara Duhamel, a resident of this 
city since 1857. Their children are : Maggie, born June 30, 1864 ; 
Mamie, born January 12, 1866 ; Harry, born November 15, 1869 ; 
William, born December 18, 1871 ; Fannie, born March 3, 1877. 

R. E. Stearns, city recorder and justice of the ])eace, was elected 
to these offices in the spring of 1880, and is now serving his second 
term in each. He is a native of Canada, removed early to the State 
of New York with his father's family, and was in mercantile 
business there prior to coming to this city in 1856. Here he took 
up the trade of stonemason and followed it nearly twenty-five years, 
until his election to the offices above cited. In September, 1850, he 
was married in Franklin county, New York, to Miss M. M. Town- 
send, still living. They have two children, Ernest E., born 
August 25, 1859, and Charles, born July 22, 1873. 

Ernest Stearns, son of K. E. Stearns, was born in Wabasha 
August 26, 1860, and has spent his life in his native town, growing 
up in the schools and business of the town where he was born. In 
1877 he began learning the business of photography, and in 1878 
commenced for himself. In a short time he had the business of the 
city and vicinity all to himself This was a consequence of good 
work and accommodating methods always practiced by Mr. Stearns. 



PIONEEES. 975 

In 1883 he opened and lias noW;, in operation one of the most 
complete photographing establishments in the state. His apparatus,, 
scenery and accessories are of the latest and most improved kind. 
The establishment is located in the second story of the Hirschy 
building, a cut of which appears in this work. 

John N. Murdoch, attorney-at-law, office in the editorial rooms 
of the "Wabasha "Herald"; practice established in this city in 
1857. John N. Murdoch was born at Winchendon, Massachusetts, 
September 23, 1831. Graduated from Brown University, Provi- 
dence, Rhode Island, in the class of 1852, and took his parchments 
two years later from the Albany Law School, Albany, ISTew York. 
He cast his first ballot in 1852, voting for John P. Hale, free-soil 
candidate for president, and three years later was a member ot the 
convention which met at St. Anthony, Minnesota, in March, 1855, 
to organize the republican party in the territory of Minnesota, and 
has voted the republican ticket ever since. Having completed his 
law studies Mr. Murdoch came west, and was in St. Paul one year, 
then removed to Red Wing, and two years later, 1857, located in 
this city. From 1865 to 1867 he was absent from the county, trav- 
eling in the south, and from 1873 to 1876 was with his family in 
Kansas. With the exception of these years, Wabasha has been his 
home since his location here in 1857. For the last twelve years 
Mr. Murdoch has been more or less connected with the press of the 
city, having had charge of the editorial columns of the "Herald" 
from 1871 to 1873, when that paper was owned by Sharpe & 
Palmer, and again from April, 1881, to date, August, 1883, at which 
time he appears to be solidly seated in the editorial chair. Mr. 
Murdoch was the first city attorney for the city of Wabasha ; he 
headed the electoral ticket of the state in 1864 (as elector at large) 
for Lincoln and Johnson, and was the city postmaster from 1869 to 
1873. September 17, 1855, Mr. Murdoch married Miss Cynthia A. 
Baldwin, of Auburn, New York. They have four children : Mary 
E., born December 20, 1856 ; Wm. L., born in this city August 
12, 1858, now and for the past eight years with the Samuel Cupple's 
Woodenware Co., of St. Louis. Emily T., born April 1, 1861, 
and who graduated A. B. from Wellesley College, Massachusetts, 
class of '83. The first native of Wabasha county, so far as known, 
to take a full collegiate course and receive a degree. John W., 
born June 22, 1869, and now in school in this city. 

Ingram, Kennedy & Gill, lumbermen and manufacturers of 
59 



976 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

sasli, doors, blinds and carpenters' material. Business of selling 
lumber was established here in 1861, and the planing-mill (a small 
affair at that time) was built in the summer of 1865. In the spring 
of 1867 additional machinery was put in and the manufacture of 
sash, doors and blinds begun. The manufactor}^ has been jn-acti- 
cally rebuilt since its establishment, through additions and 
improvements. As it now stands, on the corner of Second and 
Arch streets, it is a substantial two-story frame, 76 X 48 
feet, with a brick engine and boiler house 32 X 36 feet. It is 
well supplied with all necessary machinery for a manufactoi-y of 
the kind. Its business is principally filling orders, little stock work 
being done, the demand for work leaving no opportunity for stock- 
ing up. The planing-mill turns out about fifty thousand feet of 
dressed lumber every week, and the manufactory works up the same 
amount ever}^ twelve months. The engine has a capacity of about 
fifty -horsepower. The lumber yards occupy ten lots on blocks 13 
and 18 of the original town site of Wabasha ; there is closed shed- 
room for one hundred and fifty thousand feet of dressed lumber, and 
the annual sales are from four million five hundred thousand feet, 
stocked from the mills of the Empire Lumber Company, of Eau 
Claire, Wisconsin, who are largely the principals of the business. 
The ofifice of the company is on the corner of Second and Walnut 
streets. Lumber is floated down the Chippewa and Mississippi 
rivers to the yards of the company at this point, and shipments are 
made by rail over the lines of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
railroad and branches, upon ti-acks from the lines of that road running 
into the yards, and affording excellent opportunities for shipment. 
The force of the establishment here is one superintendent, one book- 
keeper, six hands in the manufactoiy, fifteen in the yards, and three 
teams. 

Mrs. ELiZiVBETH Gill, widow of W. Gill, is the princi]ial resident 
partner. Wm. V. Gill, under whom the yards were originally 
established, a little over twenty-two years since, was a native of 
Pennsylvania. He came to Wabasha county in 1856, and worked 
for a time there in a sawmill belonging to Knapp, Stout & Co., of 
Avhich he had charge the following season, 1857. In 1858 he ran a 
sawmill in this place for Jarvas Williams, and in the season of 1859 
was a't Eau Claire in the service of Daniel Shaw, with whom he 
remained two or three summers, spending his winters in this place, 
usually clerking. Mr. Gill married Miss Elizabeth Iloggard, of 



PIONEERS. 977 

this city, in 1860, and with her removed to Eau Claire. During the 
summer of 1861, while in the employ of Daniel Shaw & Co., lum- 
bermen, in charge of their large saw, he made a contract with 
Ingram & Kennedy, lumbermen of Eau Claire, to open a lumber 
yard in this city, they to supply the lumber, he to manage their 
business. Accordingly, in the early fall of 1861 Mr. Gill returned 
to Wabasha, opened the yxird, afterward built the planing-mill and 
factory, and conducted business here until his death, which occurred 
March 13, 1876, at San Diego, California, to which place he had 
gone to recuperate his health. He was a man of most methodical 
business habits, universally respected, and his loss was severely felt 
by the business circles of the city. Pie left behind him a family of 
two sons, one daughter and his widow, all of whom are still 
residents of this city. 

S. L. Campbell, attorn ey-at-law ; office corner of Main and Alle- 
ghaney streets, Post-office building. Mr. Campbell established 
business in this cit}^ in the spring of 1856, and is the oldest practic- 
ing attorney in the county. He is a native of Chenango county. 
New York, was brought up on the old home farm, and followed 
farming until his removal to this state (then territory), in 1855. 
During his intervals of leisure from farm labor he pursued his legal 
studies, making himself familiar with the principles of law, leaving 
a knowledge of its practice to be acquired in the courts. He was 
admitted to practice at Red Wing, in this state, by the then chief 
justice of the territory (Welch), in the fall of 1855. When Wabasha 
county became organized for judicial purposes in the following- 
spring, Mr. Campbell was appointed clerk of the United States dis- 
trict court for the first district, and held that office until the state 
was admitted to the union in 1858. From the date of the establish- 
ment of his law-office here, more than twenty-seven years since, 
Mr. Campbell has continued steadily in the practice of his profession. 
During these years his only law partner was E. M. Birdsey, Esq., 
with whom he was associated in business from 1867 to 1872, when 
Mr. Birdsey's health compelled him to relinquish practice, and he 
soon afterward died. Mr. Campbell has served the bar of the county 
as clerk of court and county attorney, the city as mayor, the repre- 
sentative district as representative in 1862, and again from 1875 to 
1879. 

Merchants Hotel, West Wabasha, near central depot, L, M. 
Gregg, proprietor. This hotel stands on the corner of Campbell 



978 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

and Seventh streets, in wliat is known as Wellnian's siii'vey of the 
city of Wabasha, the hotel property embraces four lots (7, 8, 9, 
10) in block 125, facing two hundred feet on Seventh street, and 
having a depth of one hundred and fifty feet along Campbell. The 
hotel building fronts ninety feet on Seventh, sixty-eight feet on 
Campbell, is two stories in height, contains thirty-five rooms, 
twenty of them guests' rooms, and is thoroughly fitted throughout 
for the comfort and convenience of the traveling public. The hotel 
fronts southward toward the main line of the Chicago, Milwaukee 
& St. Paul railroad, from the depot of which it is distant about one 
and a half blocks. A double piazza runs along both fronts, and 
from the south one are entrances into the office, hall, ladies' recep- 
tion-room and bar. The ladies' reception-room and parlors on the 
east form a pleasant suite of three rooms, ten feet by eighteen feet, 
twenty-four feet by eighteen feet, and seventeen feet by seventeen 
feet, respectively, equivalent to a single room twenty-five by thirty- 
six feet, and infinitely more pleasant. The dining-room in the rear 
of the office and bar is eighteen by thirty-five feet, and the adjoining 
kitchens are respectively eighteen by twenty feet and thirteen by 
twenty-four feet. A hall at the rear of the rece])tion-room and 
offices communicates with the main hall and the dining-room, so that 
guests have access to all parts of the house, independent of the more 
public rooms. Double hallways, above and below, afford free cir- 
culation of air, all rooms being open to the sunlight, leaving noth- 
ing in this direction to be desired. No sample roonis for commer- 
cial travelers are found in the hotel, which stands too remote from 
the business center of town to make them necessary, but two com- 
modious rooms for this purpose are provided in a central location in 
the city, to which the proprietor runs a free carriage, for the accom- 
modation of his guests. The present staff" of servants is nine, three 
men and six women. The hotel is new, having been built during 
the late summer, the proprietor taking possession August 15, 1883. 
L. M. Gregg, proprietor of Merchants Hotel, is a native of New 
York, and has been a resident of this county since May 22, 1856. 
He was five years a resident of this city, and then removed 
to his farm on Greenwood prairie, on Sec. 2-1, T. 109, R. 12, 
where he purchased a tract of two hundred and sixty acres, since 
increased to four hundred, and on which he now has forty head of 
cattle, one hundred hogs and fifty head of Cotswold sheep, it being 
his intention to convert his farm into a stock ranch. Before remov- 



PIONEERS. 979 

ing to liis farm in 1861 Mr. Gregg was elected county treasurer and 
held that office during 1S57-S-9. While a resident of the farm he 
served as county commissioner for the second district from 1867 to 
1876. Tlie following year, 1877, he was elected sheriff, and on 
assuming office returned to this city, which was his residence until 
the expiration of his second term, December 31, 1881, when he 
removed to Lake City and opened a hotel there, which he still man- 
ages. On the completion of his hotel here he returned to Wabasha, 
which is likely to become his permanent residence. January 14, 
1865, Mr. Gregg married Miss W. Holtzer ; they have four children : 
Bertha L., born July 21, 1866 ; Maud A., born February 14, 1869 ; 
Margaret, born March 10, 1873 ; James L., August 10, 1876. 

Wm. S. Jackson (deceased), one of the pioneer business men of 
Wabasha, was born near Brownville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, 
June 13, 1832, and when he was thirteen years of age removed with 
his father's family to Millington, Illinois, and spent the next five 
years of his life upon the farm there, assuming charge of the same 
at fifteen years of age. At about eighteen jeiirs of age he com- 
menced clerking in Millington, and followed that business some four 
or five years, several of his winters while on the farm and in the 
store having been spent at a school near Richmond, Indiana. He 
completed his education, so far as attending school was concerned, 
by a course at Jones' Business College, St. Louis, which he finished 
in the spring of 1856. The same season he came to Minnesota ; was 
for a few months in Red Wing ; then located, late in the fall, in this 
city, which was his home until his decease, February 8, 1882. He 
immediately entered the mercantile house of Campbell, Gambice & 
Pendleton s as clerk, and continued with them until the house went 
down in the financial crash of 1857, when he was appointed one of 
the assignees of the suspended firm, and in that capacity settled up 
the business. The following year, 1858, he entered into partnership 
with S. S. Kepler, in general merchandise business, and was asso- 
ciated with that gentleman until he removed to Eau Claire in 1876. 
During the twenty-six years of Mr. Jackson's residence he acquired 
a considerable estate in city property and farming lands. He was 
one of the organizers of the Congregational church of this cit}^ — a 
warm supporter of all church institutions, and the efficient clerk of 
the church from the date of its organization to the time of his death. 
He was a man of warm, generous impulses, greatly beloved in the 
community, by whom, as well as by the church, his loss was deeply 



980 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

felt. He left one child, Fred. Jackson, born in this cit}^ August 16, 
1861. Young Jackson entered the preparatory department of 
Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, in 1877 ; the classical course 
in 1879, and would have graduated in the class of 1883, B.S., had 
not his studies been intermitted by ill health. Mr. Jackson is now 
completing his course there under special arrangement with the 
faculty of that institute. 

W. J. Arnold, coroner of Wabasha county since 1868 ; office 
with the county attorney, over Schwirtz' drygoods house on Main 
street. Mr. Arnold was born at Smithfield, Rhode Island, August 
li, 1810 ; was educated at the academy in his native town, and 
came west as far as Steuben county, New York, in 1835, clerking 
and teaching school there until 1839. He then started a grocery 
and provision store in Corning, New York ; was burned out twice, 
and passed through the usual experiences of a young business man 
under two misfortunes of that kind before coming to the Mississippi 
in 1856, just after his second misfortune of that kind. He visited 
Wabasha in August, 1856, and immediatel)^ engaged to take charge 
of the general merchandising business of H. S. Allen & Co., of 
Chippewa Falls, which they had established here. He remained in 
their employ until they were wiped out in- the financial crash of 1858. 
In 1859-60 he was member of the state legislature for this represen- 
tative district, and upon the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presi- 
dency was appointed postmaster here, holding office during the two 
terms for which Mr. Lincoln was elected, and on the termination of 
his services with the postal de])artment was elected county coroner, 
which office he continues to hold. He was justice of the peace from 
1872 to 1876, also from 1879 to 1883. October 26, 1841, Mr. 
Arnold married Miss Harriet IST. Kress, of Covington, Tioga county, 
Pennsylvania. They have three sons, John K., born July 20, 1842 ; 
Ralph E., born December 1, 1844; William F., born April 21, 1850. 

Herm.:Vn AiMERLAND, farmer ; lands lying in sections 3 and 4, 
range 10, township 110, and aggregate two hundred acres. Mr. 
Amerland has resided in Wabasha county on his present farm almost 
thirty years, having taken his claim of eighty acres as a homestead 
in 1854. This claim was proVed up in 185S ; forty acres were added 
by scrip title, and rest since acquired. The crop for 1883 was : 
Corn, 10 acres, yield per acre, — bushels ; oats, 14 acres, yield per 
acre, 40 bushels ; wheat, 12 acres, yield per acre, 18 bushels ; barley, 
10 acres, yield per acre, 35 bushels ; grass, 30 acres, yield per acre, 



PIONEERS. • 981 

2 tons ; stock, 95 head. Mr. Amerland was born in Hanover, Ger- 
many, May 14, 1822 ; married Miss Catharine Budke, of his native 
place, January 2, 1852, and the following year, 1853, came to 
America. That winter was spent in St. Louis, and in the following 
June a settlement was made in the farm, which has now been the 
family home for over twenty-nine years. The children, all born in 
this county, are : Henry, born November 8, 1855, graduated from 
Wabasha High School in 1873, and now banking atMinto, Dakota ; 
Anna, born April 8, 185Y; Louisa, born June 23, 1859; Sophia, 
born March 23, 1864 ; Eduard, born January 9, 1870 ; John, born 
April 25, 1872 ; Clara, born February 18, 1875. Three of the 
children are in attendance at the Wabasha city school, the farm 
lying partly within the city limits. 

W. S. Piers, bookkeeper for the Knapp, Stout & Co. Company, 
is a native of Nova Scotia. He was educated in the Grammar School 
at Halifax, in that province, and at nineteen years of age came into 
Allamakee county, Iowa, his father's family settling there in 1851, 
on a farm eight miles back from the river. W. S. Piers' tirst visit 
was made to this county in 1854, and two years later he located on 
his farm, the N.W. i of Sec. 4, T. Ill, E. 11 W. of the principal 
meridian, and was there until 1862, when he enlisted in the 1st 
regt. Minn. Rangers, for the Indian campaign on the frontiers, and 
was there until mustered out in 1864, when he entered the service of 
Knapp, Stout & Co. April 19, 1857, Mr. Piers married Mary 
Shurtliff, of this county, whose family came here in 1856. They have 
seven children, five living at home. William T., born in Wabasha, 
January 4, 1860, and now bookkeeper for H. J. Oneil, of Winona ; 
L. E., born August 23, 1864, and now in the employ of the Chicago, 
Milwaukee & St. Paul railway at Wabasha ; Alice, born September 
12, 1867; Albert J., born December 20, 1869 ; Walter B., born 
February 19, 1872 ; Blanche, born November 26, 1874 ; Jennie, born 
May 20, 1880. 

Charles Hornbogen, furniture, hardware, farmers' tools, etc.; 
store on the south side of Water street, corner Main. His store 
fronts fifty feet on Water street, sixty-eighty on Main street, and is a 
two-story brick, erected in 1871. Mr. Hornberger established his 
furniture business in 1868 on Second street, and came to his present 
location in 1879. He is a native of Saxony, born in 1827, learned 
his trade there, and came to America in 1853. Was in New York 
State, Indiana and Kentucky until 1856, when he came to Read's 



y»ii HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Landing, and finding no work at his own trade as cabinetmaker, 
worked as carpenter and builder until 1868, when he opened a fur- 
niture store. He was married here in 1861, to Miss Gertrude 
Anding. There children are : Frank, born October 15, 1864 ; Alfred, 
born October 31, 1866 ; Clara, born November 15, 1868 ; Harry, 
born February 14, 1871. 

LuDwiG Trout:man, Jr., druggist. Mr. Troutman pursued his 
studies in this city until he went to St. Louis to complete his course 
and perfect himself in a knowledge of the German language. 
Returning from St. Louis he entered the La Crosse Business College, 
from which he graduated in 1880. The same year he entered the 
drug-house of J. J. Stone, M.D., of Wabasha, with whom he 
remained until the drug-house was destroyed by fire, when he went 
into partnership with the doctor in the same line of trade in Argyle, 
Wisconsin, and was there until opening business here for himself in 
1882. Before entering the drug-house of Dr. Stone, young Trout- 
man, wl;o from his boyhood had evidenced a taste for the business 
of dispensing medicines, had been familiarizing himself with the 
nature of drugs, spending much of his time in the drug-house of 
Seeley & La Rue, of this place. It is now his intention to take a 
course in pharmacy at the St. Louis College, having completed the 
four years' preliminary service in a drug-house required in that 
institution. 

LudwigTkoutman, lunch-house and bakery, on Water street, has 
been in business in this place a little over twenty-six years, and at the 
present location twenty-five. His business during the prosperous 
years of the city was quite extensive, and consisted mainly in sup- 
plying the stewards of the river craft. Of late years trade is more 
local. Mr. Troutman was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, October 10, 
1831 ; learned his trade in Aftblterbach, his native city, and came to 
America in 1851, landing in New York September 3 of that 3'ear. 
The next two years were spent in Pennsylvania; from 1853 to 1856 
he was in St. Louis following his trade, and in the latter year came 
to Read's Landing, establishing himself in business here, May 1, 
1857. The winter of 1856-7 was spent in St. Louis, at which time 
he married Miss Mary Hess, of that city. They have one child, 
Ludwig, Jr., born January 6, 1860, now in the drug business in this 
place. 

N. S. Tefft, M.D., pioneer doctor, ]>hysician and surgeon of 
Plainview, was among the earliest settlers of the county of Wabasha 



PIONEERS. 983 

in the sprin^^ of the year 1856. He traiisfei-red the field of his labors 
from Minneiska, July 3, 1861, to his present location. The opportu- 
nity was afforded him at the commencement of the settlement by J. 
y. Blackwell, who offered, if he would come and pre-empt a quarter- 
section, to provide all the money, and give him half the property so 
obtained; but this he saw fit to decline. He was born in Hamilton, 
Madison county, New York, on July 16, 1830, and received an 
academic education at Fredonia, May ville and Panama. His parents, 
Jeremiah and Sarah (Sweet) Teff't, were descendants of the early 
Ehode Island families. Commodore Perry (of revolutionary fame) 
and his father being classmates at Newport. Mr. Teff't commenced 
reading medicine in 1848 with Dr. James Fenner, of Sherman, 
Chautauqua county. New York, whence the family moved with the 
doctor in embryo, at about five years of age. He attended two full 
courses of lectures, 1851 aud 1852, in Cincinnati, graduated, and after 
a four years' practice at Sherman, pushed westward across the Mis- 
sissippi, and located at Minneiska, Wabasha county, sixteen miles from 
his present home. Here he officiated in the triple capacity of doctor, 
postmaster, and justice of the peace. Dr. Tefft held the oflice of 
county physician of Wabasha county during 1882, and some time 
previous for three successive years. He became a member of the 
first state legislature of Minnesota by election in the fall of 1857, 
again in 1861, and in 1871 was returned to the senate. He is a 
member of the state medical association, and has a reputation for 
miles around as an operative surgeon, equaled by few and excelled 
by none. In politics the doctor was originally democratic, with a 
strong tincture of free-soilism, so that he naturally became a repub- 
lican when that party sprang into existence, and in this respect his 
sentiments remain unchanged. During his whole life he has been 
conspicuous as an enterprising and influential citizen. A genius of 
a mechanical turn, he invented the first automatic binder that made 
all the motions in binding grain by machinery, and his thoroughly 
practical idea of the application of permanent magnates as a motive 
power, he gives to others of more leisure and opportunities of devel- 
opment. As a member of the I.O.O.F., the doctor has passed 
all the chairs, and at the meeting of the grand lodge of the State of 
Minnesota, June 5, 1883, was unanimously elected deputy grand 
master of the state. As a gentleman of culture, though a man of 
extremes in his likes and dislikes, he is at once affable and unosten- 
tatious, and universally admired both in and out of his profession 



984 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

for his ability and genially courteous bearing. He is a strong be- 
liever in the doctrine of evolution, and, as a Freethinker, does not 
scruple on any and all occasions to express his disbelief in orthodoxy. 
One son, the only child born to Dr. Tefft by his wife, formerly Miss 
Hattie S. Gibbs, of Plain view, to whom he was married November 
10, 1866, now slee])S in Plainview cemetery in a unique miniature 
vault, surmounted by a marble slab bearing the inscription: To 
Little Clyde, only son of N. S. and H. S. Tefft, died August 17, 
1870. This loss to the doctor was a severe blow, and one dithcult to 
overcome, for to the little one he was passionately devoted. 

S. Oakey Seymour, second cousin of Horatio Seymour, ex- 
governor of the State of New York, and fii-st cousin of A. Oakey 
Hall, ex-mayor of the city of New York, is numbered among the 
early settlers of Minnesota State. He was born December 22, 1823, 
in Otsego, and attended school for some time in company with A. 
Oftkey Hall in Bleecker street, New York city. For four years after 
this he clerked in the first store opened at Huntley Station, Illinois, 
and subsequently from 1844 to 1852 he was engaged for himself in 
the wholesale and retail grocery business in New Orleans. In the 
fall of 1856 he settled in Minneiska, and in 1879, in company with 
his brother Daniel, bought of one Eddy what is now known as 
Plainview Bank. Prior to this, in 1872, on May 25, he married 
Helen M. Watson, and has now four children, two girls and two 
boys. He was at one time reputed to be in very comfortable circum- 
stances, but Dame Fortune turned the tide, so that he is left now with 
only a farm of one hundred and twenty acres. In 1861 he enlisted at 
Fort Snelling in Co. I, 1st Minn. Vols. He served in twenty-two 
battles, among them First Bull Run, in which he was wounded, Ball's 
Bluff, Yorktown and others. He lives in the enjoyment of only a 
trivial pension for his services. 

A. B. W. Norton, known in Plainview and country around as 
Squire Norton, from his protracted service as justice of the peace, 
was born October 30, 1818, in the town of Guilford, Chenango 
county, of Connecticut parents, being descended from grandparents 
of old revolutionary fame. He enjo3'ed the privileges of a common 
school education, and started in business at the age of fourteen years. 
At Richford, Tioga county. New York, in the county clerk's office, 
he commenced assisting his former teacher in transcribing the records. 
Following this he experienced a series of changes for ten years, and 
then went to Brooklyn, New York, as clerk in the employ of Free- 



PIONEERS. 985 

man & Co., and from tliere, after a short term, to Sussex county, New 
Jersey, at the solicitation of his uncle, to spend Christmas. In 1846 
he was for a time in Pleasant Yalley, in the same state, and then 
through the instrumentality of his friend Fisher, a New York 
bookkeeper, when clerking in that city. In 1847 he, with his brother, 
settled in Woodstock, McHenry county, Illinois, and continued here 
in business for ten years. On July 4, 1857, he came, in company 
withWm. Kimberly, to Plainview, Wabasha county, Minnesota, and 
settled on a quarter-section (160 acres) of land, in what is known as 
section 6. His two children, daughters by his wife whom he- lost 
in "Woodstock, followed him about a year after, and one is now 
keeping house for her father, and the other, married to E. A.. 
Pomeroy, resides opposite on property presented to her by the judge. 
In 1860 Mr. Norton was elected as town clerk against William Stone, 
and he immediately set about straightening the records. In, 1859 
he built the first substantial building in the village, that now occupied 
as a hardware store by C. C. Corner & Son. who purchased from 
one Hunt on the corner of Broadway and Washington street. In 
1868, by appointment of the board of supervisors, he again served 
as town clerk and as justice of the peace, was elected next year, 
which office he has held with credit to the present time. During 
Lincoln's administration, by Postmaster-General Blair, he was 
appointed postmaster of Plainview, Minnesota, April 18, 1864, and 
continued to hold the position until 1868. Prior to this he wa^ for 
some time deputy-postmaster. The squire is a man much liked for 
his impartial administration of justice and general square dealing. 
Thomas A. Thompson, well known as a public speaker and 
instructor in grange work, was one of the first settlers of Plainview, 
Wabash county, Minnesota. In company with J. Y. Blackwell, 
David Ackley, A. P. Foster and others he commenced the settle- 
ment, and in November, 1856, built for a residence the house now oc- 
cupied by DeWitt Clarke. His father, at the age of twenty-one years, 
after learning the blacksmithing, though reared a farmer in Con- 
necticut, started on foot in the winter of 1802 and so proceeded 
across the State of New York, a tramp without means. He at 
length reached Buffalo, then only a hamlet, and thence to a place, 
since called Yernon, in Trumbull county, Ohio, where he staked 
out a claim in the wilderness and at once began the execution of 
his life-task. In addition to farming, the exercise of his skill as an 
artificer was the ready passport to favor with the Indians who had 



986 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

gunloeks to repair, knives to mend, and other ironwork which the 
blacksmith could perform, in exchange for which he received turkeys, 
venison, bear meat and skins, which he disposed of with advantage 
to neighboring whites. At the end of a year the young man mar- 
ried Miss Sally King Bates, who with her parents had recently 
arrived strangers from the Connecticut valley, and as a product of 
this union there were two daughters -and six sons, the youngest 
being the one above referred to. Young Thompson's schooling did 
not advance him beyond the rudiments, so he began in early life a 
system of self-instruction, aided by a few months' i)reparation in an 
academy of a neighboring town, to which he made daily pilgrimages 
several miles on foot. For several years subsequent his time was 
divided between teaching, study and farmwork ; at the end of 
which time he was commissioned a magistrate by the governor of 
the sj:ate. About this time Mr. Thompson married Miss Eliza P. 
Eddy, who by the kindest sympathy gave culture and breadth to the 
refinement that made home and its surroundings bright with the sun- 
shine of contentment and the serene atmosphere of domestic peace. 
At length, his wife's health failing, he sold the homestead and moved 
in 1856. To the table-land west of the Mississippi, where the 
beautiful village of Plainview has since sprung into existence, he 
wended his way. The year following, 1857, Mr. Thompson was 
elected to the territorial legislature, for Minnesota had not yet 
become a state. Afterward he accepted the office of superintendent 
of schools for Wabasha county, in which he served three successive 
terms, resigning at last to enter upon new duties as lecturer of the 
national grange, having previously served as master of the Minne- 
sota state grange and performing the duties without salary. In this 
new capacity he visited all the states east of the Rocky Mountains, 
except a few in the south and New England. Twenty-seven years 
ago his cabin stood upon the treeless ])rairie, with not a house in 
sight and no village near ; his present residence, a plain, homelike 
structure, stands in the town of Plainview not many yards from the 
railway station and terminus of the line. About Park Home, as it is 
called, there is a semblance of the forest trees in pleasing variety 
and luxuriant growth. They were planted by Mr. Thom])son, at 
whose hands they have received tender care. Here he contem- 
plates rest from the wearisome toil of years with calm enjoyment of 
the fruits of his labors. 

OsTROM Stephen Lont, M.D., Mazeppa, is a native of New York, 



PIONEERS. 



born in Lebanon, Madison connty, in 1821. He dwelt heve with lus 
parents till eighteen yeavs of age, and received in the common 
!choo the rudiments oi an education. He early became imbued 
with the idea that the practice of medicine opened to a man wide 
:;po,',nities forbene/olence, -f P-^-^B ^^tCyieTk 
love for the profession, he entered the oihce of Dr. V. H Van V leek, 
a7Hamilton, in his native county, to perfect himself by eombin d 
aixi<immo. , ,. ,_ „f„„„;™ Hnv no- no means he 



study and practice for his chosen profession. Having no means 
was compelled to pay his way while studying by waiting upon hi 
rceTor, working in the harvest field, and performing any odd 
s rvSe that came to his hand. Though to many his lot seemed hard. 



working in the harvest field, and performing any 
service tnat came to his hand. Though to many his lot seemed 
he young student was happy in the consciousnessof doing us be>,t 
and'in the preparation for a noble profession and use ul hie No 
doubt his happiest days were those spent in this manne. So closely 
aid he apply f^^^^^^Tl^I^ll t:^^ 



Medical College of Cincinnati was foimded by this society he received 
M diploma. "He had at this time been practicing .™dicine fom 
yeaithaving begun when about twenty-three years old, at We 
Burl 'ngton, Otsego county. Here he continued to practice till 
1856 when he removed to Mazeppa. For two or three years during 
he wait dwelt on a farm in Chester and with "-P '» "^ 
home has been in this village since his arrival here. H« has a 
rieasant home on First street, facing the river, where himself and 
Si helpmeet dwell in contentment, and the love and respect f 
their neighbors. Their marrhige occurred on Christmas day 1850. 
Mrs. LoJit was christened Melissa A. and is a sister of W^ D^ 
An..ell whose parentage is elsewhere shown in t ns wo.k. To Ins 
worlTy Jife Dif Lont owes and ascribes much of his success in life. 
;: trials and triumphs of their journey have been equally shai^, 
and all important moves, financial or otherwise, have b«en ->de 
^fter mutual consultation. They adopted and reared to mating an 
orphan boy, WiUis A., bom Rogers, now Lopt, who s at p.esent 
mtd In a mill at Prague, this state. This worU^ coupl-^ 
now furnishing a home to Harry E. Jamieson, who will piobably 
vema with hi foster-parents to be the stay of their old age. Dr 
LonU Iman of decided character, and has made some enemies by 
Msfini stand in defense and advocacy of principles he deems right, 
Nofhng which does not seem to him likely to promote the welfare 



988 HISTORY OF WARASHA COUNTY. 

of his fellow-men can receive his sanction or support. Nothing 
could conduce more to his enjoyment than to see the rest of the 
world happy. He is a staunch temperance advocate, having imbibed 
a hatred of the curse of intemperance at his mother's knee. In 
theology he is a modern Spiritualist, believing and teaching that all 
men will occupy in the next world the statefor which their education 
and occupations in this have fitted them. In early life he denied 
and vehemently combated the idea that slavery was a divinely- 
appointed institution. He helped to organize the liberty party in 
New York State, and continued there to labor for freedom until the 
republican party succeeded it. For twenty years he has enjoyed the 
realization of his political hopes and desires in the triumph of the 
latter. lie has been active in promoting the welfare of his own 
neighborhood, and has been many times honored by his fellow- 
citizens in filling positions of responsibility. From 1861 to 1864 he 
served as supervisor in Chester, and was instrumental in relieving 
that town of a draft. He has been two years chairman of the 
Mazeppa town board, four years village justice, and served six years 
in the latter capacity in Chester and Mazeppa townshij^s. In his 
practice he enjoys the most amicable relations with neighboring 
physicians, whom he often meets in council. He has been twice 
elected president of the Wabasha County Medical Society. While 
his library is not a very extensive one, it contains standard works of 
all schools. Anj^thing new of undoubted authority is at once secured 
by him, and he is thus able to keep up with the times. 

Rev. Robert Clifford (deceased) delivered the first sermon in 
Lake City in the fall of 1850. Born at Spoondon, Derbyshire, 
England, in 1801. He was early a]:)prenticed to a dyer in the city 
of Derby. He soon became imbued with religious zeal, and began 
to preach the doctrine of the Disciples. He came to America in 
1838, and settled at Philadelphia. For sixteen years he continued 
to preach in that neighborhood and in New York, and came to the 
site of this city in 1855. After coming to this country he joined the 
Wesleyan Methodist church. He died here in 1862, and his widow, 
nee Rebecka Wayne, passed away two years later. Of five children, 
but three are now alive. The eldest, a son, died in Philadelphia. 
The, second, Robert, resides in Lake City, and also the j'oungest, 
Mrs. Jane W. Ilelt, a widow. The third, Mrs. John A. Jackson, 
dwells in Mount Pleasant. Mrs. John R. Graham died here. 

Robert Clifford, engineer, Lake City, son of above, was born 



PIONEERS. , 989 

in Winster, England, September 16, 1823, and came with his parents 
to the United States when fifteen years of age. He received but 
little schooling, and was apprenticed when seventeen to a- black- 
smith. On reaching his majority he came west and settled in the 
town of Porter, Rock county, Wisconsin. Here he built a smithy, 
and therein worked for ten years. He came to Minnesota in 186-1, 
and bought a farm in Mount Pleasant, this county. His winters 
were spent in the wagon and carriage works, where he is now em- 
ployed, and in 1867 he sold the farm and bought a home in the city, 
and has dwelt here steadily since. For the last five years he has 
had charge of the engine. Mr. Clifford is a full degree member of 
the I.O.O.F. He is a thorough republican, and in religious faith is 
found with the Methodists. In February, 1845, he was mari-ied at 
Philadelphia, the bride being Miss Margaret Helt, who died in 
July, 1875, leaving seven children. The eldest, Robert Wayne, 
served three years in the Union army before he was twenty years 
old, and is now in business in St. Paul. The others are resident as 
follows : Joseph D., Detroit, Michigan ; Nettie (Mrs. Frank Devor), 
Minneapolis; Mary A. (married James Cliff, now deceased), 
Mazeppa; Maggie (Hiram John'son), Minneapolis; Fannie (Jeffer- 
son Rosle), Mazeppa ; Naomi T. (Frank Young), Sparta, Wisconsin. 
Mr. Clifford was married the second time, to Miss Susan Mills, a 
native of Yirginia, to whom a son was born six years ago. 

Carl Christian Stauff, M.D., Lake City, one of the first set- 
tlers in the county, was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, in 1815 ; 
graduated at Rostock Allopathic Medical School in 1836 ; began 
practice at Wismar, and in 1810 married Wilhomina Hochman ; in 
1853 he crossed the Atlantic in the bark Humboldt, and after pros- 
pecting for a year he made his home in Cook's Yalley, Minnesota, 
for twelve years, farming ; disposing of his property, he moved to 
Wabasha and engaged in the drug business, which he continued 
several years. In October, 1875, he removed his business to Lake 
City, taking his youngest son as partner, where a good business and 
office practice is continued. Three sons and two daughters were 
given him, all of whom are married. The eldest son, C. J. Stauff, 
is at present clerk of district court, which office he has held for the 
past twenty years. F. E. Stauff, second son, resides at WharjDaton, 
Richland county, Dakota Territory, being county auditor of said 
county. Was county auditor of Wabasha county two years, also 
Cass county, Minnesota, six years, after which time he engaged in 



990 JIISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

mercantile business four years at St. Paul. In 1864 he enlisted in 
the defense of the Union in Co. C, 4th Minn. Yols. F. H. Stauff, 
junior ^partner, residing at Lake City, is credited as being the first 
white child born in the county. Was born August 31, 1855. After 
leaving school he chose medicine as a business, which he continued 
for some time ; he then was engaged in the wholesale drug house of 
Wm. H. Torbert, of Dubuque, Iowa. The oppcnlunity thus afforded 
him to familiarize himself with the complicated knowledge of his 
business has fitted him for his now responsible occupation, being 
one of the proprietors of one of the finest drug establishments of 
any town of its size in the west. Was married September 5, 1883, 
to Miss Helen S. Brown, of Minneiska. Eliza, eldest daughter, 
married to Wm. R. Hayes, resides at Argyle, Marshall county, 
Minnesota. Clara, youngest, married Capt. Homer Durand, and 
resides at Toledo, Ohio. Mr. Stauff and wife enjoy the best of 
health and are proud of their success in rearing a family that is a 
comfort to them in their declining years. 

Agustus W. Stowman, farmer, Glasgow, is a native of New 
Jersey. Beaumont Stowman and Anna Willett were born, reared 
and married in Philadelphia. They settled on a farm in Harmony, 
Warren county. New Jersey, where this subject was born to them 
in May, 1830. His education was supplied b}'^ the rate-schools of 
that day and locality, and \yhen eighteen years of age he went to 
work in a fiourmill. In 1855 he came to Minnesota and took up 
and made improvements on the land he now occupies, the northeast 
quarter of section 24. Leaving the land in care of relatives, he re- 
turned to Indiana, where his home had been for some time. Here 
he took a life-partner, March 20, 1860, in the person of Miss Eliza- 
beth, daughter of Squire and Susie Morrison, all of Kentuck}^ birth. 
In 1S61 Mr. Stowman took up his permanent residence here. For 
four years he was employed as a miller on West Indian creek, in 
Highland township. He now has a finely-cultivated farm, on which 
he has erected a comfortable brick dwelling, and is prepared to en- 
joy life. In February, 1865, he entered the 1st Minn, Heavy Art. 
as a recruit, and did garrison duty at Chattanooga, Tennessee. His 
religious faith is represented by the Methodist church, and his politi- 
cal ideas by the democracy. Four children have come to bless his 
home, and were christened Dora Belle, May, Charles P. and 
Minnesota. 

Asa B. Doughty, president of the Lake City Mill Company, was 



PIONEERS. 991 

born on Long Island, New York, in 1826. His parents were also 
natives of the same state ; the former, Samuel Doughty, died soon 
after our subject's birth, and the latter, Elizabeth (Nelson) Doughty, 
with two of her sons, Edward and Asa B., and a daughter, Alice, 
and her husband, Henry Coleman, in 1837 emigrated to Illinois, and 
settled in Bloomington, McLean county. Here Mr. Coleman estab- 
lished himself in the manufacture of plows and other farm machin- 
• ery, and with him our subject learned the trade. In 1855 Mr. 
Doughty made a prospecting tour to Lake City, and seeing the 
natural advantages of the place, bought property, and returned to 
Illinois to make arrangements for a final settlement here, which he 
did in July, 1857. The prevailing malarious influences of the climate 
in Illinois had so impaired his health, that he remained comparatively 
inactive for nearly four years after his arrival here. He then em- 
barked in the grain and commission business, and after a few years' 
experience in the fluctuations and uncertainties of commerce turned 
his attention to the business of his trade, and engaged in the manu- 
ture of wagons, plows and harrows, built up a large trade and con- 
ducted a prosperous business till 1880. In the fall of this year the Lake 
City Flourmill passed into his possession ; this he formed into a 
joint-stock company, and remodeled it throughout, put in the new 
roller process and entire new machinery, making it a complete 
merchant mill, with a capacity of one hundred and twenty-five bar- 
rels per day. The oflicers are : A. B. Doughty, president ; R. 
White, vice-president; directors, ,G. F, Benson, A. Basey, G. M. 
Dwelle, J. Dobner, C. A. Hubbard, E. Hackett and L. H. Buck ; 
Mr. Henry Selover, superintendent, and secretary. Mr. Doughty 
was married in 1849, to Miss Ellen McClung, a native of Virginia, 
who came to Illinois in a very early day. She died in 1862, leav- 
ing Mr. Doughty with two children : Lillie, now Mrs. Wm. C. 
Water, of Sioux Falls, Dakota, and Lulu, now Mrs. B. Y. McNairy, 
of Campbell, Minnesota. His second marriage was in 1864, with 
Miss Sue Johns, a native of Pennsylvania. By this marriage he 
has had no children, though their home is made pleasant by the 
presence of Miss Anna Seilheimer, who is a distant relative of his 
wife, and has found a home with them for several years. 

Rodman Burchard, the subject of this sketch, was born in Paris, 
Oneida county. New York, December 26, 1808. He removed from 
there to Wethersfield, Wyoming county, in the same state, in the 
year 1845, where he resided but a short time, going from there to 



992 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Michigan witli the intention of making it liis liome. He was soon 
taken sick with the fever, then so prevalent in some parts of that 
state, and, conchiding that it was too sickly for him there, went back 
to Gainsville, New York, where he was married to Esther A. Davis, 
December 23, 1847. In the year 1854 he purchased a farm in Vir- 
ginia, intending to move his family there the following season. But 
having had a presentiment (as he thought) that all might not be 
well in the future in a slave state like Virginia, he sold the farm and • 
decided to go west. He landed at Wabasha, in the fall of 1855. 
Having heard of Greenwood prairie, he hired a team to take his 
family and goods to the village of Greenville, which was then lo- 
cated two miles and a half east of this place, where he formed a part- 
nership with the Richards Bros, in the mercantile business, opening 
a general store in a log house, living upstairs and keeping hotel at 
the same time. Trade increased so rapidly that they were soon 
obliged to erect a larger building for the store, leaving the log 
house to be used for the dwelling. Here he lived for many years. 
His wife died June 10, 1866, leaving the husband one son and three 
daughters. After the death of his wife he moved to Plain view 
where he kept his family together and was married to Miss Maggie 
Crossen, April 13, 1871, who, with the four children mentioned, and 
her own httle son, now about eight years old, survive him. Mr. 
Burchard died February 6, 1883, being seventy-four years, one 
month and twelve days old. He was a man of strong will, good 
judgment and great perseverance, -and withal a kind neighbor. Be- 
ing well-known in this community he leaves many friends to mourn 
his death. [The above is an extract from the minutes ot the Old 
Settlers' Association.] 

Hon. Alonzo P. Foster, son of a Vermont farmer of Scotch 
'descent, was born in Orange, Orange county, Vermont, May 5, 1816. 
Lemuel Foster, his father, died when the subject of the present 
sketch was but four years old, and the cares incident to the rearing 
of a family of ten children were devolved upon the mother, Cloe 
(Powers) Foster, a member of the Leland family of this country, 
which has extant a genealogical record. The mother was very- 
much attached to the old Orange county farm and continued to 
reside thereon until her death, keeping her large family together as 
best she could. The education of young Foster would have been 
sadly neglected had he not been studiously inclined, and taken, un- 
directed, upon himself the task of mastering not only the common 



PIONEERS. ' 993 

branches of study, but also those usually taught in high schools. 
He remained at home in charge of the old farm for several years, 
and until after the death of both mother and wife. He was married 
to Miss Harriet Thompsdu, of Orange county, in 1844, by whom he 
had one child, the preseiit Mrs. T. G. Bolton, of Plainview. The 
death of his wife occurred in 1851, and his mother departed this 
life in 1854. He next became manager for one year of the Troy 
Conference Academy, of West Poultney, Yermont, over which his 
cousin, Kev. Jason F. Watkins, presided. The following spring he 
came to Minnesota, arriving on Greenwood prairie a few days after 
the Eddy party came. lie located on the S.E. J Sec. 11 in Plain- 
view. Despite vigorous efforts put forth to drive him from this claim, 
which was a portion of the Half-breed Tract, he continued to hold it 
until enabled to perfect his title. He disposed of this farm in 1864. 
In 1866 he gathered together a considerable fund and removed to 
Winona, investing in real estate, which afterward he platted as an 
addition to the city of Winona under the name of Foster's addition. 
He re-established his home in Plainview in 18Y8, and now owns a 
large farm on section 36, in Oakwood, besides the small place in 
Foster's addition to Plainview village. He makes a specialty of 
Jersey cattle and Norman-Percheron horses. Mr. Foster was a 
member of the state legislature in 1857. 

KussELL W. Carpekter, dealer in farming implements. Plain- 
view, and brother of George W. Carpenter, of Highland township, 
was born in Crawford county, Pennsylvania, September 16, 1836. 
From 1847 till he came to Minnesota was with his father and 
brothers in McHenry county, Illinois. In 1855 the family came to 
Greenwood prairie, where Russell was among the unfortunates who 
selected a claim on the Indian reservation, and which he abandoned, 
the same now being known as the Pat Mahon farm. From the fall 
of 1857 to 1874 he resided in Dubuque, Iowa; since which time he 
has continued to reside in Wabasha county, engaging in agricultural 
pursuits until 1881, where he became interested in the farming im- 
plement trade, and has continued to follow it since. He enlisted 
in the 21st Iowa Yols., but owing to physical unsoundness was re- 
jected by the surgeon. He is a member of Plainview Lodge, 
I.O.O.F. June 6, 1867, he espoused Susan, daughter of Jacob 
Brant, of Epworth, Iowa, by whom he has had two children, viz : 
Edward A. and Minnie E. 

Benjamin Pickett, Plainview, farmer, was born in Pultney, 



994 HISTORY OF wabasiia county. 

Steuben county, New York, August 11, 1828. His parents were 
Eli and Cuissan Ann Pickett. His fatlier was a native of tlie same 
county. When eighteen he accompanied liis brother, Eli C. Pickett, 
to Dodge county, Wisconsin. Here he continued to reside with his 
brother until the spring of 1855, when he came to Minnesota, and 
located on section 9, Plain view, eighty acres of which claim now con- 
stitute the farm, on which he has since continued to reside. He came 
in company with Mr. Washburn, Mr. Miner and Mr. Jack Williams. 
In 1858 he went back to Wisconsin, and spent the winter ; on his 
return in the spring he brought back a three-year-old colt, which is 
now a hale old horse of twenty-nine years. His next trip to Wis- 
consin was of a matrimonial character, and resulted in his espousing 
Susanna Allen, February 9, 1861. She was the daughter of Caleb 
Allen, a farmer and mason, of Lowell, Dodge county, Wisconsin, 
now of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, and was born in Washingtoif county, 
New York, November lY, 1842. The children of this marriage are : 
Frank B., employed in Wyant's photograph gallery, Plainview ; 
Eenjamin E. and Anna. 

George D. Sandford, merchant, is a son of J. H. Sandford, 
elsewhere mentioned in this work, and was born in Topsham, Maine, 
June 14, 1850. He was brought to Mazeppa with his father's family 
in the fall of 1855, and has dwelt here ever since. His life was 
passed on a farm till twenty-one years old, and his education was fur- 
nished by the common schools, of whose advantages he made the 
best use. His natural abilities and energies have made him a suc- 
cessful business man. In 1871 he went to Lake City, where he spent 
three years in learning and following the wagonmaker's trade. In 
1874 he built a wagon-shop near the mill in Mazeppa, which he 
operated five years and then sold, the advent of the raih-oad spoiling 
tlie location. He has dealt considerable in real estate, and is now 
the owner of a farm near the village, which he rents. On April 25, 
1881, he was deputized as postmaster, and has kept the postofRce 
ever since. The following }ear he opened a stock of groceries and 
boots and shoes in the postoffice building, and does considerable 
trade in those commodities. He was elected town clerk in 1882, 
and is now fulfilling the duties of the same office. He is a repub- 
lican, and a member of the masonic order. He has been twice 
married, and was robbed of his first mate by death in July, 1875. 
Jennie Dickey was the lady's name before her marriage to Mr. 
Sandford, which occurred October 22, 1874. On Christmas day, 



PIONEERS. ""^ 



1879 he was united in marriage with Miss Alice, daughter of J. B. 
Miller. They have a son, born December 5, 1880, and christened 
Frank Burnett. 

Gen Seth L. McCAKTi', of Plainview, Wabasha county, is a 
staunch old pioneer farmer with a career. His father, William 
McCarty, was a farmer, residing in Muncy, Lycoming county 
Pennsylvania, where Seth was born June 9, 1808. Hera he acquired 
the rudiments of an education in the common school and continued 
to reside until his twenty-first year. During two years of this time 
he worked for John Grouse, cabinetmaker, of Muncy, learning that 
trade which he followed in Towanda, Bradford county, Pennsyl- 
vania, until the spring of 1832, when he went to Newmarket, Can- 
ada, and opened a cabinetshop. He continued in business there 
until the breaking out of the patriot war in 1837. This war at once 
furnished him the opportunity that his military nature sought, and 
he soon found a place on Gen. McKenzie's staft; and was immedi- 
ately employed to bear dispatches to divers members of the Domin- 
ion parliament concerned in the revolt. On his good stout war-horse 
he performed this task, that required not a little nerve and energy. 
Frequently the enemy crowded him in close pursuit, on one occasion 
forcing him to ride a distance of fifty-two miles in six hours, and on 
another sixty-eight miles in eight hours. He was next transferred to 
Gen Van Rensselaer's staff", and served under him until the winter of 
1837-8, when he was sent to the support of Gen. McClellan, of the 
western division, and remained with him until the war closed. Gen. 
McCarty led the forces that stormed and captured Windsor, opposite 
Detroit, and it was after this battle, in which he displayed great 
braverv and military genius, that he was raised from the rank of 
colonel to that of brigadier-general. AVith the close of this war 
terminated the active military life of Gen. McCarty. He soon after 
resigned his commission and removed to Detroit, Michigan, and the 
following year to Port Huron, in the same state, where he continued 
to reside until 1855, when he came to Minnesota and located on the 
S E i of Sec. 21, in Plainview township. Here he has since con- 
tinued to pursue the even life of a farmer. On one occasion only 
has the peace been sufficiently disturbed to rouse the old warlike 
• nature in his breast and drive him to the front, and that was during 
the Indian outbreak which occurred in Minnesota m 1862, though 
he held a commission as major in the state militia from 1860. Two 
years after his settlement in Minnesota a postoffice was established 



996 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

at his house under tlie name of Independence, of which office he was 
postmaster until it was discontinued in 1862. Gen. McCarty was 
the first settler in southwest Plainview. He has always affiliated 
with the democratic party, and is a member of the masonic frater- 
nity. He was married in York county, Canada, to Kebecca Mc- 
Cansland, daughter of James and Anna McCausland, in 1835. They 
have three children now living, viz : James, a farmer of Plainview 
township ; David, farmer, residing in Winona county ; and Mary 
Ann (Mrs, Samuel Loy) of Spokane county, Washington Territory. 
Rhoderick W. Drinkwalter, farmer, Zumbro, is among the 
early settlers of Mazeppa, that part in which he resides having been 
set off quite recently. In 1856 he built a sawmill on the mani 
Zumbro near where the bridge now crosses the same, a mile above 
the mouth of the north branch. He was a pioneer in the town of 
Fox Lake, Wisconsin, where he settled in 1842, and was one of the 
first supervisors of that town, as well as of Mazeppa, being elected 
in 1858. He is a republican in politics. Himself and wife have 
been forty years members of the Methodist Episcopal church. They 
were married October 1, 1838. Mrs. Drinkwalter's name was Mary 
Lord, and she was born in Connecticut. Her parents were Andrew 
and Mary Lord, born in the same state. Mr. Drinkwalter was born 
in Pike, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, October 30, 1814. He 
received a common-school education, and was always accustomed to 
fcirm life. His mother, Betsey Pratt, was born in the same town as 
he. His father, Stephen K., was a native of Connecticut. He 
became a resident here in 1856, and secured one-fourth of section 13, 
where he lives. Has since acquired eighty acres more, and one 
hundred and five on the river, where his sawmill stood. His eldest 
cliild was born July 30, 1839, and christened Pratt. He was married 
April 5, 1883, to Lena Scholer, born August 25, 1863, in Glasgow, this 
county. He has one hundred and sixty acres adjoining his father's 
land, and dwells in the same house with him. Cordelia was born 
September 12, 1844, and married George Hall, as elsewhere noted. 
Robert Hall (deceased) was born in Dows, Lincolnshire, Eng- 
land, April 1, 1801. His wife, Charlotte, was born Spencer in 1804, 
in Ednum Parish, same county. They were married October 2, 
1826. In 1851 they left England and settled on a farm in Onondaga 
county, New York. Came to Zumbro in May, 1856, and took claim 
on section 12, where his widow and son now reside. Mr. Hall died 
August 2, 1865. He and wife were Episcopalians. Mrs. Hall is 



PIONEERS. 997 

very active at this writing, and appears good for twenty years of life 
yet. Of their twelve children only two are living now. The first 
death in the town occurred in this family, taking Sophia, a twenty- 
year-old daughter. Emma J. married J. L. Bent (now deceased) 
and resides at Zumbro Falls. George, the eldest living child, was 
born in Dows, October 22, 1833. He was nearly eighteen when he 
came to America, and attended one term of school in New York. 
He came to Minnesota with his parents. He was married February 
1, 1862, to Cordelia Drinkwalter, whose parentage elsewhere appears. 
They have seven children living, born as follows : Maria C, April 
15, 1864; Henrietta, October 22, 1866; Effie S., May 12, 1868; 
Frederick P., September 16, 1870 ; Wallace K., November 11, 
1874 ; Prosper R, January, 4, 1880 ; Jessie, May 23, 1883. Four 
children have died. 

Ira a. Fifield, farmer and fruit-grower, Mazeppa. Among the 
earliest residents of Mazeppa was the father of this subject, Joseph 
Fifield, now residing in Lyon county, this state. Mary Nicholls 
married Joseph Fifield, and gave birth to a son on November 4, 
1835, and that son grew to be the substantial citizen of whom this 
page shall now speak. Ira A. Fifield became a citizen of Mazeppa in 
June, 1856, coming here with his father. He made claim to one 
hundred and twenty acres of land on section 29, where he now 
dwells. His estate at present includes over two hundred acres, ot 
which he has cleared and tills eighty. He pays a good' deal of atten- 
tion to the growth of small fruits, and does considerable trade in 
supplying others with choice plants. He has never taken any part 
in public afiairs, but has always adhered to the republican party. 
Has no faith in religion. Beginning with nothing save his hands, 
he has become independent by his own labor and the faithful assist- 
ance of his helpmeet. The latter, Emftia, born Ruber, was espoused 
by Mr, Fifield in 1867. Her father is among the foremost citizens 
of the adjoining town of Oronoco, Olmsted county. Mr. Fifield 
served from January 28 to September 27, 1865, in Co. G, 1st Minn. 
Heavy Art., being stationed at Chattanooga, Tennessee. Children 
have been given to him and christened as follows : Nellie L., 
October 18, 1868 ; Clara May, April 25, 1870 ; Ella Grace, Decem- 
ber 11, 1871 ; Celia Ann, December 17, 1873 ; George F., October 
10, 1875; James S., June 30, 1877; Charles E., June 27, 1879; 
Abram W., June 3, 1883. 

James M. Harrison, farmer, Mazeppa, is a son of Elias S. and 



998 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY, 

Maria (Gardner) Harrison, of Pennsylvania, and was born in School- 
craft, Michigan, April 2, 1848. The father (now deceased) settled 
with his family at Center Point, near Lake City, in July, 1852. He 
erected the first hotel building there, where he died in July, 1863. 
The subject of this sketch attended the common school there till the 
death of his father. He then came to Mazeppa, and attended one 
term here. Farming has always been his vocation. July 27, 1867, 
he married Pha;be Ann Youngs, daughter of John Youngs, else- 
where mentioned. Mr. Harrison is tilling rented land. He is a 
member of Mazeppa Lodge, I.O.O.F., and is a republican. 

Garret A. Cook, postmaster at Cook's Valley, is a grandson of 
Garret Albertson, a continental soldier during the American revolu- 
tion. In the town of Hard wick, "Warren county, New Jersey, 
January 2, 1818, the subject of this sketch was born to Abram H. 
and Ann Galicia (Albertson) Cook, themselves natives of the same 
commonwealth. Until fifteen years old Garret A. Cook remained 
on his father's farm, receiving the limited benefits of the common 
school of the time. He was apprenticed to a saddler and harness- 
maker, and pursued such occupation for twelve years. He went to 
Virginia in 1852, and thence came to Minnesota in 1855, locating 
on section 30, Greenfield. His home has ever since remained there. 
By his thrift he has acquired three hundred and forty acres of real 
estate, and is passing his old age in peace and plenty. He was 
elected clerk of the first school district organized here, in November, 
1857, and still fills the same position ; has been postmaster for the 
past twenty-two years ; was justice of the peace four years here, and 
eight years in New Jersey ; afliliates with the republican party. 
Himself and wife are communicants in the Methodist Episcopal 
church, and were instrumental in tlie building of Cook's Valley 
church for that society. Mr." Cook was made a mason in Virginia 
and served as secretary of the same lodge in which George Wash- 
ington was initiated. In 1841 Mr. Cook was imited in marriage to 
Miss Mary, daughter of Jeremy and Lana Mackey, all of New Jer- 
sey. They have since become the parents of six children. Abram 
and Elizabeth (Mrs. Herman Grafi") are resident at Hancock, Min- 
nesota. Lytle O., Anneta, Irwin and Viola still dwell with their 
parents. Abram entered the United States army, and served till the 
close of the civil war in the 3d Minn. regt. Lytle is now conduct- 
ing the village school at Kellogg. AVhilo resident at Alexandria, 
Virginia, Mr. Cook fell into an unguarded railway cut, which caused 
a permanent injury of his left limb. 



PIONEEES. 999 

John Henry Wehrenberg, farmer, Greenfield, was born in 
Hanover, German}^, April 10, 1835. Up to fourteen years of age 
he attended school and assisted his parents in their farm labors. 
He was then apprenticed to a cabinetmaker and soon became master 
of the trade. When seventeen years old he left his native land 
and made his way to St. Louis, Missouri, where he was employed at 
cabinetwork. In 1856 he came to Minnesota and took up one- 
fourth of section 20, Greenfield, which he still retains. He now 
has half a section and resides on 29 in a handsome brick house. 
His wedding was the first celebrated in the township and occurred 
March 28, 1858, the bride being Miss Anna Frye, daughter of 
another pioneer mentioned elsewhere. Mr. Wehrenberg has always 
been a republican, and all the family were baptised in the Lutheran 
church. The children, in the order of their age, were christened 
Herman G., Lena L., Emma C, Augusta M., Henry J., Edward, 
Minnie, Charles a»d Eliza. Mr. Wehrenberg joined the Union army 
in February, 1865, and served nine months in the 1st Minn. Heavy 
Art., stationed at Chattanooga. He is now quite extensively en- 
gaged in stock raising, and has, among other animals, forty head of 
cattle. 

Henry Frye, retired farmer, is one of the pioneers of Greenfield, 
having located in 1856 on section 29, where he now dwells with his 
daughter. He was born in Hanover in 1799, and emigrated direct 
to Minnesota in the spring of 1856. In 1827 he married Mary 
Koenig, now deceased. The family includes two daughters, the 
eldest, Mrs. Henry Graner, residing near by ; the other, Mrs. J. H. 
Wehrenberg, is spoken of above. All are Lutherans. 

EwiN Alexander, carpenter and builder. Lake City, was born 
in Richmond, Maine, August 25, 1885. His parents, Ewin Alex- 
ander and Sarah Melcher, were born in Brunswick, same state. The 
early life of this subject was passed on the farm, and his education 
was supplied by the common school. At eighteen he began carpen- 
terwork and has followed it nearly ever since. Manj^fine buildings 
in this county, including the county-house and the new Lake City 
schoolhouse, are of his construction. He became a resident of 
Lake City in 1856. Two years were subsequently spent in Missis- 
sippi and he returned m 1860. September 18, 1861, he entered the 
1st Minn. regt. Yols., Co. I, and served in the army of the Potomac. 
He was a participant in the battles of Ball's Blufl", the Peninsula cam- 
paign, West Point, Fair Oaks, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, 



1000 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Malvern Hill and Antietam, He, was discharged in 1863, and soon 
went on board tlie merchant vessel General Grant as ship's carpenter. 
After sailing from Boston to San Francisco, he then went on the 
Seaman's Bride to Baker's Island where the vessel was wrecked in 
the spring of 1865, and the crew was left for iifty-five days on this 
barren coral island until picked up by tlie packet schooner Odd- 
Fellow. Arriving at San Francisco Mr. Alexander set out for Bos- 
ton in the Wild Hunter, which was out one hundred and forty-four 
days on the voyage around Cape Horn to Boston. In the fall of 
1866 our subject returned to Lake City, which has been his home 
since. December 7, 1S70, he espoused in marriage Miss Frances 
C, eldest daughter of F. G. Slocum, of this city. Their children 
are bright and promising, christened Helen, Kate, Sarah and Anna. 
Mr, Alexander is a member of the Masonic order and of the 
A.O.U.W. His religion is "Peace on earth, goodwill toman," 
and his voting has always been with the republican party. 

Geokge Patton, retired merchant. Lake City (see portrait), is the 
only cliild of George Patton, a successful teacher of twenty-eight 
years' experience, and Jane (Humphreys) Patton, natives of Stra- 
bane, Ireland, of Irish and English ancestry. In the city of Phila- 
delphia, on August 24, 1802, was born the subject of this page. 
When he was nine years of age, the family then residing at Will- 
iamsport, his mother was drowned in a stage coach which was 
swept away by a swollen stream on the way to Pennsborough. 
The youthful George was only prevented from sharing his mother's 
journey and fate by a mere childish accident. Just as they were 
about to start, he fell down and soiled his clothing, for which he was 
compelled to forego the trip. When in his fifteenth year, our sub- 
ject began his mercantile career, entering a store in Lewistown, 
Pennsylvania. After serving one employer five years and another 
nine, he engaged in business for himself at Allenville, Mifliin 
countj^, in 1831. By the industry and shrewd business management 
of fifteen years here, he secured financial independence, and resolved 
to locate in Cincinnati, where his children, six sons and one daugh- 
ter, might be properly educated. For nine years his only business 
was their care and intellectual advancement. Their mother, Eliza, 
daughter of James Kellogg, one of the substantial citizens of Lewis- 
town and Mr. Patton's employer for nine years, was a woman worthy 
of such a husband, and ably seconded his efforts. The loss of 
health prompted Mr. Patton in 1855 to travel in the west. A tour 



PIONEERS. 1001 

of some weeks' duration through Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota 
territory, satisfied him of the healthful climate and flattering mater- 
ial prospects of this section. Now, in his eighty-second year, his 
general health is good, and his long life is no doubt to be largely 
attributed to our invigorating climate, together with a clear con- 
science and regular, temperate habits. He left Oliio in May, 1855, 
on his prospecting trip, and removed his family to Winona in July 
of the same year. Here he bought lots and contemplated a per- 
manent residence. In the following winter his attention was called 
to the site of Lake City by its projectors, and after a survey of the 
adjacent country, he became convinced of its natural advantages 
and decided to purchase an interest in the town, which he did, and 
removed his family hither the following May. At that time boats 
did not land here, but Mr. Patton persuaded the captain of the War 
Eagle to put off^his household effects, cow, etc., on the shore. The 
boat arrived after dark, and they were obliged to make their way as 
best they could to a shanty near by. A severe storm was in progress 
at the time, and on reaching the cabin its floor was found to be 
soaked with the rain ; but here they were compelled to arrange their 
bedding and set up a stove and prepare supper. Mr. Patton at once 
set about preparations to build, and during this season completed his 
present residence, corner of High street and Lyon avenue, and occu- 
pied it in N"ovember. All the material had to be freighted from 
Pead's Landing, and much of it was purchased in Dubuque, the 
lumber being brought in a raft from the St. Croix river. The latter 
was dried in a kiln, erected for the especial purpose. Stones for 
the foundation were rolled down the bluffs, and Mr. Patton was 
obliged to mix mortar and wait on the mason, in order to fit the 
house for a shelter before winter came on. Only one carpenter and 
one mason could be found, and day-laborers were unheard of at 
that time. .In the spring of 1857, Mr. Patton built a store and 
opened for trade in April, 1859, continuing in mercantile business 
till January 1, 1881. Associated with him were his sons, Hiram 
and Augustus. The eldest son, James E., is a prosperous mer- 
chant and manufacturer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he has 
dwelt nearly thirty years. George P., the second, is in successful 
medical practice here. Nathan, the fourth, is now dealing in gen- 
eral merchandise at Tower City, Dakota. Augustus M. , died Feb- 
ruary, 1869, aged twenty-nine years, at Lake City, leaving a widow 
and two sons. The only daughter, Eliza J., married Rev. Silas 



J 002 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Hazlett, and is now deceased. December 31, 1878, was celebrated 
the golden wedding of George Patton and Eliza Kellogg, at their 
elegant home, where they were surrounded with the friends of a 
quai-ter centur}^, as well as many later ones. At the family reunion 
in the evening were present all the living descendants of Mr. and 
Mrs. Patton, except Dr. E. A. Patton, of Cincinnati, including a 
great-grandchild, Eliza McLean. 

George Eandolph Patton was born in Allen ville, Mifflin county, 
Pennsylvania, August 16, 1834. His parentage is American ; the an- 
cestors of his father (who is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 
being Irish, and those of his mother (who is a native of New Haven, 
Connecticut) English, who settled in Connecticut in 1687. His 
parents, yet in vigorous health, celebrated in Lake City, Minnesota, 
their golden wedding, December 31, 1878. The subject of this 
sketch removed with his parents to Cincinnati, Ohio, in April, 1845. 
He spent four years in the old Cincinnati College, now merged into 
Herron's Classical Seminary, and subsequentl}^ graduated A.B. at 
the Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, after pursuing its four years^ 
course of study. During his first college year he carried forward at 
the same time the studies of both the freshman and sophomore 
classes, entering the junior on a grade of ninety-seven and two- 
thirds at the end of the first year. One of his achievements in the 
university was a literal translation, in book form, of the odes, sat- 
ires and epistles. of Horace ; also the "Greek Antiquities " of Thu- 
cydides, "Plato Contra Atheos,"and the "Prometheus" of ^schy- 
lus. During the last year of his college course he pursued the study 
of Hebrew in the Associated Keformed Theological Seminary, witli 
the view of the ministry. After studying theology one year in the 
"Western Theological Seminary, then located in Cincinnati, he turned 
his attention to medicine ; entered the ofiice of Prof. George Men- 
denhall, and graduated M.D., in the Miami Medical College, Cin- 
cinnati, in February, 1855. From February, 1854, to his gradua- 
tion, he served as the outdoor physician of the city dispensary, 
affording a wide scope of clinical observation. He established 
himself in practice in Cincinnati in 1855, occupying an office with 
Prof. J. F. White, of the Miami Medical College, until 1856 ; after 
that, until March, 1857, he was associated in the same office with 
Prof. E. Williams, the celebrated oculist, professor of ophthal- 
mology in the Miami school. He then opened an office in his own 
residence, corner of Fourth and John streets ; removed to No. 241 



PIONEERS. 



West Seventh street, in 1860; to 360 West Eighth street in 1867 
If remlined there till 1872, when ill-health, supermduced ch^fly 
by overwork and an unfortunate post-mortem wound compelhng 
fte Xquishment of a large .nd lucrative practice he retired to 
Lake Gins Minnesota. His contributions to the public press and 
mtdlca! Hterature have been voluminous. .A>non^,,*- ^ ^^ 
upon medical topics may be mentioned an article on Elephantia s 
Arabica"iu tlie Cincinnati M.dM OUervev, March, 18o6 the 
tlotng in the Cincinnati I^nct anA OJ««..r- "Contribution 
onMminthology," Juno, 1862, January, 1863, and February 1864 , 
"put^asia Dolens," June, 1863; " Hemorrhagic D.ahesis 
December 1867; "Antagonism of Aropia and Morphia, June, 
?869 ''A New nstrument for Urethritis," December, 1869; and 
in the Philadelphia mdicA and Surgical Reporter, Februai-j-^ 
870 articles on the "Treatment of Urethritis," in the Cincinnati 
iILJiJX,w,1870; "Hepatitis," /Ja., March, 187 ; on 
"mnia," in the Cincinnati MedUcd Repertory, Februai-y, 18 
" Hvpodermic Injections and Treatment by Atomization, in Med, 
^Tnd S,.gieJ Reporter, March, 1870. He is tbe mv-tor of a 
large number of surgical appliances, the most "» «d of w ich i 
known as "Patton's reverse-flow fenestrated injecting canda and 
Ser"; also an apparatus for Colle's ^aeture of he i.diu^^^^ 
instrument for deep-seated hsemorrhage, etc. In 1857 he was lee 
. : I : materia inedica and therapeutics in the Miami Mechca, 
College, Cincinnati; in 1856 was elected physician of L k Run 
Lunalc Asylum, declined; was physician and surgeon to Samt 

JoW Hospital during 1855 and 1856; surgeon of the Seminary 
Johns Hospta a ^^^^^ ^^^.^^ ^^^p^^^j 

fstirt'^geotriiiefoftheGreei^^^^^ 

during the war ; city physician of Cincmnati &«- ^^ S^o Wf^^^^^^^^ 
for a number of years consulting physician of the city ^^V^^^^J^Y^ 
In 1867 he was proffered the professorship ot ^-ton^^n tt^e Ci^ 
cinnati Dental College. From time to time -"- S-JJ" 
has spent, in the aggregate, over three y.ars in ^P--j « 
under soecialists, in the colleges and hospitals of New loik ana 
PWladXha He is a member of, and has held many ofbces in 
"Seal associations. During the C™-an war he received 
asuro-eon's commission in the Russian army for thiee years, but 
M fcanceled at his own request, on acconnt ot the war J— ^ 
i„g as he was about to sail for Europe. He has performed about 



1004 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

all the capital operations in surgery. The degree of M.D. ad eun- 
dera was conferred upon him by the Medical College of Ohio, Cin- 
cinnati, in 1858; and the degree ot M.A. by the Miami University 
in 1857. Among his published addresses maybe noted the " Med- 
ical Pendulum," delivered before the Alumni Association of the 
Miami Medical College, Cincinnati, at the annual meeting February 
28, 1870. He is a very fluent and effective speaker, and has never 
used at any time either notes or manuscript. March 26, 1857, he 
married Frances Mary, daughter ot A. W. Patterson, Esq., of 
Cincinnati, and has had two children, Edward A. and Ella Eliza. 
The former is now M.D. ; graduated in the Miami Medical College, 
Cincinnati, Ohio. 

Dr. E. a. Patton, of Minneapolis, was formerly a physician of 
Lake City, in partnership with his father, G. R Patton. He is a 
gentleman of superior education and attainments and is now the 
professor of physiology in the Minnesota College Hospital of Min- 
neapolis. His wife, Mattie S., is a daughter of Maj. L. S. Van 
Vliet, whose sketch may be found elsewhere in this volume. 

Hajrrison Gillett, the great engine-boiler builder and machinist, 
of Lake City, was born in Coopertown, New York, in 1824, and at 
the early age of twelve years had developed considerable taste for 
machinery, especially such as was propelled by steam power. At 
that age he began running an engine at Syracuse, New York, and 
two years later went into a machine-shop to learn the art of build- 
ing. This he completed, and to this day has kept pace with the 
development of steam machinery and in many ways taken decidedly 
advanced steps in the science. In 1856 he came to Minnesota and 
located in Lake City, and at once, in company with Starr, Gaylord 
& Thompson, built a mill — his connection with this firm, however, 
was soon severed, he drifting into his old business and also starting 
a foundry. He run the first heat in this city on July 10, 1869, and 
erected his large machine-shop at the corner of Main and Dwelle 
streets in 1870. This building is a massive stone structure in size, 
38X120, walls eighteen inches thick, on a substantial foundation, 
two feet in thickness, fifty feet of the front, two stories high, the 
entire building covered with an iron roof. The interior is arranged 
into apartments to suit the convenience of the different branches of 
work carried on, each room being supplied with new and improved 
machinery for the moulding and making of any article, from a 
wheelbarrow to a complete steam threshing-machine, capable of 



PIONEERS. 1005 

being conveyed to the field by its own motive power. In this 
immense establishment is a thirty-horsepower engine, which not 
only propels the vast machinery within its own walls, but also 
furnishes the power for two grain elevators. During the threshing 
season of 1882 Mr. Gillette had in the field thirteen full-equipped 
steam threshers, through which was run about five hundred thousand 
bushels of grain, earning the sum of fourteen thousand three hun- 
dred dollars. Suffice it to say that Mr. Gillett is a natural machinist 
in every sense, and his sons are men of the same stamp. He was 
married December 31, 1846, to Miss Mary L. Bayard, of the State 
of New York, who has borne to him eight children, six of whom 
are still living, whose names in the order of their birth are Frank 
H., Frances L. James H., Fred H., Addie L., and Asa D. 

John Fletcher, Lake City, was born in Madison county, New 
York, February 18, 1831, and is the ninth child of Isaac and Nancy 
(Brown) Fletcher, who reared a family of ten to manhood and 
womanhood, save the first child, a daughter, who died at the age of 
sixteen years. They were natives of Vermont and York State 
respectively, and died in Madison count}^. New York. John's 
early years were spent on the farm, and his education was com- 
pleted with three terms at Hamilton Academy. For seven years 
his time was principally employed in teaching school. In 1856 he 
made a trip to Minnesota, having been employed to place the machin- 
ery in a mill at Mazeppa. At this time he placed the buhrs in the 
first flouring-mill in this county. The same season he made a claim 
to a quarter-section of government land in Goodhue county. In 
1860 he became a permanent resident of this county, settling with 
his family on a farm in Mazeppa, and three years later removed to 
Lake City where he for several years conducted a hotel. In 1870 
he engaged in the grain trade and in 1880 removed his head- 
quarters to Cass county, Dakota, though he continued to reside 
here. January 6, 1858, Mr. Fletcher was united in marriage to 
Sallie B. Hawks, who was born in Georgetown, Madison county. 
New York, whither her parents — Horace and Hannah (Bardwell) 
Hawks — removed from Massachusetts in the earliest period of 
Georgetown's settlement. To Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher two children 
were given, one of whom, Phila L. , is now in attendance at the city 
schools. The other died in childhood. 

LoRiN J. Fletcher, grain-dealer. Lake City, is a brother of 
John Fletcher above mentioned. He was born December 11, 



1006 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

1833, in Madison county, New York ; enjoyed tlie advantages of a 
common scbool through youth, to wliich was added one year's 
academic traming. The eight years previous to 1856 were spent in 
a store, and in tliis year he came to Mazeppa, this county, and 
embarked in a mercantile business. After conducting a pioneer 
store one year he returned east, where he remained until 1859, 
when he again came to this county. Then followed a two years' 
residence in Maze])pa, after which he permanently located in Lake 
City, and at once engaged in the grain and commission business 
as a member of the lirm of Amsbry & Fletcher. This firm con- 
ducted a prosperous business in this city up till the time of the con- 
struction of railroads through the interior, which materially cut off 
their trade from the rural towns. This firm also were agents for 
the St. Louis and St. Paul line of steamboats on the Mississippi 
river, and was for many years agent for the Northwestern Express 
Company, as well as for the American Express Company after it 
had absorbed the former. After the completion of the railroad to 
this city, they built an elevator near the company's depot, where 
Mr. Fletcher is still engaged in the grain trade. He was married 
at Lake City, April 26, 1859, to Miss Mate E. Amsbry, the only 
daughter of his business partner, Mr. William H. Amsbry. She is 
a native of Shenango county. New York. To them were born two 
children, but one of whom is living, a daughter, Jessie C, now 
eight years of age. 

William H. Amsbky (deceased) was born in New Hampshire 
in 1817, and was reared on a farm in Shenango county, New York, 
from the time he was six years of age. In 1836 he was married to 
Miss Charlotte ^ Coley, and followed agricultural pursuits in She- 
nango county till 1856, when he removed to the new and untried 
State of Minnesota. He first settled in Mazeppa, in this county, 
and there bought out and completed the first mill begun in the 
county. Ill 1860 he sold out and removed to Lake City, where he 
conducted an extensive grain and general commission business. 
He died in 1881, and is much missed by his friends and fellow- 
citizens. Mr. Amsbry served this county as commissioner, in its 
early history, and Lake City as a staunch friend and advisor in 
later years. 

David Ckonin (deceased) was one of the early settlers of Lake 
City, having come here about 1856. lie was born in Ireland, and 
there married Miss Margaret Walsh in 1843. In 1846 they emi- 




REV. SILAS HAZLETT. 



PIONEERS. 1007 

grated to the United States, and for the following ten years was 
engaged in railroading in various states both east and west. By 
tliis time they has succeeded in saving a little money, and a small 
family had come to be cared for, hence their removal so far north- 
west. Here he purchased a small farm of one hundred and twenty 
acres in the town of Lake. Soon after he had got started at farm- 
ing came the outbreak of the late war, in which a spirit of patriot- 
ism and love of his adopted country caused him to enlist. He 
became a member of the 8th Minn. Yol. Inf., and was engaged in 
border warfare with the Indians, when he died at Fort Abercrombie, 
where his remains now rest. Mrs. Cronin, though aged and feeble, 
still resides in this city with her four children, whose names in the 
order of their birth are : Daniel, Mary, Margaret and David. One 
son, Michael, a promising young man, died (it is supposed) from 
injuries received by being struck violently on the breast with a plow 
handle. The mother and children are faithful members of the 
Catholic church. 

William E. Peekins, livery man. Lake City, came to Lake City 
in September, 1858, and spent his first winter here teaching a school 
at Central Point, after which for a time he engaged in handling 
lumber for F. R. Sterrett and Bessey & Willis, after which he spent 
some time in farming within the present limits of Lake City. In the 
fall of 1866 he embarked in the livery business with A. W. Detmars, 
and so continued about five years. He then bought out Mr. Det- 
mar's interest, and has since conducted the business individually, 
near the corner of Lyon avenue and Washington street. His busi- 
ness of late years requires about twenty horses, though before the con- 
struction of the railroads a larger number were needed. In addition 
to his livery and 'bus business, Mr. Perkins is also engaged in the 
purchase and sale of fine and heavy horses, most of them obtained 
in Illinois and Iowa. Mr. Perkins was born in Watertown, New 
York, September 16, 1839, and is a son of George B, and Cinthia 
(Woolley) Perkins. He was married July 23, 1858, to Miss Anna 
M. Woodford, a native of Yermont.. To them were born five chil- 
dren, of whom two, George W. and Sidney W., are living, and now 
in business. The former is agent for the American Express com- 
pany of this city, and the latter employed in his uncle George W. 
Perkin's store at Furgus Falls, Minnesota. Three lovely and affec- 
tionate daughters once graced the home of Mr. and Mrs. Perkins. 
Of these, Litha E. (who was their second child) died soon after 
61 



1008 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

entering on her third year. L. Nellie and Florence G. were longer 
spared to their fond parents. The former died of diphtheria Febru- 
ary 19,1879, in the twelfth year of her age, and the latter died of the 
same disease January 1, following, in her tenth year. Mr. and Mrs. 
Perkins are prominently connected with the Episcopal church, and 
he is a staunch member of the Masonic fraternity. 

Lymon E. Thorp, Lake City, who became a resident of this 
county as early as 1856, is a native of Madison county, New York, 
is a son of Orrin and Lucretia (Patridge) Thorp, and was born June 
15, 1883. His early youth" was spent on the farm, where his parents 
gave him the best educational advantages the country school aflbrded. 
At about the age of fifteen he started to learn the blacksmith's trade, 
which he completed, and followed the business in his native state till 
1856. December 25, 1855, he married Miss Marion O. Smith, a 
native of Shenango county, New York, and in the fall of the next 
year emigrated to Minnesota, settling in Mazeppa township, in 
Wabasha county, where he pre-empted a quarter-section of land, on 
which he built a small house, and there resided one year. By this 
time liis wife's health had become so impaired that her physician 
advised a return to her old eastern home. The next two years was 
spent there and in the fall of 1859 he returned to Mazeppa, and the 
next spring built the Franklin House, and kept hotel till August, 
1862, when he enlisted in Co. G, 8th Minn. Vol. Inf His first 
two years' military service was in border warfare on the frontier, 
crossing the plains to the Yellowstone, under command of Gen. 
Sulley. The regiment was then ordered south, where it did garrison 
duty till the close of the war. After some time spent in visiting 
friends east, he permanently located in Lake City, and engaged in 
the grain trade, which he followed till his recent connection with the 
Jewell nursery as traveling salesman. Mrs. Thorp's parents, Joshua 
and Aurilla (Franklin) Smith settled in Mazeppa in 1856, where they 
have since been laid to rest. ]\Ii'. Thorp is a member of the Masonic 
lodge, chapter and commandery of this city, and occupies his own 
palatial residence in this city. 

George W. Sylvester, born April 6, 1828, died September 6, 
1876. His father, Caleb Sylvester, was a farmer and surveyor, and 
resided at Phillips, Maine, where the subject of this sketch was born, 
and received a common school education. In 1844 the Sylvester 
family removed to AVisconsin, and located on a farm near Platteville, 
in the vicinity of the lead mines, where the boys found employment. 



PIONEERS. 



1009 



In 1851 George, in company with his brother Charles, crossed the 
plains with an ox-team, and found their way into the gold diggings 
of California. In 1854 he returned, via the isthmus of Panama, 
bringing back about two thousand dollars as the fruits of his three 
years' toil in the mines. The fall of the following year he came to 
Minnesota, and located a claim on the S.E. J of Sec. 25, inPlainview 
township. He spent that winter at his Wisconsin home, and on 
March 18, 1856, was married to Miss Matilda Cook, daughter of 
Henry Cook, a Wisconsin farmer. This lady was born November 
5, 1838, in the township of Waterloo, Province of Quebec. The 
May following his marriage found Mr. Sylvester and his bride in 
possession of their new Minnesota home, and here he spent the re- 
mainder of his life in improving and beautifying his chosen home. 
Mr. Sylvester was a skillful carpenter, and devoted most of his time 
to that vocation. In 1860 he erected a large barn which he painted 
red, and was soon widely known as the "Big Red Barn." The 
present residence was not erected until 1875. His family now re- 
sides in the village of Plainview, and consists of Mrs. Sylvester and 
five children, viz: Edwin L., born March 16, 1859, bookkeeper in 
the Plainview Bank, educated at the Plainview High School ; Hattie 
A. ; G. Franklyn, telegraph operator at St. Joseph, Minn. ; Electra 
■A., and Nellie M. Mr. Sylvester was from the first prominently 
identified with the religious work in Plainview, being a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal church ; he was also a member of both 
the Masonic and Odd-Fellows fraternities of Plainview, and was at 
one time on the township board of supervisors, ^and was more or 
less prominently identified with county politics. Mr. Sylvester was 
the first postmaster of the Woodland office. 

Patrick MgDonough, Mount Pleasant, was born in County 
Mayo, Ireland, about 1824. When eighteen, he came to the United 
States and engaged in tailorwork with an elder brother in Shenango 
county, New York. He came to Mazeppa in the fall of 1856, and 
secured some land near that village. In partnership with his 
brother he now owns eighty acres in Zumbrota and a like amount 
in Mount Pleasant, where he lives. He enlisted February 22, 1862, 
in Co. H, 5th Minn, regt., and served in the western army. He 
was an actor in the battles of Yicksburg, Nashville, Corinth, luka, 
Jackson, Champion Hills and the Red River expedition. He was 
hurt by a fall in the night, but served out his time and was 
discharged in September, 1865. After the war he spent three years 



1010 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in Swift county, where lie took a claim and afterward sold it. Mr. 
McDonough never married, and resides with a niece, Mrs. Mc- 
Bride. He is a member of Lake City Catholic church and a demo- 
crat. 

John Dale (deceased) was born in Perry county, Pennsylvania, 
October 8, 1806. He was a son of Christopher Dale, also a native 
of Pennsylvania, of English descent. His mother died when he was 
an infant. He was reared on a farm and learned the weaver's 
trade. His wife, Christina, nee Myers, was born in the same neigh- 
borhood as himself on December 28, 1804, and they were united in 
marriage August 14, 1827. Mr. Dale owned a farm in his native 
state, which he tilled. He came thence to Wabasha county in 1865 
and bought a farm on section 24, Zumbro township. He 
died December 23, 1882, at the residence of his eldest son, Daniel. 
His wife died July 7, 1877. Six sons and one daughter survive 
them: Daniel, Jacob M., Samuel, John W., Mary Ellen (Mrs. 
David Myers), Levi A., and Simon W. The third son resides at 
Fostoria, Ohio ; the fourth at Zumbro Falls ; the daughter at Well- 
ington, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Dale were Dunkards in faith. 

Daniel Dale, eldest son of John Dale, was born in Center 
township, Perry county, Pennsylvania, January 28, 1830. His 
early life was passed on the farm, and at nineteen he began work at 
the carpenter's trade. He subsequently took up cabinetwork, 
which he worked at more or less till 1859. In 1856 he took up his 
residence in Zumbro, making claim to one-fourth of section 19. 
He still retains one half of this claim, on which he lives. His estate 
includes one hundred and fifty acres, of which twenty are timbered. 
He has a fine farm and has handsomely improved it. He was mar- 
ried October 18, 1859, to Elizabeth Peterman, a native of Pennsyl- 
vania ; her parents were Jacob and Annie (Myers) Peterman, of 
French and German extraction. Mr. and Mrs. Dale are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal church. The former has always cast his 
vote with the republican party. Their first child was christened Ida, 
and died when four months old. Jenny M., born March 23, 1863, 
married D. W. Coleman, and dwells at Emma, Dakota. Helen E., 
October 1, 1866, resides with parents. 

Jacob M., second son of John Dale, was born in Center May 17, 
1832. He was put out at an early age to live with a Dutch farmer, 
and learned the language of his foster-parents, so that he now 
speaks it equally as well as English. At his majority he took up 



PIONEERS. I'Oll 

chair making and painting, and followed this occupation many 
years. He became a citizen of Zumbro in 1856, taking a claim on 
section 19, June 26. He still dwells on the original claim, 
and has one hundred and six acres of land. He arrived with noth- 
ing, and is now independent. On February 24, 1859, he was united 
in marriage to Miss Hannah E. Henry, daughter of James Henry, 
whose sketch appears elsewhere. Mrs. Dale has always been called 
Lizzie. She was born in Yernon, Trumbull county, Ohio, October 
17 1834. Mr. Dale is a republican and himself and wife are mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal church. They have two children : 
John A., born March 2, 1861, resides at Grafton, Dakota; Carrie 
E., August 8, 1865, now fitting herself for a teacher at Kochester. 
Levi A., fifth son of John Dale, was born in Center, August 
3, 1845. Eeared on farm and received a common school education. 
Came to Zumbro November 27, 1863. Next year he bought sixty- 
five acres on section 24, where his home has been ever since. By 
industry and perseverance he has made himself independent. Has 
purchased twenty acres of timber in Mazeppa. He was married 
November 28, 1869, to Louisa A., daughter of H. C. Brant, whose 
biography is elsewhere given in this book. They have three chil- 
dren, born as follows: Earl C, March 14, 1876 ; Eoy M., October 
•26, 1878; Hattie May, May 5, 1882. Mr. and Mrs. Dale are 
members of the Wesleyan Methodist church. The former is a 
republican, because he considers that correct principles are 
espoused by the party known by that name. He came to Minne- 
sota without capital, and with the aid of his faithful helpmeet has 
secured a happy home. 

John A. Martin, millwright, Mazeppa, is a grandson of John 
Martin, of Delaware. His father, John Martin, served as a United 
States marine in the war of 1812, and married Catharine Portman, 
also native of Delaware. This couple settled in Russelsburg, War- 
ren county, Pennsylvania, where was born to them the subject of 
this mention, on September 11, 1828. He was reared on a farm on 
the Conewango river, two miles from a school. He had no oppor- 
tunity to attend school after fourteen years old, being then employed 
in a sawmill. Having a natural taste for mechanical labor, he soon 
became skilled in the use of tools. His father was a lumberman, and 
he had good opportunities for practice. Mrs. Martin was born and 
reared within half a mile of her husband, and was united to him in 
marriage October 15, 1852. Her father, E. W. Chase, was a native 



1012 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

of New York, and she was christened Mary Jane. After spending 
a short time in Michigan, lie arrived in Mazeppa in September, 
1856, where his home has been ever since. After working a short 
time at St. Anthony, he returned for his family. Coming up the 
Mississippi on the Lady Franklin, the vessel sunk at Prairie du 
Chien, but they escaped without loss, and arrived in Ked Wing, in 
December. For a year or two Mr. Martin operated the sawmill 
here. In the summer of 185t he built a house on First street, in 
which he dwelt several years. Next year he bought a farm in 
Zumbrota township, near this village, and now has ninety acres of 
land. His present residence on the corner of Broadway and Cherry 
streets, where he has four lots, was built by him in 1862. He has 
built or repaired mills at Lodi, Pine Island, Oronoco, Zumbro Falls, 
Forest Mills, and numerous other points. He is a firm and enthusi- 
astic democrat, and served as postmaster at Mazeppa throughout 
Buchanan's administration. His religious sympathies are with the 
Universalists. He has superintended a great many funerals. He is 
very fond of hunting, which he has pursued from boyhood, capturing a 
great many deer. His field has extended from Pennsylvania to 
Montana, and he visits the latter territory often now. His children 
were born and christened as follows : October 15, 1851, Emmagene 
(Mrs. Fred. C. Hollenbeck, Bismarck, Dakota Territory) ; April 
15, 1857, Arthur, now at Brainerd, Minnesota; January 18, 1870, 
Carribelle, home. 

Jesse Youngs (deceased) was one of the pioneers of Mazeppa 
township, taking a claim in the fall of 1856 on section 8, where he 
died in September, 1865. He was born near Stanton, Connecticut, 
in 1789, and served through the war of 1812. His fiither was a 
revolutionary soldier. He married Martha McBride, and settled in 
Livingston county, New York, where he remained till he came here. 
He had two sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Enoch, came 
here with his father and took up a claim near by. He enlisted in 
February, 1862, in the 5th Minn. Vols., and was shot in Texas by 
guerrillas in 1864. He left a wife and five children. The other 
son remains on his father's original claim. Matilda J., one of the 
daughters, married Zerch Cornish and lives near Sleepy Eye. 
Anna married Charles Sibley, and lives near her brother on the old 
claim. 

John J. Sibley, as above related, resides on his father's original 
claim in Mazeppa. He was born in Sparta, Livingston county. New 



PIONEERS. 1013 

York, Kovember 12, 1816. He married Almeda Lovell, born in 
New York, also the grandchild of a revolutionary soldier, and pur- 
chased a farm there on which he lived till the spring of 1857. He 
then came west and located where he is now. Mr. and Mrs. 
Youngs are Methodists. They have six children : Benjamin, the 
eldest, served in the war against the Sioux and also at the South. 
He now resides in Mazeppa. The others reside as follows : George 
E., Moorhead, this state; Jesse, Mazeppa; Joseph, on father's 
farm ; Henrietta (Mrs. Alvin Sibley), Lake Benton, Minnesota ; 
Phoebe A. (Mrs. Joseph Harrison), Mazeppa. Mr. Youngs is a 
faithful republican. 

TuRNEK J. Preble, farmer, is a great-grandson of James 
Preble, an Englishman. Benjamin, son of the latter, married Lydia 
Tibbetts, both born in Maine. Their son Turner was born in 1807 
in Whitesfield, Lincoln county, that state ; he married Temperance 
Eldredge, of Argyle, Penobscot county, daughter of Richard and 
Temperance (Wheldin) Eldredge. The subject of this sketch was 
born in Old Lemon, Hancock county, Maine, March 30, 1842. 
From 1850 to 1855 his parents resided in McKean county, Penn- 
sylvania, and in the spring of the last-named year became a resident 
of Minnesota. The summer was spent on rented land opposite 
Hudson, Wisconsin. In the fall of that year Turner Preble settled 
at Mazeppa. During the following winter he hewed the timbers for 
the first mill built in that town. He took up government land near 
the village, which he held till 1865. He then sold and bought the 
farm on which he resides (section 7, Chester). The subject of this 
sketch received but a limited education, such as is afforded by the 
primitive schools of a new country. For some years after attaining 
his majority he continued to reside with his father and to assist him 
in farm operations. In 1868 he purchased eighty acres of land near 
his father's (partly in Zumbrota), which he still owns and tills. Pie 
is now the owner of two outlots in Mazeppa village, beside a half- 
interest in another on which himself and partner are building a grist- 
mill at this writing. In the summer of 1883 he built a house near 
the millsite, in which he now dwells with his family. In 1868 he 
married May Lord, a native of New York ; her father, Lewis Lord, 
was a native of Massachusetts, and his wife Jane, of New York. 
Their children were born as below: Emma J., January 2, 1870; 
Lefa, February 19, 1873 ; Alonzo, July 28, 1876 ; George, August 
3, 1878. Mr. Preble served a short time as a recruit in the 1st 



1014 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Minn. Heavy Art., enlisting January 28, 1865, and being discharged 
October 10 following. He was stationed at Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

Samuel H. Doane was born in Jefferson county. New York, on 
August IS, 1816. His parents were farmers, and Samuel's early 
years and youth were spent on a farm. In 1813 he, in company with 
his brother Daniel, went to Kockland county, in the same state, and 
worked as farm hands for one of the old German farmers of that 
vicinity. They remained with him for several years, and induced 
him to lay aside the old-fasliioned one-handled plow and wooden- 
tooth harrow, with which he had cultivated his land, after the manner 
of his parents. In the fall of 1856 Samuel came to Highland town- 
ship. He labored among farmers for many years, and drew the lum- 
ber for the first hotel ever erected in Plainview. He now resides 
with his brother Daniel, on the hitter's farm, which adjoins his own 
snug little place of forty acres on section 33. 

Robert M. Doane was born near Adams Village, Jefferson 
county, New York, November 8, 1823. His parents were farmers, 
and Robert's early life was spent on a farm. At the *ige of sixteen 
he found himself possessed of a fair education, obtained in the com- 
mon schools, and the school at Watertown, New York, which he at- 
tended one year. When sixteen years old he was employed by 
Mr. S. P. Jolmson, a wealthy drover of Clayton, New York, as a 
stock-buyer. Two years later he entered the employment of E. G. 
Merrick, another prominent business man of Clayton, and continued 
in his service most of the time as a sailor on the lakes until the year 
1853. May S, 1849, he married Jennette Marshall, who was born 
in Lisbon, St. Lawrence county, New York, May 8, 1823. In 1856 
they came to Minnesota, and settled on section 33 in Highland 
township. Mr. and Mrs. Doane have three children, viz: Mrs. 
Ettie Moore, of Castleton, Dakota; Daniel W. and Frederick H., 
residing at home. Mr. Doane is a member of the Congregational 
church, a republican in politics, and has held various positions of 
public trust, being one of the first board of supervisors in Highland 
township. 

Lawrence Tracy, farmer, is a native of County Wicklow, IreLand, 
where he was born January 6, 1822. He was second of six children born 
to James and Elizabeth Byrne Tracy, who died in their native land. 
Previous to his coming to this country (1846) the subject of our 
sketch spent five years as engineer, and for four years followed that 
business in Pennsylvania. January 13, 1849, he wedded Ann Foley, 



PIONEERS. 1015 

of Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania. This marriage has been 
blessed with nine children, six of whom are living : Mrs. Veronica 
McGinn, of Minneapolis ; James A. ; Mrs. Ann McGinn, of Minne- 
apolis ; Ellen, a teacher of this county ; Mrs. Elizabeth Fox ; Maiy F. 
From Pennsylvania Mr. Tracy went, in 1850, to the copper mines of 
northern Michigan, where he mined until 1856, when he settled 
in the town of Pell (now Oakwood), Wabasha county, being one 
of the early pioneers of that part of the county. In the fall 
of 1858 he moved to West Albany, where he has since lived. He 
and his wife are members of the Catholic church. In politics he is 
independent, supporting the men and printeiples of which his judg- 
ment approves. He has been often called to the public service, 
being a member of the first county board of supervisors ; later was 
township treasurer four years, and for sixteen years has held the 
office of assessor. He is a man of intelligence, has at times contrib- 
uted to the local papers, and is one of the leading citizens of the 
community. 

Capt. John W. Buenham was born in the year 1829, in the State 
of New Hampshire, and grew up with tlie usual experiences of 
a farmer's son in moderate circumstances of that time. His grand- 
father, of same name, was an officer during the entire revolutionary 
war and a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Capt. Burn- 
ham is by birthright entitled to membership of this society, but has 
never claimed the right. After some years of adult life spent as a 
farmer, teacher and lumberman, he came to Minnesota in April, 
1856, and located by buying for two hundred dollars a settler's 
claim to the K W. J of Sec. 3, T. 108 K, E. 11 W., land now owned 
by E. L. Burton and S. H. Gaylord. At the election following in 
October, 1856, he was elected justice of the peace, and as such held 
the first court, married the first couple, and approved the bonds of 
the first postmaster upon Greenwood prairie. For a short time he was 
engaged in the mercantile business at Greenville, the first town laid 
out on the prairie ; but the uncertain title of land upon the Sioux 
half-breed reservation, destroyed the town and sent the occupants to 
their claims. After much trouble, expense and anxiety, Capt. 
Burnham secured a title to eighty acres of land, which he had 
improved by paying four dollars and fifty cents per acre for it. 
In 1862 he made proof by pre-emption upon one hundred and sixty 
acres adjoining, which cost ninety dollars, money paid for a soldier's 
land warrant. In 1858 he was elected a member of the state lesis- 



1016 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

lature. This body did not convene, and in 1859 he was re-elected. 
The following session continued for four months. The finances of 
tlie state and the people was at a low ebb. The pay of a member 
would not procure him board at a first-class hotel in St. Paul. In 
1861 Capt. Burnham was joined with I. O, Seeley, of Maze])pa, and 
Lawrence Tracey, of West Albany, into a board of appraisers of the 
school lands in the county. In August, 1862, he enlisted in the 
array, after the call of three hundred thousand men by President Lin- 
coln, and was made a sergeant in Co. C, 10th Inf., commanded by 
Capt. C. W. Hackett. He with the company were mounted and in 
service on the Minnesota frontier till February, 1863, when they 
went into winter quarters at LeSueur till May following. From May 
to October, 1863, the subject of this sketch was with his company in 
Sibley's expedition in Dakota, which marched thirteen hundred 
miles, fought four battles with Indians, and suffered much from 
hunger, thirst and fatigue. This expedition went north to Devil's 
lake, and west to the site of Bismarck, present capital of Dakota. 
In October, 1863, the regiment was sent to St. Louis, Missouri, on 
duty in the city. In May, 1864, it was sent into Kentucky and thence 
to Tennessee and Mississippi. IIere,for the first time, Mr. Burnham 
was unable to do soldier's duty from ill health. July 25, 1864, he 
was commissioned lieutenant in Co. D, 121st U. S. Colored Inf. 
and was sent on recruiting service into Kentucky and there kept till 
June, 1865, when th^^s regiment was consolidated with others into 
13th regt. U. S. Heavy Art. (colored), Lieut. Burnham being 
assigned to Co. I. His health being very poor he obtained leave 
of absence and visited home. While away he was assigned tem- 
porarily for duty in 125th U. S. Colored Inf., then on duty at the mili- 
tary prison at Louisville, Kentucky. He was immediately recom- 
mended for commission in that regiment, and on the day his 
appointment came — the 13th U. S. Ileav}'- Art. (colored) was 
being mustered out of service at Louisville — Lieut. Burnham was put 
in command of a company (H), and in six weeks was promoted. 
Kot long after, Co. H was sent to Jackson, Michigan, for a time, but 
about New Year's, 1866, the whole regiment was rendezvoused 
at Cairo, Illinois, where it remained till spring, when it was ordered 
to Fort Union, New Mexico, by steamboat to Leavenworth, Kansas, 
and from thence marched. From Fort Union, Cos. H and G 
marched five hundred miles more to Fort Bliss, Texas, where they 
remained a year, marching back in September and October, 1867, 



PIONEERS. 1017 



over nearly the same route, to EUswortli, Kansas, the nearest 
raih-oad station. From here they traveled by rail to Jefferson Bar- 
racks, where they intended to await the rest of the regiment ; but 
the cholera broke out among them, and several died. The rest 
were mustered out at once, and the remainder of the regiment 
December 31, 1867, the last volunteer regiment enlisted for the war. 
Capt. Burnham returned to Flainview, where he still owned his 
farm, bought more land and settled in the town of Highland, where 
he lived eight years. He was three years chairman of the town 
board of su^^er visors, and once the unsuccessful republican candi- 
date for state senator. In 187T he sold his farm in Highland and 
moved to Flainview, where he lived till October, 1878, when 
he moved to Wheatland, Cass county, Dakota, where he has since 
resided. Capt. Burnham was married in 1866, to Ada J. Law- 
rence, daughter of Benjamin Lawrence, an older settler of Green- 
wood prairie than himself, and has four children,— one born at Fort . 
Bliss, Texas, two in Highland and one in Flainview. ^ After his 
marriage his wife accompanied him, and had, a share in military 
life upon the frontier. Capt. Burnham draws no pension, although 
probably entitled to one, for the exposure and hardships of five 
years and three months' military service are enough to break down 
• the strongest man. 

George H. Burnham, a native of New Hampshire, was born 
May 20, 1837, in the town of Derry, Eockingham county. His 
parents were George and Eliza (McNeil) Burnham, both natives of 
the Old Granite State. In 1869 Robert H. Burnham, of Long Meadow, 
Massachusetts, compiled and published the genealogy of the Burn- 
ham family in the United States. The work contains five hundred 
and forty-six pages, and shows the family to be a very large one. 
Maj. John Burnham, of the revolutionary army, was a grandfather 
of the subject of this sketch. George H. Burnham's early life was 
passed on a farm. In 1856 his brothers, John and William, came 
to Minnesota, and the following year George joined them in then- 
pioneer life. He pre-empted that year one hundred and sixty acres 
on section 17, where he built the customary log cabin, and continued 
to reside for seven years. In 1864 he sold his pre-emption, and two 
years later purchased from Mr. Woodward a quarter-section on sec- 
tion 33, where he now has his home. March 3, 1862, he was mar- 
ried to Mary E. Gaylord, a native of Gainesville, New York. Her 
parents, Elijah and Huldah (Alvord) Gaylord, were also natives of 



1018 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

New York State. The following are the names of their children 
now living, viz: George M., born August 17, 1864 ; Frank A. (sur- 
viving twin), May 24, 1868 ; William II., July 19, 1871 ; Mary E., 
July 4, 1874 ; Maggie, April 4, 1876 ; John S., November 25, 1878; 
Charles A. G., November 1, 1880 ; Elsie L, December 8, 1882. 
Mr. Burnham has a fair education; attended the Derry Academy, 
New Hampshire, five terms ; is a member of the Plainview Congre- 
gational church, and a republican sprung from the old whig stock. 

AuAM V. SiGLER, capitalist, Lake City, is the ninth child of 
Adam and Jemima (Van Horn) Sigler. The latter were born in 
New Jersey, of Dutch descent, and settled in Decatur, Miiilin 
county, Pennsylvania. Here was born the subject of this sketch, 
August 20, 1814, and four children were given to his parents after 
that. Adam Y. Sigler received a limited education in the common 
schools of Decatur, and began mercantile life at eighteen in a store 
at Lewistown, in his native county. In 1836 he went into business 
in partnership with George Patton (elsewhere sketched in this work), 
at Allen ville, same county. After the retirement of his partner, Mr. 
Sigler continued the business eight years there, and two at Lewistown. 
Early in the spring of 1856 he became a resident of Lake City, and 
invested his ca])ital in lots and buildings, which have yielded him 
a handsome income. His retirement from active life dates at this 
time, and he is now passing a hale and peaceful old age in the midst 
of long-time friends and associates. He is a member of the Presby- 
terian church, and was connected with the Sons of Temperance 
while a lodge existed here. Politically, began with the whig party 
and is now republican. In December, 1860, Mr. Sigler took a life- 
partner in the person of Miss Matilda E. Guyer, born in Peoria, 
Illinois. Of six children born to this couple, only one is now alive, 
born ten years ago, and christened William Wilberforce. Two died 
of scarlet fever, within a space of ten days. 

Albert K. Gaylord, Lake City marshal, was reared on a farm 
in New York, and received a common-school education, supple- 
mented by several terms at Falley Seminary, in Fulton, same state. 
His parents, Miner and Elizabeth (Burr) Gaylord, were born, 
reared and married in Connecticut, and removed to New York. 
While resident in the town of Butternuts, Otsego county, 1831, a 
son was born to them, and christened Albert K. When twenty 
years old the latter left home, and went to Brooklyn, Jackson 
county, Michigan, where he was employed in a foundry and 



PIONEERS. 1019 

•machine-shop. In tlie fall of 1856 he came to Lake City, and 
next spring brought his family. He built the building known for 
many years as "Gaylord's Hall," which was consumed in 1882, 
and opened the first furniture store here. He also sold various 
kinds of agricultural implements, manufactured by his former em- 
ployers. For some years he was employed at carjDenter work, and 
in the foundry here. For three years he owned and operated the 
mill in the ' ' Cooley, " south of the city, in partnership with D. M. 
Smith. He served as marshal in the years 18T4-5-6, and was ap- 
pointed to fill a vacancy in that office in October, 188], holding the 
position ever since. He was a charter member and first past dicta- 
tor of the Lake City Knights of Honor, and was also connected with 
the Good Templars lodge while it existed ; has taken all the degrees 
in Odd-Fellowship, and is connected with the Masonic lodge and 
chapter. Mary A. Bancroft, first wife of A. K. Gaylord, was born 
in New York, and died here in Septemb'^r, 1868, leaving two chil- 
dren, of whom one survives, born March, 1868, and christened Mary 
E. The maternal grandparents of the latter were of New England 
birth. In October, 1877, Mr. Gaylord was united in marriage to 
Solural., widow of Elias Sweet, and she still shares his joys and 
sorrows. 

Joseph Haivimons, retired farmer, Zumbro, located in this town- 
ship in the fall of 1856, making claim to one-fourth of section 33. 
Here he took great pains in trying to raise fruit, but with little suc- 
cess. He has disposed of his original claim, and now has one 
hundred and twentj^ acres in the river valley, including all that part 
of the village of Hammond south of the river, which was platted 
by Mr. Hammons. For twelve years he kept a grocery here, during 
six months of which time he was compelled to use crutches on 
account of sciatic rheumatism. He has given some attention to 
medicine, and never employed a physician. Lie makes a cough 
remedy which is sought from far and near on account of its admi- 
rable power. Mr. Hammons was born in Osby, New Hampshire, 
March 28, 1816. The name is probably of French origin. Moses, 
father of this subject, was born in Maine, and served as a captain in 
the war of 1812. He married Dorothy Longee, of the same state. 
When Joseph was but four years old his parents returned to Maine, 
and his early life was passed in farming and lumbering, earning his 
own livelihood from a very early age. At nineteen he paid his 
father two hundred dollars ifor his time, and went to New York and 



1020 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

found employment in a flourmill. After this time he got some 
education bj private study and in niglit-scliools. At the age of thirty- 
he married Sabra Ridlon, who was born in Saco, Maine, April 15, 
1826. Her parents were Nathanial and Mercy (Srnith) Ridlon, born 
in the same state. But one child has been given to this unioai, a 
daughter, born January 29, 1849, and christened Victoria. March 
19, 1870, she married Eugene Adams, and resides in this township. 
Mr. Hammons served twelve years as justice of the peace in this 
township. His political tenets are represented by the old whig 
party and its successor, the republican. His religious views are 
most nearlj^ represented by the Universalists. 

Edward P. C. Fowler, farmer, is one of the oldest settlers left 
in the township. He was born November 5, 1818, in New London 
county, Connecticut, and is of remote English ancestry. His parents 
were Amos and Lydia Backus-Fowler, both natives of Connecticut. 
Edward was raised on the farm, and on attaining his majority 
learned the carpenter's trade, following it there until 1856, when he 
located in Mount Pleasant, on the farm he now occupies. He was 
married September 9, 1842, in New London count}^ Connecticut, to 
Betsy Thomas of that county. To this union has been born six 
children, viz: John C, Nelson L. (deceased), William T. (deceased), 
Mrs. Lydia E. Robinson, of Lyon county, Charles S. and Edward 
P. C. During his residence here Mr. Fowler has divided his time 
between his land and his trade, and has a fine farm of two hundred 
and forty acres. Mrs. Fowler departed this life May 30, 1883. She 
was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, as is Mr. Fowler, 
and he belonged to the Grange and the Good Templar lodge, when 
those societies were in existence in the township. He is a repub- 
lican, and was the first clerk of the township. He since has been 
called to the public service at different times, having filled the ofcces 
of justice of the peace, treasurer, assessor, etc. 

Roland Frazier Maxwell, retired farmei', is descended from 
Scotch ancestors. His grandfather, Benjamin Maxwell, was at the 
battle of Lexington, and served the colonies throughout the revolu- 
tionar}" war. Winslow, son of Benjamin, was born in Massachusetts, 
and married Joannah Fairman, a native of Vermont. For many 
years he tilled a farm in Heath, Franklin county, in the Bay State, 
where the subject of this sketch was born, June 11, 1829. When 
he was twelve years old, his father removed to Sunderland, and 
operated a foundry. Frazier Maxwell attended the common schools 



EAKLY SETIXEES. 1021 

till eighteen years old, when he took up painting, and followed that 
occupation till he came west in 1856. At this time he took up a 
claim one mile southwest of Mazeppa, and tilled it nine years. He 
then sold this and bought one hundred and twenty acres lying on 
sections 19 and 30, Mazeppa, which he now owns. In 1878 he 
built the fine residence which he occupies, on Cherry street, Mazep- 
pa, at a cost of two thousand five hundred dollars, and has occupied 
it ever since. He is now president of the village council, and was 
several years a member of the town board — part of the time chair- 
man. To his enterprise and public spirit is largely due the present 
thriving condition of our village and surroundings. Mr. Maxwell 
is orthodox on religious questions, and is so regarded by the repub- 
licans politically. His marriage took place at Oronoco, May 2, 1868, 
the bride and subsequent faithful helpmeet being Miss Lottie A. 
Gould, who was born in Atkinson, Maine. Her parents, Otis K. 
and Charlotte (Brown) Gould, were natives of the same state. The 
eldest child of Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell, christened Gertrude, is still 
with them. Two sons, Frederick and Charles, died — the former at 
six and latter at two years of age. 



CHAPTEK XCIII. 
EARLY SETTLERS. 

John Bradley Miller, merchant, is one of the pioneers of 
Mazeppa, where he continues to reside. On his arrival here he 
selected a claim, and after securing the same, took up his resi- 
dence in the village, working as a mason and carpenter. For the 
past twelve years he has kept a furniture store on First street and is 
doing a prosperous business. His religious faith is represented by 
Universalism, and his political principles by republicanism. Mr. 
Miller's paternal grandfather was a revolutionary soldier. His 
father and mother, Wright and Abigail Miller, were natives of New 
York, and settled in Monticello, Otsego county, where the subject 
of this sketch was born, January 8, 1831. Wright Miller was a 
gunsmith, and at ten years of age Bradley, as Mr. Miller is called, 
was set to work in his shop when out of school. On reaching m-a 



1022 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

turity he set out to earn his livelihood and was employed for several 
years as a sawyer and turner. In 1S51 he married Miss Mary, a 
sister of W. D. Angell, whose parentage is elsewhere given. Mrs. 
Miller is a native of Edmiston, New York. They have one child, 
Alice, born April 13, 1859, now the wife of George D. Sandford. 

George B. Franklin, carpenter, is a native of New York, as were 
his ])arents, B. B. and Maria (Glynn) Franklin. The subject of this 
sketch was born in the town of Georgetown, ^Madison county, Jan- 
uary 22, 1832. When seven years old he was taken with tlie family 
to Vermont, where he attended the common schools till fourteen, 
after which he cared for himself. When sixteen he began cai'penter- 
work and followed it till thirty-three. In ls.57 he located at Ma- 
zeppa and built most of the early buildings in that village. Twelve 
years after settling in this county he purchased the farm on which 
he now resides. For some years he dealt largely in liorses and also 
bought and sold some real estate. His domain now includes one 
hundred acres lying on section 31, Chester, and is graced with 
handsome and well-planned buildings. Mr. Franklin is a member 
of the Masonic order, his lodge being located at Mazeppa. He is a 
thorough republican partisan and never voted for a democrat for any 
office. In 1876 he married Miss Allie, daughter of Elam Black, of 
Mazeppa. Their children were born and christened as below : July 
31, 1877, Berenice; November 22, 1878, Lottie; September2S, 1880, 
Lottie ; August 22, 1882, Jessie. 

Joseph Dieterich, shoemaker, Water street, business established 
in this city in 1857. Mr. Dieterich was born in Bavaria, learned 
his trade there, came to America in 1854, settling first in Pittsbui-gh, 
Pennsylvania, where he remained until his removal to this county 
in 1857. He married, prior to his emigration to America, Marga- 
retta Schell, in 1851, who died at Read's Landing, March 6, 1880. 
Their children are : Maggie (wife of Peter Gibson, of Read's Land- 
ing), born in April, 1852 ; John, born in June, 1856 ; Emma, born 
January, 1865. On April 13, 1882, Mr. Dieterich married Eliza- 
beth Roller. 

Thomas Mateer was an old-line whig, and has been a republi- 
can ever since the organization of the part3^ He was born in 
Ireland, February 15, 1823. He came in company with his brother 
to America, landed in New York, January 15, 1848. They went 
from New York to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Thomas en- 
gaged in the Eagle Hotel, and had charge of Eagle Ice Company at 




^H^ ^^^ 




S. L. CAMPBELL. 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1023 

the same time in partnership with his cousin, John McMasters. He 
then was overseer of a lumber yard for two years, and then went to 
California in 1854, on board the vessel George Law, which was after- 
ward refitted and was then named the Central America, which foun- 
dered in the ocean on the very trip Mr. Mateer expected to start for 
home, but he was detained accidentally and thus missed the boat. 
After staying in California for three years he then, on April 27, 1857. 
landed in Read's Landing, this county, and came to Glasgow town- 
ship, June 15, 1857, to where he now lives. Mr. Mateer was married 
to Sarah Jane McMasters, a native of Ireland, on April 15, 1857. 
They have had seven children, five of them still living: Ellen 
Jane (married Henry Higgins, and lives in Reynolds, Dakota*, 
Charles G., Walter H., Elizabeth (is the wife of William Neal, and 
now lives in Lyon county, this state) ; William Stewart is the name 
of the youngest. Mr. Mateer was the first supervisor of this town- 
ship, and has been a member of the Presbyterian church for thirty- 
five years. 

Charles G. Dawley, a leading citizen and farmer, was one of 
the pioneers of Highland. He was the only son of Daniel and 
Hanna (Whitford) Dawley, both natives of Rhode Island, where 
the subject of this sketch was born June 16, 1814. Mr. Dawley, 
Sr., was a blacksmith, and worked in the old Gen. Green Anchor 
Forge AVorks. In 1825 Charles removed with his parents to western 
New York State. Nine years later he again followed his parents 
to Crawford county, Pennsylvania. In 1840, March 14, he mar- 
ried Charlotte Webster, a native of the Keystone State, then in her 
twentietli year. Three years later he came to McHenry county, Illi- 
nois, and settled on a farm. Catching the gold fever, he and four 
companions crossed the plains with an ox-team in 1853. He 
worked in mines in Sacramento county until his health gave out, 
and in 1856 he returned after first distributing his dust to defray the 
expenses of his sickness, and the following spring disposed of his 
property in Illinois, and brought his family to Wabasha county, 
settling on the farm where he still resides, one hundred and sixty 
acres on section 26. Mr. Dawley has always been a prominent 
man in the political affairs of the township ; was a member of the 
first board of supervisors, and one of the first justices of the peace, 
and has continued to hold the latter ofiice, with the exception of 
four years, ever since. In 1863 he was elected judge of probate for 
Wabasha county, and served one term, and in 1861 was also a 



1024 HISTORY OF WAIJASIIA COUNTY. 

county commissioner ; five years he was cliairinan of the board of 
supervisors, and has also been township su])erintendent of schools. 
His politics are republican. Mr. Dawley has taught school thirty- 
one terms, fourteen in Wabasha county. His eldest son, Charles 
G., was killed at the last battle at Nashville, Tennessee. He was a 
member of the 10th Minn., and a sergeant in Co. C. He was 
born September 2, 1841, in Pennsylvania. The second child, 
Allen W., is a fanner in Highland; Mary (Mrs. R. H. Anderson, 
of Rochester) was the third child, and Daniel, the youngest, is 
attending the State Normal School at Winona. Mr. Dawley has 
for many years been postmaster of the Smithfield office. 

William J. Disney^, farmer, son of John and Maiy Disney, was 
born in Oneida county, New York, in 1842. At the age of fifteen 
he came with his parents to this county, where he has resided since 
that time. He enlisted in 1864, in Co. E, 11th Minn., and 
served until the close of the war. Although he was never in an 
engagement, yet he did faithful service for the government in guard- 
ing supply trains to our armies in the south. Mr. Disney was 
married to Miss Ward in 1869. He is a member of the Carnelian 
Lodge of Masons, of Lake City. Politically he is a republican. 

Jaimes J. Butts, the sixth child of Jonathan and Eleanor (Bran- 
non) Butts, was born in Brookfield, Trumbull county, Ohio, July 28, 
1828. Mr. Butts, Sr., was a farmer, and James was brought up 
on a farm, receiving such education as was obtainable in a country 
school. At the age of twenty he started out in life for himself, 
and for two years worked as a farm hand. He next became a 
copartner with William Rounds in the management of a steam saw- 
mill, at Fowler, Ohio, and soon after engaged in the dairy business 
until the spring of 1857, when he came to Minnesota and bought 
one hundred and sixty acres of land on section 18, in Plainview town- 
ship, Wabasha count3^, and soon after pre-empted one hundred and 
sixty more on section 6, in the same township. His landed pos- 
sessions now aggregate nearly four hundred acres, situate chiefly on 
sections 8 and 18, in Plainview, and include a portion of the western 
part of Plainview village, the Union school-buildings standing on 
land donated to the district by Mr. Butts. Mr. Butts is both a good 
republican and a good Odd-Fellow ; is a man of great endurance 
and physical strength, which he displayed to good advantage during 
the winter of 1859 by cutting nine cords of cordwood in eight and 
one-half hours. He was married to Dorcas Alderman, a native of 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1025 

Trumbull county, Ohio, and daughter of Lyman and Ljdia (Munson) 
Alderman, June 1, 1851. They have two children now living, 
namely : Lucy (Mrs. Myron Smith), of Plainview, and Addie (Mrs. 
John Doherty), of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. 

Joseph W. Marshall, the subject of our present sketch, is one 
of the most prosperous farmers and stock-raisers in Wabasha county. 
He is the so'h of I. P. and Isabel (Wilson) Marshall, of Crawford 
county, Pennsylvania, and was born on a farm in that county 
October 5, 1831. The Marshalls came from Vermont and the 
Wilsons from Pennsylvania. Mr. Marshall came to Wabasha 
county in company with F. L. Meachum in the spring of 1857, and 
located a claim on section 3, in Elgin township. He has since dis- 
posed of this land and purchased a farm of two hundred and forty 
acres adjoining, on which he now resides. Since 1880 he has 
engaged extensively in the dairy and stock-raising business, and has 
also been connected with Mr. Meachum in the buying and shipping of 
live stock. Just prior to his removal from the east he was married, 
on April 6, 1857, to Miss Elizabeth Cram, daughter of Humplirey 
Cram, Esq., a Crawford count}-, Pennsylvania, farmer, by whom he 
has had sixteen children, all of whom are now living, as follows : 
Cloe A. (Mrs. Adolph D. Haltzer, farmer), of Oakwood township ; 
Murray A., residing in Plainview ; Otis H., of Oakwood ; Abel A., 
of Plainview ; Alice I. (Mrs. E. G. Meachum), of Elgin township ; 
Ever E., Elmer, Olney, Hattie, Grace, Maud, Mary, Layton, 
Arthur, Charley, and a female child not yet named. Mr. Marshall 
is a democrat in politics, and was a charter-member of Plainview 
Lodge No. 63, A.F.A.M. 

Joseph Parker Eobbins, in the early spring of 1857, with his 
wife and one child, arrived in Wabasha county with a small store of 
household goods and eighty dollars in cash, seeking a salubrious 
climate for their child, whose life had been despaired of in their old 
home in Lowell, Massachusetts, where Mr. Pobbins had been en- 
gaged in the fruit and produce business. After enduring many 
hardships, the family finally found, a claim which they were success- 
ful in holding despite the efibrts of the land-sharks, who pursued 
with dogged persistence the poor pioneer who sought to honestly 
acquire by his labors a home in this new country. This claim, con- 
sisting of one hundred and sixty acres on section 29, in Highland 
township, Mr. Bobbins still owns, although he resides in the village 
of Plainview, where he has a very pleasant home. Mr. Eobbins . 



1026 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUMTV. 

was born at Acton, Massachusetts, on January 14, 1826. His 
parents were Joseph and Charlotte (Parker) Bobbins. His educa- 
tion was limited to such as he was able to acquire in a common 
country school, before he reached his twelftli year. The death of 
his mother at this time left him homeless, and he went from one 
place to another for several years. At the age of twenty -one he 
was possessed of a trade which he had learned in the shoeshop of 
George W. Burt, in Concord, Massachusetts, but abandoned it to 
engage in the milk business. He afterward purchased and run a 
livery stable for a few years, which he exchanged for the fruit and 
produce business, having a store on Central street, in Lowell, Massa- 
chusetts, which he sold in order to come west and make a new 
home. He was married March 21, 1850, to Elizabeth Rebecca 
Smith, daughter of Samuel Smith, a millwright, of Nashua, New 
Hampshire. This lady was born in Barton, Yermont, December 
28, 1825, where she received a good education prior to the removal 
of her family to New Hampshire. Mr. and Mrs. Robbins have but one 
child living, viz, Charles E. Robbins, cashier of. the First National 
Bank, of Fargo, Dakota, the sickly baby, whose life was saved 
by the timely removal of his parents to Minnesota. 

Scott A. Foster, was born in Washington county. New York, 
June 2, 1856. His father, Albert Foster, is an old settler in West 
Albany, Wabasha county, and it was here on a farm that young 
Foster's early life was spent. He attended the Lake City high 
school for a few terms. In 1875 he entei-ed tlie State University, 
and kept up with his classes for tliree years, although obliged to do 
the requisite studying while also engaged in teaching district school 
to earn the means with which to defray his college expenses. The 
fall of 1880 he was elected principal of the Elgin union school, and 
taught therein acceptably for two years ; then filled a similar posi- 
tion in the Plainview union school until elected county superin- 
tendent of schools in the fall of 1883. Prof. Foster was elected by 
a majority of one hundred and twenty-eight, running six hundred 
ahead of his ticket, and being the only man therein elected. 

John Schwirtz, hardware, general merchandise, and farming 
tools and machinery. This business is located on north side Main 
street, midway between Pembroke and Alk^glianey streets, and occu- 
pies two storerooms, fronting fifty feet on JVLain street and extend- 
ing one hundred feet toward the river in the rear. The hardware 
house and farming tools and machinery was established in 1875, 



EARLY SETTLEES. 102T 

and the general merchandise was added two years later, when Mr. 
Schwirtz married Mrs. John Duke, and the general merchandising 
establishment she had been successfully conducting since her first 
husband's death was consolidated with the hardware business. The 
stock as thus consolidated is a very complete one in all its depart- 
ments. The general merchandise department is still presided over 
by Mrs. Schwirtz, who gives her special attention to all the details 
of the business with which she is so perfectly familiar, having been 
actively interested in its management for over twenty years. The 
business gives employment to a force of six persons, and trade is 
about the same as last year. Mr. Schwirtz is a native of Luxem- 
bourg, Europe. Came to America m 1855, and for the past twenty- 
six years has been a resident of this county, spending the first ten 
years of his life in Wabasha, on his farm in Glasgow township. The 
rest of the time he has been a resident of the city. Mr. Schwirtz 
has been twice married. His first wife, to whom he was wedded in 
1858, died in 1876, leaving six children: Emma, born October 27, 
1858 ; George, born December 10, 1860 ; Lizzie, born October 4, 
1862; Olillia, born August 29, 1864; John, born October 26, 1866; 
Anna, born December 13, 1868. April 10, 1877, Mr. Schwirtz 
married Eliza, widow of John Duke, for many years in business in 
this city, who died here in 1876. 

Deury & KiENS. lumbermen. Tlie business of this firm con- 
sists in towing lumber, and from the date of its establishment in 
1878, until the commencement of the towing season in 1883, they 
were engaged in towing from the Eau Claire mills in Wisconsin to 
points as far down the river as St. Louis. Operations were con- 
ducted by floating the materials for these rafts (dimensions, timbers, 
boards, lath and shingles) down the Chippewa to this point, where 
they were coupled into rafts containing from two million to three 
million feet of stuff, exclusive of the top load, shingles and lath, 
and from this point towed down the Mississippi. Since the begin- 
ning of the present season, floating down the Chippewa has been 
discontinued, and their operations are coupling rafts at tins place 
and towing down the river. They have at present two boats in 
their trade, the J. G. Chapman and the Lizzie Gardner, and with a 
good stage of water the round trip is made from here to St. Louis 
and return in about twelve days. Last year the company kept 
three boats on the river, but the other, the Peter Kirns, was sold to. 
the United States and is now used in the government improvement 



1028 



HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY 



works on the lower Mississippi, at Plums Point, Louisiana. The 
rafter J. G. Chapman was built expressly for the company, at 
Metropolis, Ohio, in 1880, and cost twenty thousand dollars. Her 
dimensions are, length over all one hundred and forty-five, beam 
twenty-eight feet, hold four feet. She has a full cabin, has two steel 
boilers, and her engines are of fourteen-inch bore, with six-foot 
stroke. The Lizzie Gardner was purchased in 1880 at Cincinnati, 
Ohio, to replace their iron steamer, J. G. Chapman, which was 
sunk at the mouth of the Illinois river in the month of June, 1880. 
The Gardner cost seven thousand dollars. She is one hundred and 
thirty -five feet, over all, twenty-two feet beam, double boilers, and 
her engines are fourteen-inch bore, with five-foot stroke. The com- 
pany find constant emploj^ment for their boats, and including boats' 




crews and raftsmen em})loy a force of about sixty men during the season. 
Their operations aggregate a total tonnage of sixty million feet of 
lumber during the season, exclusive of what is designated top load, 
lath, pickets and shingles. The members of the firm are M. E. 
Drury and Peter Kirns. M. E. Drury, tlie only resident member 
of the firm, is a native of County Kerry, Ireland. Leaving home 
at thirteen years of age, accompanied by a brother two years older 
than himself, he crossed the seas to seek his fortune in the new 
world, landing in New York in 1853. The next four years were 
spent at tlie east and south in whatever work he could find to do, 
and in 1857 he came to Wabasha, found employment in the lumber 
trade, and for twenty-six years has made it his business. Ten years 
after coming to this city, 1867, he began contracting, coupling rafts 
at this point for the Eau Claire Lumber Company-, keeping their 



1 09Q 

EAKLY SETTLERS. 

books and doing their business at tins point. This business was 
folCed until 1878, during the winter season in the woods, snperm- 
ndh,g logging operations and scaling. Since the t->-l-— 
be.-an, business in the woods discontinued. In 1S6!> M,. Duny s 
'Tther mother, and his two sisters, Catharine and Maggie, came to 
lin ca, and the following year to Wabasha, making their home 
wiTh M. E. Drury, who is unmarried. He has a very pleasant home 
Tthe corner of Third and Bailly. Mrs. Drnry (his mother) died 

'" tif L'C^^Z widow of Kudolph, meat market and 
dealer in hides and pelts, corner Second and Pembroke streets 
This business was established in this city in 18.37, on the corner of 
Second and Pembroke streets, now occupied by Whitmore s drug- 
store and was removed from there to its present location m 1874, 
wh"; Mr. Eichenberger continued business until his death Novem- 
ber 27, 1871, since w*ich date the business has been continued by 
his wiiow, assisted by her sons, Kudolph and John. Mr. and Mrs_ 
EiclTenberger were born in Aargau, Switzerland; were marred 
there in 1856, and the same year came to America^ettlmg in Chi- 
c go Kem^ining there one year, he removed to Wabasha m the 
fall of 1857, and established himself in business. The property, 
now occupied by the business then established, fmnts sixty feet on 
Second street and one hundred and forty feet on Pembroke, and on 
tiriot the shop, dwelling, icehouse, etc., are built. The s^anghtei- 
h'lse and cattl'e yards are at the lower end of the city, on be ri^^ 
bank. They slaughter from five to eight beeves a week, and t om 
fourto si. each of calves and sheep, and handle about three hundred 
and fifty hides and two hundred pelts in the year. J^^^-^^^^ 
a capacUy for sufficient dressed meat to supply ^^o^'/^^'y-^J^ 
hourl' demand. The children are: Rudolph, born April 15, 1857, 
John born June 4, 1858 ; Emma, born Febrnary 22, ls61 

W L LmooJ, M.D., office corner of Main and Allegbaney 
streets, upstairs, has been a practicing Pl');^''''™ JJ' ' "'^^'^ 5°'^ 
over t;enty-six years. Dr. Lincoln is a native of ^ ;' Tow^jnd, 
Middlesex county, Massachusetts; horn August 5, 1824, ana le 
c ived his classicd education at the Ashly Academy in his nat ve 
town, and at New Ipswich Academy in New Hampshire, complex 
Tg his course at the latter institution in 1846. He read for i 
profession in the University of Harvard and graduated fiom e 
medical department of that university in the class of 18a0. Having 



1030 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

completed his preparation, Dr. Lincoln located for practice at Win- 
chendon, Worcester, Massachusetts, and was in practice there until 
he came west in 1854. In October of that year he acce])ted a posi- 
tion as one of the medical staff of the hospital for the insane, located 
in Calloway count}', Missouri, just across the river from Jefferson 
City, and remained there until April, 1S57, when he discontinued 
his services at the hospital, and sliortly afterward located for ]-»ractice 
in tliis city. The doctor is a member of the County and State Medi- 
cal Societies, and is the present president of the latter bodj^, having 
been elected to that honorable position at the annual meeting held 
in Minneapolis, June 18, 1883. The doctor is also a permanent 
member of the American Medical Association. Dr. Lincoln was 
married in 1855. He has one son, Wm. H., born January 2, 1857, 
and graduated from Rush Medical College, Chicago, class of 1881, 
and is now established in practice in Chicago. 

John Gaedinee, carpenter and builder ; sho}) on AUeghaney 
street near Fourth. Business was begun here by Mr. Gardner in 
1857, and he has followed his trade in this city for twenty-six years 
uninterruptedly. He is a native; of County Meath, Ireland ; born 
there in 1834. At thirteen years of age he came to America, to 
Philadelphia, where he learned his trade, and ten years after his 
arrival in the new world settled in Wabasha. In 1860 he bought the 
property he now occupies, which he improved, added to, built upon, 
and which for twenty-three years has been his home. Business the 
present season is good, and he keeps four men steadily employed. 
He was married in this city July 2, 1860, to Miss Kate Cleary. 
Their children now living are : John, born April 16, 1861, and now 
firing an engine on Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway ; Eduard, 
born April, 1863, and chairmaker in the furniture factory ; William, 
born Xovember 27, 1866 ; George, born July 4, 1870, both of 
whom are now attending school. 

James Henry, Zumbro, was the first male white child born in 
the town of Kinsman, Trumbull county, Ohio, the event occurring 
July 23, 1803. The marriage of his parents was the first event 
of that kind in the town. Their names were Kobert Henry and 
Betsey Tidd, the former a native of Virginia, son of James Henry, 
from Ireland. Betsey Tidd escaped when a little child from the 
Wyoming massacre, with her father, Martin. Mr. Henry was mar- 
ried on Christmas day, 1828, the bride being Cynthia C. Knox, born 
in Ridgefield, Connecticut. They became residents of Zumbro in 



EARLY SETTLERS. 



1031 



1857 their sons having preceded them one year, and were six 
week's on the road with a team. Mr. and Mrs. Henry are members 
of the Wesleyan Methodist clmrch at South Troy. The former has 
always been a democrat. Their eldest son, James A., is at Elkton, 
Dakota ; Stephen M., is at Ashtabula, Ohio. Hannah E. is the 
wife of Jacob M. Dale, elsewhere mentioned. 

S. H. Gayloed, was born in Gainesville, Genesee county, New 
York, June 9, 1830, where he remained till the spring of 1857. He 
was early apprenticed to the daguerreotype business, in the interest 
of which he traveled through New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio 
for six and a half years. In 1857 he came to Plainview and settled 
on one hundred and sixty acres as a homestead, which he has since 
worked and owned. He was married March 26, 1862, to Mary E. 
Gaskill, of Owego, New York, by whom he had five children : 
Emma E., born January 30, 1863; Chas. E,, born September 18, 
1865 ; Mary E., born June 13, 1875 ; Fred. H., born July 9, 1S77 ; 
Nellie, born May 14, 1882. His father, Elijah M., came to 
Wabasha county in 1866 ; died January 13, 1873, and was buried 
in Plainview. 

Hon. Frank L. Meachum, one of the most enterprising stockmen 
and farmers in Wabasha county, was the only son of Chadwill and 
• Mary (Lee) Meachum, and was born on a farm near North She- 
nango, Crawford county, Pennsylvania, August 8, 1835. Being of a 
studious disposition, he early aspired to better educational advantages 
than those afforded by the district school, and at the age of sixteen 
entered the Kingsville Academy, located at Ashtabula county, Ohio, 
where he remained a portion of three years, teaching arithmetic for 
his tuition several terms in the academy and occasionally dropping 
out of his classes to do service as a country pedagogue and earn the 
wherewithal to defray his expenses. Becoming ambitious to enter 
upon a business career, he abandoned the student life in 1854, and 
accepted a clerkship in the store of A. C. Stratton, at Linesville, 
Pennsylvania. The following winter found him teaching school 
again,' and the next two years he spent at his old home in Pennsyl- 
vania, dressing and shipping staves. In 1857 the family came to 
Minnesota and located in Elgin township. Mr. Meachum's first 
claim was a pre-emption on a quarter of section 3 in that township, 
which he sold in 1867. He now owns four hundred and twenty 
acres in Elgin, on sections 3, 10 and 11. His farm-buildings are 
surrounded by beautiful cultivated groves and orchards, and were 



1032 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

erected at an aggregate cost of four thousand two hundred dollars. 
Mr. Meachum has given considerable attention to stock-raising, more 
particularly to fine grades of cattle. lie has engaged largely in the 
buying and shipping of stock since the fiiU of 187S, and during the 
season of 1883 was associated with K. R. Dumonde in handling 
farm machinery at Plainview. Mr. Meachum's political affiliations 
have been with the republican party, and he has been repeatedly 
elected to places of public trust and honor ; has been chairman of 
the Elgin township board of supervisors, justice of the peace and 
township assessor, a member of the state legislature in 1873, and 
engrossing clerk of the lower house in 1871. His name is enrolled 
as a Knight Templar in the Rochester Commandery. Mr. Meachum 
resides in Plainview and is living with his second wife, formerly 
Mrs. Abbie Merrill, nee Brockway, to whom he was married Decem- 
ber 28, 1873, and by whom he has one child, Agnes, nine years 
old. His first wife was a Miss S. M. Trace, of Crawford county, 
Pennsylvania, by whom he had three children : Sarah F. (Mrs. 
H. A. Gilford), of Erie, Pennsylvania ; Emmet G. Meachum, 
married to Alice Marshall, and residing on his father's farm in 
Elgin, and Lee F., a compositor in the '' Plainview ISTews " office. 
His father, wlio was also a Wabasha county pioneei', was residing 
with his son at the time of his death, which occurred in January, 
1874, in his sixty-fourth year, and whose aged wife still survives 
him and continues an inmate of her son's home. 

Ma'ithias Baustert, tailor, Mazeppa, was born near the city of 
Luxembourg, Germany, December 6, 1837. He attended school 
till fourteen, and was then apprenticed to his present calling. He 
came to this country in 1857, arriving on September 15 at Chicago, 
where he was employed ten years. ,He spent six years at Port 
Washington, Wisconsin, and four years at Read's Landing, this 
county. He arrived in Mazeppa March 4, 1878. The next spring 
he bought a house and three lots on First street, nearly ojiposite the 
Catholic church, where he now resides. He has a nice home, and is 
doing a fair business. He is a member of St. Peter's Catholic 
church — as are all his family — and an independent democrat. He 
was married in 1860, the bride being Miss Maggie Leider, who 
was bom in the same country as himself. Their children were 
given them as here noted: Michael, July 12, 1863; Jacob, Jan- 
uary 7, 1865 ; William, December 16, 1867 ; Maggie, February 
24, 1869; Henry, April 7, 1872; Nicholas, Christmas, 1874; 



EAKLY SETTLEKS. 1033 

Minnie, December 27, 1881. Besides these three have died, 
two with diphtheria. 

Jainies Riley Mack, Zumbro, came to this town in the spring of 
1857, with sufficient funds to pay the pre-emption price of his land, 
and is now one of its most independent farmers. His grandfather, 
Archibald Mack, came with two brothers from Scotland to America, 
and was a soldier in the revolutionary war. Josiah Kellogg was 
born and reared in Vermont, and had a daughter Sarah, who married 
James, son of Archibald Mack. To this union was born the subject 
of this sketch, April 24:, 1824, at Windham, Vermont. He remained 
on the farm, where a brother still resides, and attended the common 
school till seventeen years old. He then spent over three years in 
a Lowell cotton factory, and afterward two years as fireman on 
an engine. Seven years were then spent as engineer, part of 
the time on the Erie railroad. April 2, 1857, he married Margaret 
Kamery, and at once set out for Minnesota. Mrs. Mack is a daughter 
of Peter and Elizabeth Kamery, of German descent, and was born 
in Hinsdale, Cattaraugus county, New York, December 13, 1834. 
On arriving here Mr. Mack located on the northeast quarter of 
section 18, where he now resides. His estate now includes two 
hundred acres of fine agricultural land. He is a republican, and has 
■been several years town supervisor, part of the time chairman ; was 
ten years town treasurer, and refused to serve longer, although 
unanimously elected. 

Theodore Maire (deceased) was born in France in the year 1819. 
He was always accustomed to farm life. On reaching manhood he 
set out to make a home thousands of miles from his native place, in 
America. After spending a year at St. Louis, he tarried many years 
near Galena, Illinois. Here he was married, in the fall of 1848, to 
Adeline Gambler, a native of the same sunny land as himself. After 
marriage he worked land, and came to Minnesota in the spring of 
1857, to secure land of his own. He took a claim on section 28, 
Chester, where he remained the balance of his life, passing away 
December 3, 1876. He left eighty acres of land, on which his 
widow and younger children now reside. There are nine of the 
latter now living, two having died young. , Their names and resi- 
dence are here given: Charles J., Mazeppa ; Rosa (Mrs. Nick 
Clemens), Central Point ; Josephine (Mrs. Fletcher Sheldon), 
Mazeppa ; Margaret (Mrs. James Hinds), this town ; Sarah (Mrs. 
Thomas King), Lake City ; Frederick, Delia, Addie, Mary, Emma, 



1034 HISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Jacob T. and AVilliam are at home. All the family are Roman 
Catholics. 

George C Eveketi^ (deceased), became a resident of Minnesota 
in 1856, remaining a year at Marion, Olmsted county. In 1857 he 
took a claim on section 36, then Mazeppa, now Zumbro, on which 
he dwelt a short time. After residing a short period near Lake 
City, he removed to Mazeppa. Here he entered the United States 
service August 15, 1862, in Co. G, 8th Minn. Inf. This regiment 
served some time on the western frontier, and was nearly a year at 
the south. Mr. Everett was discharged July 11, 1865. During his 
army service he purchased eight}^ acres of land on section 25, Zum- 
bro, which he tilled up to the time of his death. On the 28th of 
February, 1874, while hauling a load of lumber from Lake City, the 
load was capsized in the snowdrifts, and Mr. Everett was crushed 
to death between the lumber and a fence. The subject of this sketch 
was born in Bethel, Sullivan county, New York, January 25, 1831. 
He was reared on a farm there, and received a common school edu- 
cation. September 26, 1858, he married Miss Mary Arnold. Mrs. 
Everett was born in Fovant, Wiltshire, England, September 24, 
1836, and came with her parents, James and Mary Arnold, to Min- 
nesota in 1857. She is a member of the AVesleyan Methodist church. 
Her husband affiliated with the republican party, and was several 
years elected constable of this town. The eldest child of this family, 
Elizabeth L., died at sixteen years of age. The next, Marj- Helen, 
married Alonzo Anderson, and dwells at Grafton, Dakota. The 
others, at home, are christened as below : George H., Annie M., 
Lucy F., Alice A., Sedalia C and Laura A. Frances S. died one 
year from the day of her father's demise, being seven years old. 

James Aenold, farmer. Among the early settlers of Zumbro 
township was the subject of this paragraph. lie is a native of 
England, born July 9, 1832, in Swallowclift, Wiltshire. His father, 
James Arnold, was an innkeeper and market gardener, and died 
when the son was seventeen years old. The latter received a fair 
education, and is now a well-informed and useful citizen. He is a 
liberal patron of the newspapers, and has a large and choice library 
of books. Probably very few farmers maintain so large a one. At 
eighteen years of age young Arnold set out for America to find a 
home for his widowed mother and sisters. He spent three years at 
Brecksville, Ohio, serving the first two in learning the mason's 
trade. While here, his mother and family arrived, and all removed 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1^35 



in 1853 to Danville, Illinois. Mr. Arnold purchased some land in 
Clark county, that state, on which the family dwelt, while he pur- 
sued his trade at Danville. In 1857 the family set out for Minne- 
sota, traveling all the way with four yokes of oxen. On arrival m 
Zumbro, Mr. Arnold took up one-fourth of section 32, where the 
family remained. Here the mother still dwells. Shortly before her 
removal to America she married Stephen Sumner, who died here in 
August, 1879. Her daughters, Mrs. G. C. Everett and Mrs. Sidney 
Corp, are elsewhere mentioned in this work. After two and one- 
half years' residence here, Mr. Arnold returned to Illinois and re- 
mained for a like period, and again returned to Minnesota, with a 
horse team this time, bringing a bride, to whom he was united m 
1862. Mrs. Arnold's maiden name was Mary A. Wheeler, and she 
was born in Tavistock, Devonshire, England. In the fall of 1868^ 
Mr. Arnold took up his residence in Farmington township, south ot 
Zumbro, where he served two years as justice of the peace, and now 
resides. His political opinions agree with the republican party. 
Himself and wife were among the first members of Greenwood 
Wesleyan Methodist church. By persistence and continued toil Mr. 
Arnold has secured a comfortable home. He is now in possession 
of three hundred and sixty acres of fine prairie soil, a part of which 
■lies in Zumbro. His family includes six sons and one daughter- 
all, save the eldest, at home, one son having died in infancy. Here 
are their names: Charles, Franklin William, Ernest G., Arthur 
Wesley, Wallace James, Alice M. and Earl R. 

Addin Johnson Cliff, farmer, resides on section 14, Chester, 
where he made claim in 1857. Mr, Clifi was born in Lancashire, 
England, February 9, 1834. His parents, James and Mary Clift, 
were born there. In 1851 Mr. Clifi' crossed the Atlantic, and dwelt 
six years in Connecticut, being employed in a bit and auger factory. 
His mother came here at the same time as himself, taking land m 
the south part of the town, where she died. After her death, Mr. 
Cliff built a house on his land (1879) and has lived there since 
When he arrived here his pocket contained his whole capital ot 
seventy-five cents, and he now owns a fine farm with comfortable 
and commodious buildings. He was married on the first day ot the 
year 1867 to Huldah Converse, a native of Allegheny county, 
Pennsylvania. Her father, Samuel Converse, was for a time resi- 
dent, and died, here. His wife Emeline, nee Taylor, is still hvmg. 
Mrs Cliff is a member of the Wesleyan church. Her husband has 



1036 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTi'. 

always supported the republican part_y, but never took any active 
part in politics. Their chiklren were born as here noted : Carrie A., 
October 5, 1867 ; Minnie M., July 14, 1869 ; Samuel C, March 11, 
1871; William Addin, February 2, 1873. 

Joseph J. Cliff, farmer, is a nephew of the above, and was born 
in the same locality May 7, 1844. His parents were John and Maiy 
Cliff. He was but seven years old when he came with the above 
uncle to the United States, and was reared by the latter. He has 
been a resident of Chester since thirteen years of age. He is now 
the owner of two hundred and eighty acres of land, and has resided 
since 1875 on section 23. Here was his first purchase of forty acres. 
By industry and perseverance he has been enabled to gradually 
increase his domain. In 1S73 he married Melissa Merrill, who died 
May 7, 1881. He has one child, born May 12, 1876, and named 
after the month of her birth. In June, 1882, he married Mary, 
daughter of C. C, Robinson, of this town. He is a liberal in religion, 
and a republican in politics. In 1883 he was elected town supervisor. 

Samuel Radebaugu (deceased), son of Nicholas and Catherine 
Radebaugh, was born April 24, 1826, at Carroll, Fairfield county, 
Ohio. His youth was spent on the farm, and he received his educa- 
tion at the district schools. He married Catherine Brandt, and from 
this union sprang six children : Namon C. (who is sketched below); 
Emma, now Mrs. Clark, living in Minneapolis ; Ethel (deceased), 
Jackson, Charles, and Kate, now Mrs. Post, residing in Moorhead, 
In the fall of 1856 he removed to Anamosa, Iowa, for a year ; thence 
to Marion, in the same state, remaining there a year, after which he 
came to this county, settling on section 19, Gillford townsliip. In 
1864 he enlisted in the 10th Minn., at Fort Snelling, but soon after 
was taken sick and died, seeing no active service. His politics were 
republican during the latter part of his life. Previous to this he was 
a "Know-nothing." His religion may be said to be embraced in 
the command, " Love thy neighbor as thyself" 

jSTamon C, son of Samuel and Catherine Radebaugh, was born 
at Carroll, Fairfield county, Ohio, in March, 1846. He worked on 
the farm summers, and attended the district school winters, after 
coming to this state in 1856, till he reached his majority. In the 
fall of 1876 he wedded Addie, daughter of A. K. Fancher ; but in 
November, 1881, she died, leaving two children, Leon, and Jay, 
who has since followed her. Mr. Radebaugh may be said to be one 
of the foremost farmers of the county ; has three hundred and seventy 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1037 

acres of land, located on sections 19 and 30, in Gillford township. 
He is a thorough republican, and was the candidate of his party for 
county treasurer in the fall of 1883. 

Lewis Y. Lenhart, owner and commander of the ferryboat 
Pepin, now plying between Lake Citj^ and various points on the 
Wisconsin shore. The captain was born in Armstrong county, Penn- 
sylvania, in 1852, and is a son of Herman and Hannah (Schrecon- 
gast) Lenhart, both natives of Pennsylvania, and of pure German 
extraction, the family name originally being Leonhardt. Herman 
Lenhart was by trade a millwright, and built the first flourmill in 
Menomonee, Wisconsin, though he was principally engaged in school- 
teaching in his native state. In 1857 he came west with his family, 
and settled near the shore of the beautiful Lake Pepin, on the Wis- 
consin side, where he died on his farm in 1880. He was an active 
and energetic man, whose influence for good was felt by those with 
whom he was surrounded, though he was unassuming and reticent. 
His widow still resides on the old estate. The captain began life 
on the river in 1868 as a hand, but has worked his way up to his 
present enviable position. Six years prior to his ownership of the 
ferry, he run on the river with the Hon. Nathan Murry. 

Henry K. Terrell, auctioneer. Lake City, is a native of Vir- 
ginia, born in Waynesborough, Augusta county, October 30, 1808. 
Henry Childs and Philadelphia (Smith) Terrell, his parents, were 
natives of the same state. Our subject received a fair common- 
school education, and worked during the busy season from ten years 
of age in a flourmill. In 1841 he went to Burlington, Iowa, and 
was employed some years in a large mill there. He went in 1850 
to California, where he spent a successful year, and then went to 
St. Paul. Here he rented and operated a mill one year, and then 
engaged in real estate speculation with satisfactory results. He 
came to Lake City in the spring of 1857, and in partnership with 
Doughty, Baldwin & Phelps, bought fifteen thousand dollars' worth 
of real estate, which they cut up into town lots. The railroad depot 
now stands on a part of this track. Soon after, Mr. Terrell bought 
out his partners, and disposed of the property alone. In January, 
1858, he was sent as a delegate to Washington, by an association of 
farmers and business men, to secure a delay of the sale of the Half- 
Breed tract. His mission was successful, and hundreds of settlers 
who would otherwise have lost their lands were permitted 
to pre-empt them. In 1860 Mr. Terrell bought the Mazeppa 



1038 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

mills, which he operated for two years and then sold. For 
many years he has been employed as an auctioneer. November 
11, 1828, he married Jane F. Cameron, a native of the same county 
as himself. Seven children were given them, of whom three are 
now living. The eldest, Henry C, was always employed as a steam- 
boat clerk, and died on the Mississippi, leaving seven children. The 
living are : Sarah P. (Mrs. Lorenzo Iloyt, St. Paul) ; Susan C. 
(widow of Henry E. Baker, here) ; Robert L., with parents. 

William J. Jacobs (deceased) was among the early residents of 
Lake City, having located here in May, 1857. He was born near 
Lewistown, Miftlin county, Pennsylvania, March 1, 1818 ; received 
a thorough common-school education ; studied law, and in due time 
was admitted to the bar. In February, 1850, he married Sarah D. 
Peebles, and removed at once to Lewistown, where he began prac- 
tice. He continued to practice here until 1866, and then removed 
to his farm in Hay Creek, Goodhue county. Here his wife died, 
leaving three daughters and one son. After two and a half years' 
farm life, he returned to the city, and served several years as city 
justice, in connection with his office practice and editorial work. For 
the first two years of its publication, beginning in 1870, he was edi- 
tor of the Lake City " Sentinel," and again for three and a half years 
from October, 1873. He was a clear and strong writer, and made 
his influence felt. The " Sentinel" is a democratic journal, and Mr. 
Jacobs was a stable exponent of the doctrines of its party. In 
February, 1872, he married Mrs. Waters, who died four years later, 
leaving one daughter, Laura Louisa, now in the care of her eldest 
sister. Mr. Jacobs' death was caused by paralysis, and occurred 
April 2, 1881, at the home of his eldest child, Mrs. G. R. Bartron, 
in this city. He had previously spent a year in practice at Appleton 
and Lac qui Parle, this state, but came home to die when he found 
his health giving away. He was buried by Carnelian Lodge, No. 
40, A.F.A.M., of which he was a member. His second child, 
John P., is publishing a paper at Lac qui Parle ; the third, Mrs. 
W. M. Strickland, resides at Philadelphia, and the fourth, Fanny, 
with Mrs. Bartron. 

David Corbin Estes, dentist. Lake City, is among the best 
known and most cultured citizens of Wabasha county. Morally 
and politically the doctor has done much for Lake City. In the 
great fire of 1882 was totally destroyed the largest private natural 
history collection of the Northwest, the property of Dr. Estes, which 



EAKLY SEITLERS. 1039 

had always been kept open to the public in a large room devoted to 
the purpose. At the same time he lost a complete scientific library. 
All the natural sciences received a great deal of attention from his 
searching mind, but since his great loss most of his study has been 
given to astronomy. Upon this subject he gives occasional lectures, 
and has more calls for this line of enlightening work than he can 
meet. From boyhood he has been a member of the Methodist 
Episcopal church, and gathered together the first Methodist society 
here and established the first Methodist Sunday school. He was 
four years justice of the peace and seven years a member of the 
board of education. His father, Dexter Estes, was an enthusiastic 
Henry Clay whig, and his sons followed in his political footsteps, 
our subject being an ardent republican. He is a member of the 
I.O.O.F., and now holds the highest position in the gift of the order 
in the state. Dexter Estes was born in Vermont and was one of 
the original Green Mountain boys of the revolution. He married 
Sally Thayer, of that state, and settled in Keene, Essex county, 
New York, where David Estes was born March 5, 1825. The youth 
of the latter was spent on a farm , assisting his father in its tillage 
and in pottery work. He was a great reader, and made the most 
of his limited opportunities for education. Later, at Albany, lie 
attended the academy, state normal school and medical college. It 
was his intention to take a full medical course, but failing eyesight 
compelled him to abridge his studies, and he turned his attention to 
dentistry. At Albany he began its practice, and there continued 
until his removal to Lake City. He arrived here July 10, 1857, and 
has steadily pursued his practice. By his manly integrity and uni- 
form kindness he has become possessed of universal respect and 
regard, and yet our people will not fully appreciate his noble quali- 
ties till he is gone. May 2, 1849, he married Mary Ellen Dollar, 
born ih Albany county, as was her mother, Fanny Terwilliger, and 
her father, Robert Dollar, the latter of Irish parents. To Mr. and 
Mrs. Estes were born seven children, the following six of whom 
survive : Orphena O. (Mrs. Yirgil Borst), Independence, Wisconsin; 
Ornilla J., teacher in Lake City schools ; Tully C, Frank E., Robert 
D. and Charles H., at home. The third child, Fanny E., married 
Charles King, and died at Cincinnati. One of her two children 
dwells with Dr. Estes. 

Jajvies Cain, farmer, is one of the old residents of Mount 
Pleasant, and was born May 8, 1832, in Wexford county, Ireland. 
63 



1040 HISTORY OF WABASHA OOUNTi'. 

He was the oldest of two eliildren born to James and Jane Wren- 
Cain, who died wlien our subject was a child. James was raised on 
a farm, and at the age of seventeen he went to Liverpool. After 
working here one year he emigrated to Illinois, and a few months 
later went to Mississippi. Four years he passed there, taking con- 
tracts on levees, and in 1857 he settled in Mount Pleasant township. 
October 22, 1857, he was united in marriage to Mary A. Burns, of 
Kildare county, Ireland. Six children have been the fruit of this 
union, viz: Thomas M. (deceased), James R,, William W., Frank 
(deceased), John, A. Jane (deceased). Mr. Cain and wife adhere 
to the Catholic faith. His farm comprises three hundred and sixty 
acres of good land, all of which is the result of his own industry. 
In politics he is independent, and besides being a member ot the 
board of supervisors several years, has held a number of minor 
offices. 

Walter McNallan is one of the prosperous fariiiers of High- 
land township. He was born in County Sligo, Ireland, November 1, 
18-12. His parents, Thomas and Mary (Judge) McNallan, are also 
inhabitants of Highland. They came to Beaver Meadow, Pennsjd- 
vania, when the subject of this sketch was about four years old, and 
remained in the coal regions of the Keystone State, where his ftither 
and himself and brother continued to labor in the mines until the 
sjDring of 1857, when the family went to Michigan, and resided for 
several months in the vicinity of Grand Rapids. The next removal 
was to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which place they left in the spring of 
1858, and came to Highland August 25, 1862. Walter, then in his 
twentieth year, enlisted in the 10th Minn., served three years, and 
was honorably discharged August 25, 1865. Soon after the close of 
his soldier's life Mr. McNallan purchased one hundred and twent}^ 
acres of land in Highland, and his father deeded him eighty acres 
more, and by purchase since he has added ninety acres more ; ftll on 
sections 3 and 10. In the summer of 1881 he erected a pretentious 
brick residence on his farm, at a cost of thirty-five hundred dollars, 
by far the finest house in the township. His matrimonial life dates 
from August 7, 1867, when he espoused Ellen Kinsella, daughter of 
Daniel and Catherine (Delany) Kinsella, an Irish lassie, then in her 
twentieth year. The fruits of this union are : Catherine, born 
November 20, 1868 ; Thomas, born August, 1870 ; James, born 
August 6, 1872 ; Daniel, born September 10, 1874 ; Mathew, born 
January 16, 1876 ; Mary, born April 26, 1879 ; John, born March 



EAKLY SETTLERS. 1041 

14, 1881 ; Ellen, born April 14, 1883. Mr. McNallan is a well- 
informed and liberal-minded man, a member of the Highland 
Catholic church, and the Father Matthew Total Abstinence Society 
of Highland. He has held a place in the board of supervisors for 
three years, and was township treasurer for six years. His political 
faith is democratic. He receives four dollars a month pension for a 
wound in the right thigh. 

John H. Eobinson was born in Shoreham, Addison county, 
Yermont, October 30, 1830. His parents were Samuel and Amanda 
(Phelps) Kobinson. Young Kobinson was brought up on a farm 
and received a fair common school education. He remained at home 
until the year 1854. During two years of this time he worked his 
father's farm. February 28, 1854, he married Cynthia Day, a native 
of I^ew York State, and the following season came to Wisconsin, 
and worked at the carpenter's trade in Oshkosh and Waupun for 
two years. Not feeling fully satisfied with western life, he returned 
to the east in 1856, and tried his hand at farming in St. Lawrence 
county, New York ; but not finding as large a degree of prosperity 
there as his fancy had pictured it while he was pounding nails in 
Oshkosh, he again set his face westward, and continued to journey 
in that direction until he had crossed the mighty Mississippi and 
■reached the beautiful promised land of Greenwood prairie. His 
first claim, however, he took in the grub-land of Highland township 
on section 30. He continued to reside on this claim until the spring 
of 1866, when he bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres just 
west of Plainview village, and removed his family thereto. Mr. 
Robinson has been a member of the Plainview board of supervisors, 
and is a member of the Plainview lodge of Odd-Fellows. His first 
wife died August 8, 1871, leaving iwo sons, viz : Merrill A. (Prof. 
Eobinson), of Plainview, and Orrin L. (Prof Robinson) of Mantor- 
ville. July 3, 1874, Mr. Robinson married a second time, to Mattie 
Day, of Plainview, by whom he has two children, viz : Frederick J. 
and Orie E. 

Tenney & Evans, meat market and dealers in hides, pelts, live 
stock, etc. This business was established on Second street, same 
block as now occupied, in 1869, by Tenney and Florer. Six months 
afterward it was Jacob Tenney, and so continued until 1872, when 
it became Tenney Brothers, Jos. Tenny taking an interest, and was 
removed to the present location on the east side of Pembroke street, 
two doors north of Second. The firm continued as Tenny Brothers 



1042 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

until 1875, when Joseph sold oiitto»J. 11. Evans, the firm becoming 
Tenney & Evtins, and so continuing. The sales of this market 
are from four to six beeves a week, and from four to seven carcases 
of calves and sheep, each, for the same period. Tiiej handle from 
three hundred to six hundred hides, and from two hundred to three 
hundred i)elts each season. They have a tract of three hundred and 
twenty acres of sand prairie, on which they keep from seventy to 
eighty head of cattle. Their slaughterhouses are in South Wabasha 
beyond the residence limits of the city. The members of the 
firm are Jacob Tenney and J. H. Evans. Jacob Tenney, who man- 
ages the affairs of the firm (Mr. Tenney being otherwise engaged), 
is a native of Switzerland; came to America with parents in 1856, 
when he was eleven years of age, the family settling in this city in 
1858. Two years later Jacob Tenney, Sr., purchased the farm on 
which Jacob, Jr., now resides — a tract of ninety-seven acres 
within the corporate limits of the city on the east. This farm the 
elder Mr. Tenny sold in 1877, at which time lie purchased a mill at 
Mishamokwa, Wisconsin ; and removing to that place engaged in the 
manufacture of flour. The old home farm in this city was purchased 
by Jacob Tenny, Jr., in 1880, and it is now the residence of his 
family. They have five children living, two in school in this city. 
Jacob S. Tenney, born May 30, 1870; Joseph, December 8, 1872, 
died April 15, 1874 ; John T., April 5, 1875 ; Harry E., August 29, 
1877; Mary L., August 28, 1879 ; Joseph L., October 23, 1881. 

G. W. Tenney, grocer, and dealer in provisions, fruits, flour and 
feed ; location, west side Pembroke, two doors south of Main 
street. This business was established in this city in 1875, and at 
the present stand jince 1878. Two persons and one delivery wagon 
are em])loyed in this business. Mr. Tenney is a native of Stough- 
ton, Massachusetts. He came to Wabasha county in 1858, at which 
time the family settled on a farm in the Whitewater, six miles below 
Plainville, just over the county line in Olmsted county, at which 
time G. W. Tenney was about nineteen years of age. He remained 
on the farm until the third year of the war, when he came to 
Wabasha, and on August 8, 1864, enlisted in the 10th Minn. Inf., 
and was sent to the frontier. Before the regiment was ordered 
south Mr. Tenney was taken sick, completely lost his voice, was 
unable to speak, and was discharged on that account, having been 
in the service a little over a year. He returned to Wabasha in 1865, 
and was variously employed during the next ten years, and while in 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1043 

the employ of Johnson Schwirtz, drove the first omnibus that took 
passengers to the Milwaukee & St. Paul train at this point. In 
187T, two years after he had commenced trade on his own account, 
Mr. Tenney started the first wagon for the delivery of groceries in 
this city, that was put upon the streets. August 8, the same day 
that he enlisted in the army, Mr. Tenney married Miss Clara Stone, 
Olmsted county, Minnesota. They have five children, three of 
whom attend the public schools in this city. Bertie, born Decem- 
ber 5, 1866 ; Ralph, born September 12, 1869 ; Grace, born Febru- 
ary 1, 1872 ; Arthur, born October 3, 1876 ; Bessie, born December 
6, 1879. 

Charles F. Tryon, watchmaker and jeweler, corner Main and 
Pembroke streets. This business was established in this city quite 
recently, although Mr. Tryon has long been a resident of the county, 
having come to Lake City with his parents in 1858, since which date 
that city has been his home, with the exception of the year spent in 
Wabasha, and the time he was completing his trade in Chicago. 
Mr. Tryon was born in Indiana ; grew up in Lake City ; attended 
school there, and completed his school studies by taking a two years' 
course in Shattuck school, Faribault. Leaving school at nineteen 
years of age, he entered the jewelry and watchmaking house of 
Crane Brothers, Lake City, where he spent three years learning his 
trade. From that place he went to Chicago, and for two seasons 
worked in that city, perfecting himself in his trade, at the expira- 
tion of which time he established himself in tfeis city, in the spring 
of 1882. During the eighteen months he has been here, he has 
succeeded in building up a very successful trade, which is constantly 
increasing. 

H. N. Smith, retired raft-pilot. Mr. Smith is a native of Ten- 
nessee, from which state he removed with his parents to Illinois 
when he was a small boy. The family finally settled in Burlington, 
Iowa, in 1841, at which time H. N. Smith was eight years of age. 
He came to St. Paul in 1852 as cabin-boy, and the following year 
made that city his home, remaining three years, during which time 
he was steward on steamers freighting and carrying passengers up 
the Minnesota river, the rush for the valley lands along that river 
at that time being very great. In 1856 Mr. Smith came to Read's 
Landing, and was for a time with his brother, P. C. Smith, then fol- 
lowing rafts down the river. Two years later, 1858, H. N. Smith 
commenced running the river as raft-pilot, floating until 1868, when 



1044 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

he took the wheel of a ratt-boat, and was engaged in that business 
until 1877, when he retired from active service on the river. For 
the next four years Mr. Smith was deputy sheriif under L, M. Gregg, 
going out of office with his principal in 18S1. Mr. Smith married 
Adeline Koberts at Kead'^ Landing, February 17, 1864. They have 
five children, all at school in this city. Frances B., born December 
6, 1864; Gracie A., born October 24, 1866; Harry A., born July 5, 
1870; Gertrude S., born March 25, 1873; Mabel E., born June 5, 
1876. 

H. J. AVhitmore, postmaster of Wabasha, is a native of New 
York State, came to Wabasha in 1858, and was engaged in trade in 
this city, principally in grocery business, until appointed postmaster, 
February 6, 1882. He married Mis Sarah Wickham, of this city, in 
1861. 

E. J. DuGAN, general merchant, location northwest corner Main 
and Alleghaney streets. The location is most central ; the building 
itself, one of the tivo full plate-glass fronts in the city, well adapted 
to the purposes of trade, fronts twenty-five feet on Main, eighty feet 
on Alleghaney, with entrances on both, and has an addition, 16x16, 
for provisions and dry storage. The structure is a solid brick, stone 
foundation and basement, cut stone caps, sills and trimmings. The 
basement is eight feet deep ; the storeroom proper fourteen feet 
ceiling, well lighted and conveniently arranged for business. House 
employs a force of four clerks, one delivery wagon, and reports an 
increase of trade of fully ten per cent over corresponding period of 
1882. E. J. Dugan was born in New York city, educated in 
Brooklyn, completing his studies at Nogent sur Maine, near Paris, 
France, in 1855. Returning to his native city, he remained there 
until 1858, when he came west with his father's family and settled 
in this city. Was in business in the interior of the county, 
and clerking in the county offices until 1863, when he engaged in 
trade under the firm name of Dugan Bros., and so continued four 
years. Was for two years assistant United States collector of 
internal revenue, after the death of W. W. Prindle, and went to St. 
Paul in connection with the duties of that office, remaining there for 
some time thereafter, and engaging in business. Returning to 
Wabasha he resumed trade in this city in 1879, in his present loca- 
tion. Mr. E. J. Dugan married Miss E. L. Cory, of Cooperstown, 
Otsego, New York, in that city, March 3, 1862. Their children are 
Albert, born July 13, 1863 ; Ed. J., Jr., November 4, 1878. 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1045 

Herman Lawson, president of the village board of trustees, has 
been a resident of this city since 1858. He is a native of Norway 
and came to America in 1858, the same year that he located in 
Kead's Landing, and was in the employ of T. B. Wilson until the 
breaking out ot the war of the rebellion in the spring of 1861. April 
20 he enlisted for the three-months service in Co. I, 1st Inf. regt. 
Minn. Yols., and was mustered in at Fort Snelling on the 29th of 
of that month. Before proceeding to the seat of war the members 
of the regiment were given their choice, eithei- to be mustered out 
of service or enlist for the term of three years. The majority 
re-enlisted, Mr. Lawson among the rest, and he was with the gallant 
First during all the glorious services rendered the government dur- 
ing its continuance in the field. Mr. Lawson was severely wounded 
at the first Bull Run battle, but was never absent from the regiment, 
being in regimental hospital, and as soon as possible joined his com- 
mand. He also received two slight wounds at Gettysburg, but not 
of sufficient severity to compel him to leave the field. Returning 
home at the close of his service, he entered the house of Knapp, 
Stout & Co., as clerk, remaining until 1869. Since then he has 
been in lumber business, coupling by contract principally, taking 
out cordwood in winter, etc. February 7, 1868, he married Minne- 
sota Morse, generally, but erroneously, considered the first white 
child born in Wabasha county, the Morse's being among the very 
earliest settlers in this region. They have one child, William, born 
January 16, 1870. 

Alpheus Winslow Heath (deceased) was born in Clearfield 
county, Pennsylvania, March 26, 1824. In 1841 he married Louisa 
Bundy, reared in the same vicinity. Mr. Heath was always a 
farmer, and cleared up a farm in Pennsylvania, at the same time 
working a great deal at lumbering. He was very successful and 
left his family well provided for at his death, which occurred in 
September, 1869. He began life with an ax, a hoe and twenty-five 
cents in money ; was always a hard worker and was quite gray at 
his death. Besides p]'operty in Pennsylvania, where his widow now 
resides, he left two hundred and eighty acres of land in Chester that 
was divided among his children. These are, Emeline (Mrs. Scott 
Lamont) and Arvilla, at Millville ; Nahaman B., Gillford ; Charles 
Manly and H. C, Chester. Mr. Heath was an ardent republican 
and served many years in Pennsylvania as justice of the peace. He 
became a resident of Chester in 1858, pre-empting a quarter of sec- 



lO'ie HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

tion 1, where he resided permanently from 1864 till his death, which 
was caused by typhoid fever. 

Henry Clay Hkath was born in Fox township, same county as 
his father, April 11, 1845. His life has always been spent on a 
farm, and he had but meager schooling advantages. He is a mem- 
ber of Tyrian Masonic Lodge, at Mazeppa, and follows in his 
fjither's political footsteps. He inherited eighty acres of land from 
his father's estate, on section 12, where he now has a comfortable 
home. October 2, 1870, he married Miss Laura Lamb, who died 
May 29, 1881, leaving four children, whose names are thus given, 
in order of age : Walter E., Rhoda A,, Arthur W., Josephine A. 

Leonard Pryor, Zumbro, is a son of Heman and Submit 
Pryor, who removed from their native Massachusetts to Underhill, 
Chittenden county, Vermont, and settled on a farm. Here was 
born (April 22, 1811) and reared the subject of this sketch, receiv- 
ing the benefit of the common schools. His has always been a life 
of hard labor and much of its fruits have been wrested from him 
by misfortune or unfair dealing. After reaching the age of sixty, 
he was compelled to pay a large sum through having endorsed a 
friend's paper ; but he did not murmur, and is still cheerful and 
serene. September 8, 1831, he married Catharine R. Allen, born 
in Woodstock, January 13, 1810. Mrs. Pryor's ])arents, Cyrus 
and Sarah Allen, were also of Vermont birth. Mr. Pryor became a 
resident of Zumbro in the spring of 1858. After three years' resi- 
dence here, he spent seven years at Farm Hill. He now has forty 
acres on section 18, where he lives. His religious faith is most 
nearly represented by the Quakers, and Mrs. Pryor is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal church. Their children were born' and 
reside as follows : Clara, July 31, 1883 (Mrs. Elias A. Lyman), 
Moorhead, Minnesota; Allen C, June 20, 1836, Round Prairie, 
this state; Norman J., January 3, 1839, this town; George H., 
August 28, 1841, Redwood, this state ; Benjamin L., February 11, 
1843, this town; Ellen C, May 19, 1861 (Mrs. W. W. Anderson), 
this town ; Sidney R., May 8, 1854. The latter married Ellen May 
Phelps, May 18, 1880, and resides with parents. 

Orrin E. Boughton, farmer, Mazeppa, has resided here since 
1858, at which time he purchased a claim on section 9. He now 
owns one hundred and eightj^-two acres on sections 8, 9, 16 and 34, 
besides a quarter-section in the James River valley, in Dakota. 
He arrived in Wabasha county with eighty-four dollars, and has 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1047 



secured a competency by his sagacity and industry. He was mar- 
ried in the spring of 1865, to Jane Summers, who died without 
issue April 30, 1866. In June, 1870, he married Khoda A., 
daughter of A. H. Bright, of this town. They have one child, 
Cecile Inez, born November 18, 1873. Mr. Boughton is a member 
of the masonic order. He is a republican in politics ; served as 
town supervisor in 1879-80-81-82. He enlisted October 18, 1861, 
in Co. I, 3d Minn. regt. At the battle of Stone river he was made 
a prisoner, and held three months. At the battle of Wood Lake he 
commanded a company of thirty-two men, of whom twenty-four 
were killed or wounded. After this he was made a corporal. After 
participating in the battles at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Fort Har- 
mon, Young's Point and Little Rock, he was detailed for detached 
service as sergeant-major. He was commissioned as a second 
lieutenant in the regular army, and soon promoted to first. His 
health faihng, he was compelled to resign, which he did March 18, 
1865. He was offered a captaincy if he would remain in the army, 
but could not accept it. His grandfather was a colonel in the war 
of 1812. His father, Ebeneezer Boughton, was born in New York, 
and married Roxy Barney, of the same state. This subject is their 
second son, and was born in Nunda, Livingston county, Newlork, 
•November 8, 1836. All his life was passed in that state until he 
came here. He was reared on a farm, and received a common 
school education. His natural abilities have made him a valuable 
and prominent citizen. 

Benjamin Boughton, Chester, is a brother of the above, and 
received the same early training. His birth occurred in West Sparta, 
same county, February 23, 1845. His mother died when he was 
only three years old, and he was put out with a farmer to be brought 
up. He remained till eighteen years old with this taskmaster, who 
set him to follow the plow as soon as he could reach the handles, 
and gave him little opportunity for education. At eighteen, having 
received only his food and scanty clothing for years of faithful ser- 
vice, he set out to care for himself. In the fall of 1865 he came to 
Minnesota, and stayed one year, attending school in the winter. 
He returned to New York, where he remained till the fall of 1872. 
He engaged in farm labor here three years, and then bought his 
present home on section 3tt, consisting of eighty-seven acres. 
August 30, 1879, he was married to Ida Segar, who was born m 
Salem, Wisconsin. Mr. Boughton had no capital when he arrived 



1048 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNIT. 

in Wabasha county, and his success is a credit to himself and this 
region. He has always been a republican. He adopted an orphan 
child soon after its birth. Her name is Lucy Whaley, and she was 
born February 5, 1879. 

John Darcey, farmer, has dwelt on the northwest quarter of 
section 2, Chester, ever since 1858, at which time he made claim to 
it under the United States land laws. Mr. Darcey is a native of 
Ireland, having been born in the parish of Kiltabrid, in or about the 
year 1831, He was reared on a farm, and set out at eighteen for 
America. Pie spent four years in New Jersey, and a like period in 
Illinois, at farm labor, then came here as above noted. His farm 
has been well improved, the buildings costing over two thousand 
dollars. He has always been a democrat, and himself and family 
are communicants in Belle Chester Catholic church. His marriage 
took place September 9, 1860, the bride being Miss Ellen Early, who 
was born in the same parish as himself in 1841, and came, to America 
at sixteen. Their children are all at home, and were born as below 
noted : Mary J., February, 1863 ; Edward, eJuly, 1864 ; John, June 8, 
1866; Annie, August 4, 1868; Charles F., May 23, 1871; Allie, 
March 28, 1873 ; George, October 4, 1875 ; James, January 12, 1879. 

Joel B. Sheldon, farmer, was born in Westport, Essex county. 
New York, March 20, 1845. His ftither, Isaac Sheldon, was a 
pioneer settler in Pine Island township, his residence being three 
miles from Mazeppa, on the county line. Both the latter and his 
wife, Lydia Smith, were born in Westport. The subject of these 
lines was reared on the Pine Island farm, where he was brought 
when eleven years old, and got his educational training in the 
common schools of Mazeppa. In 1864 he bought forty acres of 
land adjoining his fathers, on which he dwelt till 1880. At this 
time he bought a house and three lots in Mazeppa, and has made his 
home here since. He also has now sixty acres adjoining his first 
purchase, in this town, and is employed in tilling his farm. He was 
married March 12, 1858, to Mary J. Van Sehaick, born at Wells, in 
Indiana, June 15, 1838. Mrs. Sheldon had two children previous to 
this marriage, one of whom was burned to death. The other, 
Alpheus, was born May 14, 1857 ; resides in Mazeppa, Mr, Shel- 
don's children were born as follows : Lillian J., December 24, 1859 
(Mrs, Asa Spicer, here) ; Joel I,, April 25, 1863 ; Ella M,, January 
4, 1867; Gertrude, October, 1868; Martha, September 16, 1873; 
Dick, February 2, 1875, Mr, Sheldon is a member of Mazeppa 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1049 

Good Templars lodge. In religious faith he is a Methodist ; he has 
always been a republican. He enlisted August, 1862, in Co. H, 8tli 
Minn. Yols. Served on the western frontier, participating in several 
Indian engagements ; discharged on account of ill health, January, 
1865. Shortly before entering the service his arm was cut by a 
scythe, and his ai'my exposure prevented a permanent and full 
recovery, and he is often troubled and much weakened by the injury. 

Charles M. Boutelle (deceased) became a resident of Chester 
in the spring of 1858, taking up forty acres of land on section 23, 
which was still vacant, and buying the claim to eighty acres adjoining. 
Here he dwelt till his death, which occurred December 10, 1876. 
He was born in Hancock, New Hampshire, July 2, 1825. His 
father, Charles Boutelle, was a soldier in the war of 1812, and after- 
ward married Betsey Knight, mother of this subject. The latter 
married Sarah L. Buckminster, in July, 1850 ; she was a daughter 
of Benjamin M. Buckminster, all of New Hampshire. She is still 
living on the homestead in Chester, as is also her mother-in-law, 
Betsey Knight Boutelle. Mr. Boutelle was ten years in charge of 
Bear Valley postofSce, which he kept in his house. He was a charter 
member of the grange organized here, and resolutions of respect and 
mourning passed that body on his death. He was several years 
treasurer of Chester township. His politics were republican. Two 
sons were all his offspring. Clarence M. was born in Antrim in 
1851. He graduated at the Winona normal school, and w^as eight 
years a member of its faculty subsequently. He is now, with his > 
wife (Fanny Kimber), teaching in the Rochester Seminary. 

Charles Herbert Boutelle, farmer, is a son of the last above 
subject, and was born in Antrim, New Hampshire, November 1, 
1853. He was reared here, and received a common-school educa- 
tion. He was married November 5, 1877, to Clara A., daughter of 
Willard and Susan Merrill ; she was born in Goodhue county, and 
her parents in New Hampshire and Canada. They have one child, 
born December 18, 1880, and christened Willard C. Mr. Boutelle 
is an independent republican. He was a member of the grange 
while it existed. 

Ansel T. Fox, son of Eenben and Frances Fox, was born in 
Trenton, New York, January 6, 1836. His parents were natives of 
the same state. Being raised on the farm, he attended the district 
schools. At the age of nineteen he removed to Belvidere, Illinois. 
After trying it for two years he came to this county, settling in 



1050 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Mfizeppa township, section 10. His farm consists of one hundred 
and sixty acres, a large portion being untilhible. He raises consid- 
erable stock, and carries on quite a dairying business. He was the 
first town clerk and has also been chairman of the board several 
times. In politics he is a stanch republican ; in religion tends 
toward the Universalist faith. He married Roxana, daughter of 
Eben Boughton, who was a native of New York State. They have 
three children, as follows : Sarah F., Alfred R. and Charlotte A., all 
at home. 

Andrew Bailey, son of Thomas and Jane Bailey, was born in 
Ireland in 1838. He received his education at the common schools 
and his youth was spent on the farm. At the age of fourteen he 
came to Iowa, remaining there six years. Then he came to Zumbro 
township, settling on section 23. He owns two hundred acres of 
land. He married Emma Dane, of Wisconsin, her parents being 
natives of Canada. They have no children. 

Geo. W. Akers, son of Simeon and Margaret Akers, was 
ushered into this world in 1855, in the State of Kentucky. His 
youth was spent on the farm, and he was educated at the district 
schools. He lived at difterent times in Wisconsin and Kentucky, 
and finally came to Hastings, Minnesota, in the year 1860. In 
1876 he removed to Zumbro Falls, Gillford township, and has been 
there ever since. In politics he is a democrat. He married Belle 
Dane, of Wisconsin, and has three children, Simeon, Emma and 
George. 

.Hon. George R. Hall. On June 29, 1836, the hearts of 
Samuel and Betsey (Wyman) Hall, farmers of Stansted county, 
Canada East, were made hajipy by the birth of their second child, 
the subject of this sketch. The family continued to reside in Canada 
until George had reached his fifteenth year, when they came to 
eastern Wisconsin and found a home in Eacine county. Six years 
later, and four years after the death of the father, the family came 
to Wabasha county. Mr, Hall, in the spring of 1858, located a 
pre-emption claim on section 4 in Plainview township, on Greenwood 
prairie. For eight years he followed the life of a pioneer farmer 
on this place. Soon after disposing of this farm, he bought another 
of one hundred and forty acres on the same section. This place he 
sold in 1873, and the same year purchased eighty acres on section 
37, in the adjoining township of Highland. This farm he enlarged 
by the purchase of one hundred and sixty acres adjacent thereto, and 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1061 

in the spring of 1883 sold to Mr. Burgess. Mr. Hall bought a house 
and lot in the village of Plain view, and moved to town in the spring 
of 1880. He is agent for the Laird-Norton Lumber Co., ot Winona, 
which has a branch business in Plainview. Mr. Hall enlisted in 
the 1st bat. Minn. Light Art., December 31, 1863. Owing to ill 
health, saw but little active service, and was discharged on May 25, 
1865. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, a 
Royal Arch Mason, and a member of the board of supervisors. In 
the winter of 1877 he represented the Plainview district in the state 
legislature. His politics are republican. Electa A. Austin, of 
Racine county, Wisconsin, became his wife October 17, 1858. They 
have four children : Ida L. (wife of the Rev. F. B. Cowgill, a 
Methodist Episcopal clergyman and member of the Minnesota con- 
ference), Ella Mary (a teacher in Winona county), Inez M. and 
Nellie Gertrude, living at home. 

Thomas MoDonough was born in County Galway, Ireland, some- 
time in the month of December, 1836, and was the seventh child of 
Bartley and Maria (Hurney) McDonough. When about seventeen 
he came to America in company with his mother and two sisters. 
In 1854 or 1855 his father died of yellow fever in Virginia, and his 
mother, soon after her arrival in America, departed this life at 
Alexandria, Pennsylvania, in which place the family had located. 
Thomas worked on public works near this place for a short time 
and then became a steamboat hand on the river. He also worked on 
a New Orleans cotton-press for awhile. During his sojourn in this 
latter city he became acquainted with Mary Malloy, to whom he was 
married December 27, 1857, this lady being, like himself, a native 
of Ireland, and the daughter of Charles and Mary (Donlevy) Malloy. 
The following spring they came to Wabasha county and homesteaded 
one hundred and sixty acres on sections 12 and 13, in Highland town- 
ship, which was the nucleus of his present possessions, numbering 
four hundred and forty acres. Of their family of five children four 
are still living : Mary, born February 21, 1859 ; Patrick, born Feb- 
ruary 20, 1862 ; Bartley, born August 16, 1863, now a clei-k in Bel- 
videre, Minnesota ; Anthony, born August 4, 1870. During the re- 
bellion Mr. McDonough worked on the government transports. In 
1863 Gov. Ramsey commissioned him as second lieutenant of the 
8th Minn. Militia. He is also a prominent member of the Father 
Mathew Total Abstinence Society and of the Highland Catholic 
church. Is a democrat in politics, and has been five times a mem- 
ber and chairman of the board of supervisors. 



1052 HISTOKY OF WAIJASHA COUNTY. 

Henry C. "Woodruff was born in Hartford, Connecticut, March 
31, 1838. His parents were Eli and Mary (Leonard) Woodruff, the 
former a native of Connecticut and tlie latter of Massachusetts. 
There were four children born to them, Henry being the eldest o 
three now surviving. Mr. Woodruff, Sr., was a moulder by trade. 
While Henry was yet an infant his parents removed to Quincy, 
Illinois, and engaged in farming. Nine years the family resided 
here ; three years in Milwaukee, where Mr. Woodruff" was proprie- 
tor of a livery-stable and boarding-house, and eight years in a hotel 
at St. Marie;, Wisconsin. In 1858 the family came to Elgin township, 
Wabasha county. In 1863 Henry ]3urchased eighty acres of land on 
section 30, in Elgin, which he still owns, together with one hundred 
and sixty adjacent thereto. Mr. Woodruff and his brother-in-law, 
Ethan Whiting, erected the first elevator in Plain view, at a cost of 
eighty-five hundred dollars, in August, 1878, and had it ready for 
business by the time the Plainview railroad was completed. Mr. 
Woodruff" is at present local agent for the great produce firm of 
Geo. W. VanDusen & Co., at Plainview, and resides in town. He 
is a member of Plainview Lodge, F. and A.M., and in politics 
republican. He was married at St. Marie, Wisconsin, November 
25, 1859, to Polly R. Whiting, a native of that state, and daughter 
of E. F. and Laura (Rice) Whiting. They have five children : 
Edward, married and residing in Plainview, and Clara, Nora, Claud 
and Charles, living at home. His father and mother resided with 
him at the time of their death ; the former departed this life July 
15, 1879, and the latter June 30, 1883, at Andover, Dakota, where 
she was visiting a daughter, Mrs. D. W. Buck. 

Edward Nash, farmer, the subject of this sketch, first saw the 
light of day in Kilkenny county, Ireland, in September of the year 
1819. His parents, John and Mary (McGragh) Nash, belonged to 
the small farmer class. He remained in his native land until 1850, 
and received a meager education ; he then came to America. After 
spending a few months on a farm near Watertown, New York, he 
tried life as a lake sailor, until the close of navigation, for the win- 
ter of 1850-1. The following sj)ring he worked in Ames & Spencer's 
tannery, near Milwaukee. In June, 1853, he found himself a miner 
in the Lake Su])erior mines, where he remained until 1858, when he 
came to Highland, and pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres on 
sections 7 and 18, in Highland township, and section 13, in Oak- 
wood, and in June, 1859, took up his permanent residence in this 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1053 



township. In 1882 lie sold his pioneer farm and purchased a smaller 
farm of eighty, on section 17, from A. M. Grarey. He was mar- 
ried Augnst 2, 1875, to Anna Mullins, a native of Nova Scotia, 
born February 22, 1847. Her parents afterward removed to Wis- 
consin, and in the fall of 1861 she and her twin-brother, then in 
their fifteenth year, accompanied by two younger children, came 
alone from Portage City, Wisconsin, to Wabasha, driving an ox" 
team. In politics Mr. Nash is an independent democrat ; in re- 
ligion, a Catholic ; has been supervisor two terms and assessor one 
Mr. Nash tells of how he went to bed one night in the dark in 
his pioneer bachelor cabin, and found a bedfellow in the slimy coils 
of a serpent four feet in length. 

George Wilson, farmer, is one of the early settlers of West 
Albany, and was born in Banffshire March 6, 1833. His parents 
were James and Ann (Ballock) Wilson, to whom were born seven 
children, George being fifth. The subject of our sketch lived at 
home until the age of twenty-two, when he left his native land and 
settled in Eacine county, Wisconsin. Here he lived until 1858, 
when he located on the farm in West Albany township where he 
now lives. In 1861 he returned to Scotland and six years later again 
came to West Albany, bringing with him from Banffshire several 
■families, all of whom located in this neighborhood. Indeed the 
establishment of the Scotch settlement in West Albany was largely 
due to the influence of Mr. Wilson, for besides those who accom- 
panied him on his return, many afterward came from the old country 
and from Eacine county, Wisconsin. Ever since 1867 Mr. Wilson 
has resided liere, and now has one of the finest farms on the prairie, 
consisting of three hundred and twenty acres of rich land all improved. 
He has given considerable attention to the raising of fine Durham stock, 
and is one of the most extensive stock-raisers on the prairie. He 
was married April 24, 1869, to Ellen Phillips, of Banffshire. This 
union has been blessed with five children : Ella A., James A., 
George A., Nellie B., Willie P. He and wife belong to the United 
Presbyterian church. Is a republican. He has occasionally been 
called to the public service, and is a respected and influential 
citizen. 

William Duffus, farmer, is a native of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 
where he was born October 8, 1829. His parents were James and 
Margaret (Allan) Duffus, to whom were born three children, Will- 
iam being the second. The subject of our sketch has always been a 



1054 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

tiller of the soil, and in 1S51 lie emigrated to Ontario, and shortly 
after to Racine county, Wisconsin. After farming here two years 
he came farther west, and soon settled on the farm he now occupies. 
October 15, 1868, he wedded Ann Wilson, a native of Banffshire. 
Two children have been the fruit of this union, viz : Margaret A. 
and John A. Mr. Duft'us and wife belong to the Presbyterian 
church. He is a republican. His farm of one hundred and sixty 
acres is among the best on the prairie. He is a genial, hospitable 
gentleman, and a credit to the community where he has so long re- 
sided. 

Henry Martin, farmer, was born in 1833, in Ireland. He is 
second son of Edward and Bridget Martin, both of Ireland. When 
about twenty-one years of age he came to New York, and spent two 
years there and in Massachusetts. He then came to Wisconsin, 
farmed about three years, then he came to his present farm of two 
hundred and forty acres of fine land, traversed by theZumbro valley. 
He is one of Oakwood's wealthiest farmers. He has always been a 
democrat in politics. He is one of our first settlers and enterprising 
citizens. He was married in 1861, to Bridget Fehan, of Ireland. 
They have eight children. 

Augustus Charley was born in Sweden, April 15, 1825. On 
October 5, 1853, he landed in Chicago. When on the sea between 
Liverpool and New York, the vessel in which he had taken passage 
was overtaken by a terrific storm, and all three of the masts were 
swept away, and was for several days without any propelling motive 
on board the vessel. The captain finally succeeded in rigging out a 
small sail by using some loose poles which ha])pened to be on board 
the vessel for masts. They were four weeks and three days on the 
sea, and many suffered with hunger. As many as nineteen children 
died for want of something to eat. Mr. Cliarley staid in Chicago 
over three years, working as a day laborer. About one year of this 
time his wife was sick and in bed. He then worked in a sawmill 
for three years in Read's Landing ; and from there he came to Glas- 
gow township, where he now lives, in the fall of 1859. He home- 
steaded one hundred and sixty acres of land, and since then has 
bought eighty acres more. He and his daughter built the first house 
in which they lived, a small log house which was replaced by another 
log house and that by his present house, which he built in 1874. 
When Mr. Charley first came to his place, he found everything wild, 
and he has done all the improving on his place himself. He had no 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1055 

money when he came, and was without a team of any description for 
over two years. By working for his neighbors he finally managed 
to buy himself a team (a couple of two-year-old steers). Mr. Charley 
now has his second wife ; he was married first time in Sweden, and 
his wife died before he came to this country. His second wife, Chris- 
tine Erikson, he also married in Sweden. Of the nine children born 
to them, but four of them are now living. Matilda, the eldest is the 
wife of John Peterson, and now lives in Wisconsin. John, Alfred, 
and Ida are the names of the other three. Mr. Charley enlisted in 
Co. D, of the 5th Minn. Inf., and was mustered in at Memphis, Ten- 
nessee. He was in the battles of ]^ashville, Spanish Fort, Mobile, 
Yicksburg and Columbia, He was mustered out at Montgomery, 
Alabama. Mr. Charley lost his health while in the army, and has 
not been able to work a day since. He now draws a pension. 

James Howat, the subject of this sketch, was born in Banffshire, 
Scotland, March 24, 1824. His parents were John and Margaret 
(Bonnayman) Howat. His father being a farmer, James led the life 
of a Scotch country laddie until eighteen years of age, when he came 
to America, whither his parents had preceded him. He spent sev- 
eral years in the pineries of Canada, and also worked at Fort Wayne, 
near Detroit, Michigan. In 1859 he came to Highland, and home, 
steaded the quarter-section (section 14) where he now resides, and 
to which he has added forty acres in section 21. He was married 
in Canada April 5, 1851, to Agnes Scott, daughter of a County 
Down, North of Ireland, farmer, James Scott, and his wife, Eliza- 
beth (Butcher) Scott. Two sons and two daughters have blessed 
their union, viz : John and Elizabeth, born in Canada, and Margaret 
and James, natives of Minnesota. Mr. Howat served one year in 
in the 3d Minn. Inf , and was honorably discharged at the close of 
the rebellion. The republican party has called him to serve on the 
township board of supervisors four years in succession. The reli- 
gious faith of the family is Presbyterian. 

John Schad is a prosperous Highland farmer. He was born in 
Germany, May 23, 1838. His parents were Michael and Margaret 
(Papper) Schad. Two brothers and a sister preceded him to 
America, whither he came in 1S58. Going first to Fort Wayne, 
Indiana, he found employment in a brick-yard. In the spring of 
1859 he came to Wabasha county, and located a squatter's claim 
on section 4 in Highland and 33 in Glasgow township. This place 
he sold in 1868, and immediately purchased one hundred and sixty 
64 



1056 HISTORY OF WAEASHA COUNTY. 

acres on section 26, in Highland, to which he has since added one 
hundred and twentj'- acres, and where he now resides. Miss Lena 
Ruff became his wife November 24, 1S68. She was a native of 
Iowa, where she was born October 24, 1S4S. The following chil- 
dren have been born to Mr, and Mrs. Schad : Frank, born February 
10, 1870; Mary, September 2, 1872; Godfrit, September 9, 1874; 
John, December 31, 1876 ; Maggie, October 19, 1878 ; Henry, Sep- 
tember 23, 1880 ; Lena, August 7, 1882 ; Theresa, September 30, 
1883. Before his marriage Mr. Schad worked several winters in 
the Wisconsin pineries, and also in St. Louis as a stonemason. His 
farm is under excellent cultivation, and in 1876 he spent two thou- 
sand dollars in the digging of a well and the erection of a windmill, 
the only one in the township of Highland. 

John How at, farmer, and dealer in agricultural im]>lements, is 
the eldest son of James and Agnes (Scott) Howat, and was born in 
Holdamond county, Canada, September 6, 1852. His parents re- 
moved to Minnesota in 1 859. He led the life of a pioneer farmer- 
boy, and received a fair education in the winter schools. In 1873 
he bought eighty acres of land from his grandfather Scott in section 
15, where he has since resided. December 18, 1877, he was mar- 
ried to Mary Amelia Affeld. This lady was born at Mantella, Wis- 
consin, March, 1856. Her parents were Godfred and Doretha 
(Schuelke) Affeld. The children of this marriage are James, three 
years old, and Louis G., one year. Mr. Howat deals in agricultural 
implements, Kellogg being his headquarters. He is a member of 
the Congregational church, and in politics a republican. 

Fred Anding, farmer, was born in Germany in 1845. When he 
was eight years old he came to this country witli his parents, who 
settled in Wisconsin. In 1859 he removed to Glasgow townslii]^ 
Wabasha county, and after a residence there of six years he bought 
a farm in Gillford township, where he has since lived. He has one 
hundred and twenty acres of well improved land all under cultiva- 
tion, and sufficiently stocked to make it quite profitable. One of 
Mr. Anding's chief delights is to own the finest team of horses in 
the section of country in which he lives. He was married at 
Wabasha in 1866, to Louisa Umbreight, and seven children have 
been born to them. They are both members of the German 
Lutheran church at Jacksonville. 

Joseph Meyer, manufacturer and dealer in boots and shoes. 
Main street, south side, midway between Alleghaney and Peni- 



EARLY SETTLEES. 1057 

broke streets. This business was established by Mr. Meyer in 1859, 
on Pembroke street, south of Main. In 1S71 he purchased the lot 
he now occupies, fronting thirty feet on Main, and erected a two- 
story brick building 30x46. The east half of the lower story is his 
shoeshop, with workshop in the rear. The west half is the city 
council room and recorder's office. The upper story Mr. Meyer oc- 
cupies as his dwelling. Joseph Meyer is a native of Westphalia, 
Prussia, learned his trade there, and followed it until 1856, when he 
came to America, and the same season settled in Hastings, Minne- 
sota, where he remained until 1859, and then located in this city. 
He married Miss Henrietta Clouse. They have four children, two 
attending city school: Amelia, born October 18, 1864; William^ 
born July 17, 1870 ; Bertie, born January 26, 1873 ; Lucy, born 
June 30, 1881. 

L. TowNSEND, dental surgeon ; office corner Main and Alleghaney - 
streets, upstairs. Business established in this city in 1865, in an. 
office across the street, and removed to present location in 1882, 
Dr. Townsend is a native of Plattsburg, New York ; studied for his 
profession in the office of Bigsby & Howard, in his native place, 
and concluding his preparatory studies, established himself in prac- 
tice there in 1859, removing to this city in 1865, and establishing a 
practice here which has been increasingly successful for a period of 
eighteen years. The doctor was married in 1848, to Miss MayEey- 
nolds. They have one child, E. L. Townsend, who studied for his 
profession in his father's office ; at nineteen years of age commenced 
practice in Lake City ; continued there for five years, then went to 
Philadelphia, taking a partial course in medicine in Jefferson Medical 
College and a full course in dental surgery at Pennsylvania College, 
graduating B.D.S. in 1877, and returned to Lake City; resumed 
practice until the fall of 1880, when, his health failing him, he dis- 
continued office work for two years. Keturning to Wabasha in 1882, 
he spent the following winter in the home office, and in the summer 
of 1883 took a trip into California to test the effect of that climate 
upon his health. Dr. L. Townsend, during the eighteen years of 
his practice in this city, has fitted five young men for the dental 
profession, besides a number of others who have taken only a partial 
course. P. H. Robinson, who is now the doctor's assistant, has just 
completed his studies in the office here, and taken a working interest 
in its business. It is his intention to take a full course in dental 
surgery by way of completing his preparation. Dr. Townsend, in 



1058 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Marcli, 1882, purchased a tract of forty acres of land within the 
corporate limits of the city, on the south, which he was converting 
• into a fruit farm, when, July 10, 1883, one of the most terriiic storms 
of wind and rain, accompanied by lightning-, that ever visited this 
region broke over the city. A bolt of lightning came crashing 
through the roof of the doctor's house, at the southwest corner, 
passing clean through to the basement, and firing the house all along 
its passage. The shock partially stunned the doctor and his wife, 
and they were only fully aroused by the light from their burning- 
dwelling in time to effect their escape with the loss of home and 
contents. 

John H. Lewis, plumber and dealer in pumps ; shop on Second 
street, just west of Pembroke. This business has been established 
in this city since 1870, and employs from two to four persons. Mr. 
Lewis was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, November 5, 1825 ; 
bred to the tin and coppersmith's trade, at which he spent his time 
working in his native state and in Ohio until 1856, when he came to 
this section of the northwest, and settled at Xorth Pepin in Wis- 
consin. Remaining there three years, he removed to Wabasha in 
1859, and, with the exception of two years spent in the western part 
of the county, this city has since been his home. Mr. Lewis was in 
the service of the United States during the late war as a private in 
the 1st Minn. Heavy Art. In 1870, continued confinement at the 
tinner's bench having rendered outdoor work a necessity, he took up 
his present business, and has now prosecuted it thirteen years. Mr. 
Lewis was married September 21, 1818, at Zanesville, Ohio, to 
Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. James Gurley, of the North Ohio con- 
ierence of the Methodist Episcopal church. Their children are : 
Lucy, Arthur, Ida, Marshall, Clara. 

S. HiRSCHY & Son, general merchants, Herschy's Block, corner 
Main and Pembroke streets. This business, established April 1, 
1882, occupies the corner storeroom of the block, which was erected 
by S. Ilirschy in 1874. The block fronts fifty feet on Main street and 
one hundred and ten feet on Pembroke. It is a substantial two-story 
and basement brick and stone structure, the side walls of the first 
seventy feet along Pembroke street rising forty-six feet above the 
water-table. The second story of this portion of the block is finished 
and furnished as a public hall. This hall is 50x70 feet, c'md has a 
seating capacity of five hundred, the ceilings being twenty-one feet 
between joists. The storeroom occuj:)ied by Hirschy & Son fronts 



EAKLT SETTLERS. 



1059 



twenty-five feet on Main street, seventy feet on Pembroke, with 
entrances on both. They carry a full stock of general merchandise, 
employ five clerks, and keep one wagon for the delivery of goods. 
The business of the firm is managed by C. C. Hirschy, the " Son " 
of the firm. C. C. Hirschy was born in this city March 20, 1859 ; 
was educated here and in St. Paul, finishing his course in the busi- 
ness colk'o-e in that citv in 1880. Tie llirn ciite'ied the eiiirineer 




department of the St. Paul & Manitoba railway, and was there until 
the fall of 1882, when he returned to this city and assumed charge of 
the business he is now so successfully managing. 

Sajhuel Hirschy, agriculturist and dealer in real estate, and 
senior member of the firm of Hirschy & Son, is a native of Canton 
Yaud, Switzerland. After leaving school, in his seventeenth j^ear, 
he was bred a tanner, served a term in the army, and at twenty-four 
years of age came to America and settled in Dayton, Ohio, in 1852. 
Worked at his trade in that city five years, during which time he 
married Miss Margaret Felker, and then in 1857 removed to 
Wabasha. Here he invested his means in a tract of timbered land, 
oak, intending to engage in tanning business. The oak-bark was 



1060 HISTORY OF WABASHA CODTSTTY, 

found utterly useless for that purpose, and for some years he was 
engaged in cutting and hauling wood, and such other work as he 
could find profitable. In 1863 he comtnenced moving buildings, 
and finding that business i)rotitable, followed it until 1874, when, his 
health broken by hard labor, he returned to Europe, and spent five 
months traveling over the continent and the British islands. In 
1870 he bought the property on which he now resides, a tract of 
seventy acres in the southeast quarter of the city, which he is rapidly 
converting into a fruit farm. June 7, 1882, his dwelling was 
destroyed by fire, and he has since erected the comfortable home the 
family now occupy. A substantial frame, two stories in height, solid 
stone foundations, full basement, 28x36 feet, with an addition 
16x24 feet, one story high. Mr. Hirschy has devoted some atten- 
tion to the raising of blooded Jersey cattle, of which he has twelve 
head thoroughbred, besides some other grades. He is also quite a 
successful bee-culturist ; has thirty-eight stands in a flourishing con- 
dition, and is now building a winter storeroom of stone capable of 
holding one hundred hives. His grapes, of which he has about 
fifteen hundred vines in bearing, are in good thrifty condition, as are 
also his fruit-trees and strawberry-vines. His eldest son, Louis, 
born in Ohio, is now farming in the southwestern portion of the state. 
O. C, as before mentioned, was born in this city, and the remaining 
child, a daughter — now at home — Clara, was born on the home 
place December 17, 1870. 

Samuel, son of John and Jane Robinson, was born in Bally- 
mana, Ireland, in 1828. He was raised on the farm, and received 
a common school education. In 1847 he came to Sullivan county, 
New York, where he remained till 1857, when he removed to Will 
county, Illinois, and in 1859 he came to this township, settling on 
section 36. He owns ninety acres of land. In politics he is a 
thorough democrat. He married Elizabeth Bailey, her parents 
being natives of Ireland. They have five children : Andi-ew, 
Thomas, John, Robert and Phebe. 

Henry C. Brant, son of Adam and Rebecca Brant, was born 
February 4, 1824. His father was a native of Pennsylvania, and 
his mother of Virginia. He is a native of Ohio. He was educated 
at the common schools, and his youth was spent mostly on the 
farm. In the fall of 1857 he came to Fillmore county, this state, 
remaining there till 1859 ; then came to this county, settling in 
Gillford township, pursuing farming till 1877, when he removed to 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1061 

Ohio, and after five years came to this township (Zumbro), settling' 
on section 25. He has twenty acres of land. During the winter 
of 1864 he enlisted in the 8th Minn., and accompanied Gen. Snlly 
on his Indian expedition to the Yellowstone river. The next fall 
he was mustered out at St. Paul. He has been justice of the piece, 
town clerk, assessor, town treasurer, etc., for several years off and 
on. In politics he is republican, but not radical. He married 
Calista Martin, her parents are natives of New Jersey. Their 
living children are : Edgar F. and Louisa A., Charles being 
deceased. 

Charles Early, Chester, was born inKiltabrid, County Leitr in, 
Ireland, August 15, 1826, and was reared on a farm there, attending 
a common school till fifteen years old. In November, 1852, he 
landed in New York city, where he remained till June, 1856. He 
then went to Whiteside county, Illinois, and came thence to Chester 
in April, 1859. He entered the northeast quarter of section 10 as 
a homestead, and has dwelt thereon ever since, and has since 
acquired by purchase one-fourth of section 16. Mr. Early is 
reckoned among our most intelligent and progressive citizens. He 
is a member of Belle Chester Roman Catholic church, and a 
democrat. He was married in New York, January 7, 1855, to 
Jane Darcy, who was born in the same parish as himself They 
have lost five children, and now have one son, born November 
25, 1862, and christened Charles Edward. 

Enos B. Rayiviond, grain-buyer, was born in Orwell, Vermont, 
Januarj^ 28, 1836. His grandfather, Joseph Raymond, was the first 
settler in the town of Warren, Vermont ; was the son of a revolu- 
tionary soldier. Ira, son of Joseph Raymond, married Laura 
Martin and settled on a farm in Orwell. The subject of this sketch 
was reared here. His education was completed at Brandon 
Academy. At eighteen he set out for the boundless west. After 
spending a winter at Omro, Wisconsin, he started with some land- 
owners for a trip through Iowa. After reaching the latter state 
he changed his mind and took the stage for St. Paul. Thence he 
made his way to Stillwater, and engaged as clerk in a store, remain- 
ing three years. He then spent two years at Lake City, buying 
wheat for Van Kirk & McGeogh. After traveling ten years for a 
Milwaukee wholesale grocery house, he returned to Minnesota, and 
dwelt at Lake City and Mazeppa. Since 1877 he has remained in 
the latter place, buying grain for P. Robinson. In August, 1866, 



1062 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

he was married here to Miss Cornelia L., daughter of Frederick 
Ormsby. Mrs. Raymond was born in Long Grove, Cook county, 
Illinois. They have one son, Charles Eddy, born April 8, 1872. 
Mr. Kaymond is an enthusiastic democrat. He has never taken 
any active part in public affairs, although he is active in fostering 
schools and the general welfare. "While not a member of any sect, 
he is a believer in divine authority. 

O. P. Carruth, farmer, was born in Jefferson county, New 
York, September 8, 1829. He was one of eight children born to 
William and Eleanor Patterson-Carruth, natives of Springfield, Mas- 
sachusetts, and Fort Anne, New York, respectively. The subject 
of our sketch was raised in Jefferson county, and when twenty-one 
years of age he went to Auburn, New York, where he spent six 
years in a boot and shoe establishment. October 27, 1859, he was 
married to Mary Yeeder, a native of that county, and a daughter to 
Dr. Yeeder, one of the old residents of this township. Immediately 
after his marriage he located on his present farm in Mount Pleasant. 
His wife died March 19, 1879. She was the mother of four chil- 
dren, two of whopi are living: Fred. H., who is running a flour- 
ishing newspaper at Estilline, Dakota, and Ellen B. January 3, 
1880, he wedded Sarah L. Eastman- Gorton, of Athens, Yermont. 
Mr. Carruth is a member of Lake City lodge, No. 22, I.O.O.F. In 
politics he is republican, and since 1876 has been chairman of the 
board of supervisors. 

Henry S. Smith, farmer, is a grandson of Joel Smith, who 
served in the colonial army during the revolution. Asaph, son of 
Joel Smith, was born in Yermont, and married a native of the same 
state, viz : Miss Abigail Couch. This couple dwelt on a farm in 
Poultney, Rutland county, Yermont, where was born on March 
14, 1824, the person whose name heads this sketch. The latter was 
reared on this farm, and was a pupil in the common school adjacent. 
Arriving at maturity, he settled down on a farm of his own. In 1853 
he married Jane S. Franklin, sister of G. B. Franklin, elsewhere 
mentioned. In 1859 he removed to this county, and settled on the 
farm he now occupies. The homestead of one hundred and sixty 
acres lies on section 32, Chester, and twelve acres of timber nearby, 
on section 30. One hundred acres of this is now under the plow, 
and almost wholly tilled by its owner's individual labor. Mr. Smith 
is a hard worker, although his right hand is crippled. This is the 
effect of an attack of black erj'sipelas, which he suffered in 1875. 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1063 

His eyesight was also injured by this malady. The firstborn of this 
family, christened Charley, died when eight months old. The next, 
Volney L., was born May 30, 1856, and is now keeping books at 
Ked Wing ; Altie A., 1861, married George Westphall, and resides 
in Mazeppa; Minnie H., telegraph operator on Midland railway. 

Nelson B. Smith, farmer, has dwelt since the spring of 1856 
on section 29, Chester, where he has four hundred and forty acres of 
land ; his real property also includes twenty acres on section 30. 
His father. Squire Yan Smith, was a native of Connecticut, and 
married Charlotte Ann Glover, of the same state. After serving in 
the war of 1S12, he settled on a farm in Brookfield, Fairfield county, 
where was born the subject of this sketch, January 17, 1823. He 
was reared on the farm there, and completed his education by at- 
tending Newtown Academy one term. After teaching school four 
terms in Connecticut, he removed to New York in 1846, and taught 
one term there. During this year he met and won for his wife Miss 
Margery A. Mix, a native of that state. Next year he bought and 
began tilling a farm there. In the summer of 1855 he visited Min- 
nesota, and selected a claim south of Mazeppa. Keturning to New 
York, his claim was "jumped," so when he came on with his fam- 
ily next spring he settled on his present location. He has always 
been a republican ; has been assessor two terms and collector one. 
He is not a believer in the gospel as now taught by any sect. In 
January, 1862, Mr. Smith enlisted in the 2d independent company of 
U. S. Sharpshooters, and was with the army of the Potomac from 
that time till the close of the war. The only engagements he missed 
were those of the first Bull's Kun and Ball's Bluff. He was never in 
ambulance or in hospital. The only wound he received was in his 
haversack, a ball piercing a can of meat that was to serve as his 
rations. Thus his stomach was affected. In February, 1864, he 
re-enlisted, and received one month's furlough. Mr. Smith was 
robbed of his life partner by death on May 4, 1881. Their two 
children still reside with the father. Joseph Ladelle, born in 
January, 1850, is unmarried. Lottie Ann, born June, 1857, married 
John McCabe, who assists in tilling the farm. 

Henry Eoff, farmer. Lake City, was born May 26, 1828, in 
Yates county. New York, and is the ninth child of Henry and Clem- 
entine (Brown) Koff, who became the parents of eleven children. 
In 1837 they removed to Crawford county, Pennsylvania, where the 
father died in 1841 and the mother in 1845. The early youth of our 



1064 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

subject was spent on the farm, where he enjoyed but a limited means 
of gaining an education. He was married in Crawford count}^, Penn- 
sylvania, September 28, 1852, to Miss Clarrisa Ilotchkiss, a native 
of Crawford count}', Pennsylvania, born January 28, 1S37. Early 
in the spring of 1S50 Mr. Roff decided to seek on the fertile ])rairies 
of Minnesota a better reward for his labor and investment tlian the 
sterile soil of the east then yielded, and at the same time secure for 
himself a home in a state where land in value was within his reach. 
He came by railroad to Chicago, bringing with him his team and 
wagon ; at that point he loaded his effects, with his wife and two 
children, in the wagon and drove through to Olmsted county, Minne- 
sota, three hundred and fifty miles, arriving there in May. He at once 
pre-empted a quarter-section of government land in Eyota township, on 
which he made final proof and paid for the same fall. Fearing the 
severity of a Minnesota winter on the prairie, he removed to Winona 
late in the fall, where he put in a profitable winter in the wood busi- 
ness, notwithstanding the deep snow and intense cold witnessed 
here during the winter of 1857. The next spring he concluded not 
to return to his farm, but came to Lake City, landing here on May 
1. The next day he began to build a house, into which he moved 
six days later. That spring he started in the butcher business, open- 
ing the first meat-market in Lake City. In 1864 he sold out the 
market, and with his family went to Montana, where he" engaged in 
mining two years, and again returned to Lake City a wiser if not a 
richer man. Butchering was again resumed and followed till 1876, 
when, on account of his own and his daughter's ill health, he sold 
out his entire business and took his family to New Mexico. On his 
return to Lake City he purchased a small farm near the city limits, 
and engaged in farming. In the spring of 1880 he bought a farm 
of two hundred and forty in Gilford township, on which his son now 
resides. He is a member of the three Masonic orders of this city. 
His children's names in the order of their birth are : Ellen, now 
Mrs. Frank Bouton ; Henry L., on the farm ; Mary L., wife of 
Henry Nelson, of Red Wing ; Clara B., Minnie C. and Julia. 

William A. Helt (deceased) was a son of Lewis and Elizabeth 
Helt, of German and American birth respectivel3\ He was born 
in the city of Philadelphia March 30, 1832, and was reared there, 
receiving a good education. When eighteen years old he began an 
apprenticeship at fine shoemaking. For several years he kept a 
ladies' custom shop in Philadelphia, where he was married April 2, 



EARLY SETTLERS. 



1065 



1S54, to Miss Jane W., daughter of Robert CliiFord, elsewhere men- 
tioned in this vohime. In 1857 this couple came to Lake City, and 
returned to Philadelphia two years later. Here Mr. Helt joined the 
Gnited States army, in 1863, in Co. G, 118th Penn. Vols. The 
principal engagement in which he took part was that of Antietam. 
He was sometime confined by illness in hospital, and himself took 
charge for several months of a smallpox hospital. He was discharged 
in September, 1865, and returned to Lake City, whither his wife had 
preceded . him. The hardships and sickness endured in the army 
sowed the seeds of disease in his constitution, and from its eifects 
he was forced to give up the ghost November 22, 1880. The only 
child given him, a daughter, christened Eebecka Jane, preceded him 
to the other shore October 19, 1876. He was able to do little after 
the close of the war, on account of physical disability, and but for a 
pension from a generous government his widow would be but illy 
provided for. Mrs. Helt is blessed with considerable poetic genius, 
and has contributed many valuable productions to the local press. 
Both these people were always communicants in the Methodist 
church of Lake City. 

Daistiel Metzgak, farmer. Cook's Valley, is a great-grandson of 
George Metzgar, who emigrated from Holland to Pennsylvania 
before the revolution. George, son of the latter, was reared and 
"died in the same locality. His son, Jonas, served in the war of 
1812; married Mary Merwine, and dwelt on a farm in Hamilton, 
Northampton county, Pennsylvania. Here was born the person 
whose name begins this paragraph, November 8, 1822. He was 
reared on a farm in Cayuga and Tompkins counties, New York. 
Besides attending the excellent common schools of that region, he 
spent two terms in Groton Academy. He engaged in teaching two 
years, and afterward spent two years in a Florida sawmill. Return- 
ing to New York he engaged in farming. February 19, 1852, he 
was married to Mary J. Albertson, who was born in Smithfield, 
Pennsylvania. Her parents were John and Mary (Cregg) Albert- 
son, natives of New Jersey. In 1857 he took up his present resi- 
dence, on section 30, Greenfield, and became a fixture of the town, 
and a worthy citizen. He became postmaster at Cook's Yalley 
when that office was established in 1859, and held the office three 
years, thus demonstrating democratic appreciation of republican 
talent and integrity. Mr. Metzgar's first ballot was for abolition of 
slavery, and he has ever since adhered to the principles espoused by 



1066 HISTORY OF \VABx\.SHA COUNTY, 

republicans, lie was three times elected chainnan of the town 
board of su])ervisors, and served a term as assessor. He is a 
believer in the final holiness and happiness of all mankind. On 
October 28, 1862, death took away the faithful sharer of his cares 
and delights, Mrs. Metzgar was a consistent member of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal church, and her place has never been filled. Five 
children survive her, all residents of this town. Their names in 
order of birth are: William A,, Mary A, (wife of J. G. Rose), 
Sarah A. (William J. Rose), Ida May and Fannie Jane, 

Chakles Forrest (deceased) was among those who came to 
Wabasha in an early day. He was born at Peter Head, a city in 
the north of Scotland, April 24, 1835. In early life he entered 
upon an apprenticeship to the trade of boot and shoe maker, serving 
the usual time. In 1856 he left the land of his birth and the home 
of his childhood, with all the ties of kindred and friends, and the 
dearest of all, the one who was to be his bosom friend and compan- 
ion through life, and after a few uneventful weeks on the ocean, and 
a year spent at his trade in Montreal, Canada, he landed from a 
river steamer at Wabasha, Minnesota, late in the summer of 1857, 
There he decided to stay and make a strike for a home, entering at once 
upon the business of his trade, which he prosecuted with vigor nearly 
four years, when, notwithstanding the financial embarrassment fol- 
lowing the crisis of 1857, and the prevailing diseases incident to 
those who were then living on the Mississippi bottoms, in both of 
which Mr. Forrest suffered severely, he had secured the means not 
only to send for the one above referred to, but also to provide for 
her on her arrival, a rude, though happy home. She reached Wabasha 
on the evening of April 22, 1861, and the next day Charles Forrest 
and Margaret Tough were united in marriage. She is a native of 
Aberdeen, Scotland, and was born May 31, 1834, They at once 
repaired to a farm he had previously bought in West Albany town- 
ship, and built a small frame house, the first erected in that settle- 
ment, Mrs, Forrest now declares that the succeeding years were the 
happiest of her life. The pioneers had but little, and, being all on 
an equality, shared cheerfully with each othei-, even to a cup of salt. 
Some years later Mr, Forrest came to Lake City, and, after selling 
his farm, built a store and embarked in merchandising in the boot 
and shoe line, conducting the business till the time of his death. 
May 21, 1879, Though he left no fortune to his family, he left 
them with a home and the heritage of an unsullied name. He was 



EAKLY SETTLERS. 1067 

a deacon in the Baptist church, and consistent, pious Christian gen- 
tleman. His widow and one son are also members of the Baptist 
church. His children, who are all residing with their mother in 
Lake City, are James, Charles G., Jennette H., Maggie J., Jennie 
E,, William W. and Katie E., and enjoj the esteem and respect of 
their fellow citizens. 

Thomas Heath Megroth, Lake City, was born at Hallowell, on 
the Kennebec river, in the State of Maine, in 1808. His father, 
John Megroth, was a native of Needham, Massachusetts, and died 
of camp fever in the war of 1812. His mother, Elizabeth (Heath) 
Megroth, was a native of Southampton, England, who came to 
America in early life and died at a good old age in West Manches- 
ter, Massachusetts. The first fifteen years of our subject's early life 
was spent on a farm, after which he began an apprenticeship to the 
hatter's trade. This, however, was not congenial to his health, and 
after two years' trial was abandoned and his attention turned to the 
carpenter's trade. This he found suited to his taste and made it his 
life business. In 1849 a trip to California was decided upon, and in 
April of that year he, with a party of twenty-five, left Boston for 
the "golden gate." They went via the river route from Cincinnati, 
Ohio, to Independence, Missouri, where they fitted out with teams 
• and wagons. On reaching Salt Lake City they tarried fifteen days for 
the purpose of recuperation, as well as preparing for the remaining 
nine hundred miles' trip before them. This was done by selling 
their wagons and packing their outfit, provisions, etc., on the backs 
of mules. In this way the journey was resumed and its end finally 
reached. The most part of seven years was spent by Mr. Megroth 
engaged in mining and working at his trade on the Pacific slope, 
though severe sickness compelled him to make a trip to the Sand- 
wich Islands, and to this alone he now owes his life. In 1856 he 
returned, via the isthmus, to the bosom of his family, in Maine, 
with a large su]5ply of experience and a good portion of the precious 
metal. The following Apr^, 1857, he emigrated with his family to 
Minnesota and settled permanently in Lake City, and has since then 
devoted himself to his trade. He was married in 1835, to Miss 
Elizabeth N. Freeman, who is also a native of the State of Maine. 
She has shared his joys and sorrows for almost half a century, at 
this writing, February 26, 1884, and is now his constant though 
feeble companion down the shadowy side of life. To them were 
born two sons, Edward J., now enjoying a good property and 



1068 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

unbleniislied reputation in this city, and Thomas Wesley, who died 
very suddenly at Chicago, Illinois, while there attending college. 
Mr. and Mrs. Megroth have for many years been exemplary mem- 
bers of the Methodist Episcopal church. 

John O'Brien, farmer and stock-raiser, Lake City. Mr. O'Brien 
.s but another illustration of what industry, ]:)luck and perseverance 
will accomplish. He was born in St. Lawrence countj^, New York, in 
1837, and is a son of John and Jane O'Brien, both natives of Ireland, 
and, although of the same name, no relation. They were married in 
St. Lawrence county, New York, and there settled down on a farm and 
became the parents of nine children, eight of whom are still living, six 
near the old home and two in this county. The father died in 1880, 
and the mother still resides on the old farm. Mr. O'Brien received a 
common school education as well as a thorough training in the prin- 
ciples of economy and thrift during his early youth on the farm. In 
the spring of 1857 he came to Lake City and at once went to work 
at his trade (that of mason), following it three years. He then 
bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres of government land, 
in the township of Lake, was married the same year to Miss Hannah 
Mahony, and engaged in farming. After a ten years' residence on 
this farm he purchased a smaller one in Lake City and removed to 
town, where his wife died in February, 1871. His second mar- 
riage was in July, 1874, to Mrs. Sarah Failing, formerly Miss Sarah 
Munger, a native of Syracuse, New York. He has six children 
living, whose names in the order of their birth are : Mary J., wife 
of John Steel, of La Crosse, Wisconsin ; J. Sylvester, M. Frank and 
James R., on the farm in Mount Pleasant, and Catharine B. by his 
former wife, and George A. by his present. Mr. O'Brien now 
owns, besides a small farm within the city limits, a fine farm of 
six hundred and twent}' acres in Lake and Mount Pleasant town- 
ships. In religion they are of the Catholic faith. Politically he is 
independent, supporting the man rather than the party. 

Alexander Selover, carpenter. Lake City, was born near the 
city of Brunswick, New Jersey, March 27, 1833. John Selover, his 
grandfather, entered the colonial army in the revolutionary war, was 
made a prisoner and confined six years on the prison ship Jersey* in 
New York bay. The family is descended from the early German 
settlers of New Jersey, and Lewis and Prudence (Obert) Selover, 
parents of this subject, were born in that state. His life was spent 
on a farm till he was eighteen years old, when he went to his trade. 



EAELY SETTLEES. 1069 

In the fall of 1856 he went to Illinois, where he spent the enduing 
winter. Early in the next spring he set out for Minnesota, and 
landed at Eead's April 17. He walked over the bluffs to this point 
and soon made a claim near Lone Mound, in Mount Pleasant town- 
ship, as now known. This land he retained till 1867, renting it a 
portion of the time. He then took up his permanent residence in 
Lake City, where he has a half-block and comfortable residence. 
His domain also includes eighty acres of land near the city in Wis- 
consin. Many of the best buildings in the country adjacent to the 
city are Mr. Selover's handiwork. In 1864 he enlisted as a recruit 
in Co. A, 1st Heavy Art., which was stationed most of the time till 
the close of the war at Chattanooga. More fortunate than many, 
Mr. Selover's mess were able to purchase food during a forty days' 
stress, caused by a cuting off of supplies, when most of the garrison 
was placed on quarter-ratious. In 1862 Mr. Selover espoused Miss 
Ellen, daughter of Dr. Yeeder, one of the pioneers of Mount 
Pleasant, all of New York birth. Three children have been added 
to the family. Louisa, the eldest, is now in her graduate year at 
the Winona Normal School ; Mary Dora and Frank Marshall are at 
home. Mr. Selover is a member of the Baptist church and a con- 
sistent temperance worker. 

Peter Selover, carpenter, dates his birth November 10, 1830, 
at the same place as his brother, above. His early life was passed 
on his father's farm, and at seventeen years of age he was apprenticed 
to a carpenter and builder, whom he served three years. In 1857 
he went to Flatbush, Long Island, and participated in the construc- 
tion of many buildings there. In 1859 he was united in wedlock to 
Euphemia Yincent, who died in 1866. Of her five children two are 
living, Mary L., employed in Appleton's bookbindery at Williams- 
burg, New York, and Lewis Henry, at Clifton, Minnesota. Mr. 
Selover is connected with the Temple of Honor, the Congre- 
gational church, and the republican party. In October, 1868, he 
married Jennie Howard Duryea, who is the mother of six children, 
christened as follows, all at home : George H., Arthur W., Jennie 
H., Martha E., KateL. and Laura. In 1878 the ftimily removed to 
Lake City, where the head has since been actively employed in 
building operations. A younger brother, 

Henry Selover, superintendent of the Lake City fiouring-mill, 
was born January 19, 1839, and came to Lake City in 1858. He 
began here as a clerk for H. F. Williamson, then conducting a large 



1070 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

business liere. In 1862 lie enlisted in the Stli Minn. Vol. Inf.; was 
with his regiment till the close of the war. After his return from 
the army he engaged in tlie grain warehouse of Bessej, Kellog & Co. 
till 1872, when he took an interest in the Lake City mill. He was 
married in 1874 to Miss Emma Doughty, daughter of J. J. Doughty, 
and has three children, Edgar D., Nelson H. and John A. Mr. 
Selover is a mason and a member of the A.O.U.W. 

Lake Cit}-- has an early religious history, the minister having 
preceded the city surveyor. Rev. Silas Hazlett, from Oxford, Ohio, 
an ordained clergyman of the Presbyterian church, having landed 
on the ground from the steamer Galena, on its way to St. Paul, on 
April 18, 1856, remained over Sabbath, which was on the 2Uth, 
and preached to a congregation of some twelve persons, taking in 
about the entire population of the place at that time. The subject 
of the sermon was, "Christ offers salvation to all men on the ground 
of appropriating faith," John v, 40. Rev. Silas Hazlett was born 
in Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, on May 12, 1824. He was the son 
of AVilliam and Ann Hazlett, who had eleven children. He was of 
Irish descent on the father's and Scotch on the mother's side, the 
grand])arents on both sides emigrating, the one from the north of 
Ireland, the other, or the Wilsons, from Scotland. Both families 
settled in the Kishacoquiblaz valley, near the Juniata river, in 
Mifflin county, then a dense forest, where they devoted tlieir 
lives to farming. Tlie parents on the mother's side had educated 
two of their sons for the work of the gospel ministry, one of whom 
is still living here, Samuel Wilson, D.D., and.it was the desire of 
the mother of S. Hazlett to continue the line of the covenant in her 
own branch of the family, and so gave two of her sons to the same 
work. John, the eldest of four sons, and Silas, the youngest, were 
sent to Jefferson College, Pennsylvania, and the Presbyterian Theo- 
logical Seminary at Pittsburgh, from which institutions they were both 
graduated. Silas was licensed to preach hy the presbytery of Oxford 
and synod of Cincinnati in the year 1S50, in the month of October, 
and was joined in marriage to Eliza Jane Patton by Rev. N. L. Rice, 
D.D., at Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 14, 1851, she being a member 
of said Rice's church. Shortly after his marriage Silas was called to 
su]3ply the churches of Harmony and College Corner upon the resig- 
nation of John Scot, D.D., called to the presidency of the female 
college at Oxford. Over these churches he continued to preside 
until March 1, 1856. He had one child, who was born in Cincinnati, 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1071 

and is now the wife of J. B. McLean, of Lake City, son of Gen. 
McLean, of Frontenac. Mrs. Hazlett was a faithful helper to her 
husband, engaging heartily in all the work of the church ; but her 
health was long feeble, and on March 3, 1865, she was called from a 
peaceful deathbed to join the home of the redeemed. Silas Hazlett 
also taught the first school in Lake City, in the winter of 1856, in a 
frame building now standing on Main street, between Marrian and 
Center streets, at present occupied as a private dwelling-. The school 
was held in the second story of the building, entered "from the out- 
side, the first floor being used as a carpenter-shop, the noise of the 
hammer often interfering sadly with the recitations above. This 
same room was also used for church service on the sabbath during 
the winter of 1856, the preaching alternating between Eev. Mr. 
Sterry of the Congregational church and the above. The first couple 
joined in marriage was Gu stave W. Hathaway to Miss Abbie J. 
Langley, I^ovember 14, 1857, by the Eev. Silas Hazlett, of Lake 
City. Silas Hazlett was again joined in marriage to Mrs. Sarah 
Jane Greer on May 4, 1869. Mrs. Greer was the widow of James 
Greer. Mrs. Greer had three children, Allen J., now of the law 
firm of Martin & Greer, of this city ; Charles W., bookkeeper, of 
the firm of Knapp, Stout & Co., residing at and in charge of the 
company's books at Cedar Falls, Wisconsin ; and Mollie C, at home 
and teacher in tlie public school of Lake City. 

Alonzo T. Guernsey, druggist and bookseller, Lake City, es- 
tablished business here in August, 1857. He was born in Tioga 
county, Pennsylvania, December 21, 1829, and is the son of Joseph 
W. and Ann (Brewster) Guernsey, natives of Chenango county, 
New York. His father served in the war of 1812, in the capacity of 
captain's clerk, though then only twelve years of age. His mother is 
a dii-ect descendant of the Brewsters who came over on the May- 
flower. Mr. Guernsey was reared on the farm, dividing his time 
between labor and school ; he finished his education with an aca- 
demic course at Wellsborough, while his father was serving Tioga 
county as sheriff. At the age of twenty years Mr. Guernsey Began 
for himself as a clerk, and four years later became the partner of 
his employer. They carried on a general merchandise business till 
1857, when he sold out and came to Lake City, arriving here July 
25. At that time Lake City was but a mere hamlet^ and needed but 
small enterprises ; so Mr. Guernsey began a drug business in a 
small way, and has kept pace with the city's growth till the present 
65 



1072 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

time. In 1867 he associated with himself Mr. E. J. Megroth, and 
the company did a prosperous business till 1880. In that year Mr. 
Guernsey again became tlie sole owner of tlie store, and continued 
to prosper till the great fire of 1882 swept away his entire property. 
He immediately opened up again on an adjoining lot, and is now 
enjoying a good trade. He was married in 1858, on November 1, 
to Miss M. Rowena Stevens, a native of Michigan, though reared in 
Massachusetts. To them were born two sons. The eldest, Porter 
B., was drowned while skating on Lake Pepin December 13, 1878, 
in the sixteenth year of his age. His remaining son, Alonzo J., 
was born May 2, 1872. The family are members of the Presbyterian 
church. Mr. Guernsey is a member of the I.O.O.F., the American 
Legion of Honor, and the A.O.U.W. 

C. F. Young & Brother, clothiers, Lake City. The success of 
this firm is an example of the results of energy and perseverance. 
In 1865 C. F. Young opened a general store here, and afterward 
began to deal exclusively in clothing. In 1873 he built a large store 
on the site of the firm's present building — corner of Center and Main 
streets. In September, 1877, his brother, Henry H., bought a 
share in business, and in the spring of 1884, Charles Koch became 
a partner. In the great fire of April, 1882, the building and stock 
were completely consumed, inflicting a loss of $15,000, of which 
$20,000 was made good by insurance. In the summer of 1883 
their present handsome structure was erected, at a cost of about 
$8,000. It is 48x85 feet in dimension, two stories high, with base- 
ment under all, walls of solid masonry and fire-proof roof. It is the 
finest store in the city, and in it is displayed the largest and most 
varied stock of goods in their line to be found here. A wing, 22 X 
20, is used exclusively as a tailor-shop. A large stock of ready-made 
goods is carried, with a profusion of both gents' and ladies' furnish- 
ings, Butterick's patterns, etc. Including tailors, from sixteen to 
eighteen people are employed by Messrs. Young to assist them in 
their business. Charles F. Young, the founder of this establisiiment, 
came to this country from Germany when a mere youth. With an 
elder brother he arrived in Chicago in 1855, and was left there while 
the former sought a location in the west. Becoming tired of waiting 
for tidings of his brother, young Charles shipped on board a Lake 
Michigan sailing vessel. A very stormy voyage ensued, and the 
vessel narrowly escaped wreck after beating about four days. The 
young voyager, becoming very ill, was put oft' at White Biver, 



EAELY SETTLERS. 1073 

Michigan, then an unsettled country, and remained there eighteen 
months before hearing from his brother. The latter had settled at 
Eead's Landing, and found the whereabouts of his charge through 
friends in Chicago. Coming to Eead's, our subject was employed as 
clerk by a merchant there. After a year spent there and another in 
St. Louis in this manner, he attended a term of school at Wabasha, 
and thi^ constituted his educational advantages in this country, save 
those furnished by his every-day business. In 1862 he volunteered 
in a company raised to go to the relief of settlers on the western 
border, and spent the winter on the frontier. In 1868 he began 
business for himself by opening a general store at Eead's, and in 
1865 opened a branch here, to which he removed the whole stock a 
year later. Henry H. Young came from Wurtemberg to Eead's 
Landing in February, 1864, and spent a year as general chore-boy 
in a hotel there. During the winter of 1864-5 he attended a private 
school for three months, and thus prepared a foundation for his 
knowledge of English. In the spring he entered his brother's store 
at Eead's, and assumed charge of that establishment on the removal 
of the proprietor to Lake City. He remained in his brotlier's employ 
until he became a partner as above noted. The winter of 1869-70 
was spent by him in Bryant & Stratton's business college at Harris- 
burg, Pennsylvania. On account of too close application to business 
he was compelled to take a rest in 1876, and returned from a trip 
to California with renewed vigor. Mr. Foung was married in 1872; 
to Miss Anna L. Schauble, a native of his own province. Three 
children have been given to this union, of whom two are now living, 
viz : Henry G. and Albert Frederick. Mr. Young served four years 
as treasurer of Lake City, and refused to serve longer on account of 
business demands. In national and state affairs he affiliates with the 
republican party. He has taken all the degrees of Freemasonry to 
K. T., passed all the chairs of Odd-Fellowship, and is a useful member 
in the Sons of Herman and Knights of Honor. 

Anson Pierce, county commissioner, Lake City, is a son of 
Chauncey and Mahala (Conger) Pierce, of Connecticut and Vermont. 
The paternal progenitors . of Mr. Pierce emigrated to this country 
from England in the seventeenth century. The town of Charlotte, 
Chittenden county, Vermont, is the place of Anson Pierce's birth, 
and May 6, 1828, the time. His early life was spent on the farm 
of his father, and he received a limited common school trainino-, 
J^[ature had done much for him, and by proper care and culture of 



1074 HISTORY OF WARASIIA COUNTY. 

his talents he became fitted for the trusts imposed upon him by his 
felh^w citizens. When sixteen years old he was apprenticed to the 
carpenter's trade, which he followed many years. On becoming of 
age, he went to Chicago, where he was employed several years in 
building. In 1857 he became a resident of Lake City, and con- 
tinued here at his trade for fifteen years. For six years he kept a 
hardware store, and was burned out in the great fire of April 22, 
1882. He was several years supervisor under the township organi- 
zation, and alderman under the cit}^ government ; has served two 
terms as county commissioner, which responsible position he now 
fills. In the fall of 1873 he was elected county treasurer, and 
re-elected in 1875, holding the trust for four consecutive years. 
His allegiance has always beea given to republican principles. In 
religious ideas he is a Freethinker. Lovina E. Lyon, to whom Mr. 
Pierce was wedded in 1852, is of Scotch descent, born in Vermont, 
as were her parents, Asa Lyon and Katie Benson. Mr. and Mrs. 
Pierce are now in the midst of pleasant and useful lives, and enjoy 
the esteem of the whole community. Of their offspring four are 
now living, all at present in Lake City. Alice H. , the eldest, mar- 
ried Samuel P. Fox, who died in Pennsylvania. Frank resides in 
the city, and celebrated his wooden wedding January 18, 1884. 
Charles and Grace reside with their parents. February 4, 1884, 
Mr. Pierce and two sons bought the extensive hardware business of 
J. Cole Doughty & Co., and are now continuing the same under 
the firm name of Anson Pierce & Co. 

W. H. Campbell is a native of Mississippi, and resided there 
until he was eight years of age, when he came north with his 
father's family. He first came to Wabasha in 1857, and before the 
war broke out had returned to the south to visit his mother's people. 
He was there impressed into the rebel service, and was in the army 
of the confederates nearly a year, when he succeeded in eftecting 
his escape to the north, and returned to Wabasha in 1863. He 
subsequently went into trade here, and has conducted business as a 
general merchant four years. In 1872 he was elected auditor of the 
county, and held that oftice until 1881, having been four times 
elected and once api)ointed to fill a vacancy. He is a member of 
the firm of Z. C. Goss & Co., but takes no active part in the 
management of business. In connection with J. J. Stone, M.D., 
he is farming on a tract of sixteen hundred acres, on the line of the 
Xorthern Pacific railway, forty miles above Crookston. They have 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1075 

now eight hundred acres under cultivation — seven hundred in 
wheat, and one hundred in oats. Last year's wheat crop of three 
hundred and fifty acres averaged a yield of twenty bushels to acre. 
Mr. Campbell has also a valuable tract of sixty acres on what is 
known as West Wabasha. Mr, Campbell was married October 12, 
1869, to Miss Alma A. Downer, of this city. They have but one 
child living, Susie D., born September, 1870. Mrs, Campbell and 
Mrs. J. H. Mullen were the daughters and only children of John 
B. Downer, for many years a prominent business man of this city. 
Mr. Downer was born in Stowe, Yermont, July 8, 1811, and was 
married April 8, 1834, to Miss Caroline H. Tinker, who was born 
at Morristown, Vermont, April 7, 1815. The daughters were both 
born at Jay, New York, Marion B., January 29, 1849, and Alma 
A., March 11, 1851. Mr. and Mrs. Downer were very happy in 
their married life of forty-eight years and a half, and in their deaths 
they were not divided, Mr. Downer dying October 19, 1882, her 
husband surviving her only a few hours. 

Hon. John F. Pope, lawyer, and ex-judge of probate for Wa- 
basha county, was the fourth child and third son in a family of nine 
children born to Ealph and Mary (Kichardson) Pope, of Orange, 
Orange county, Yermont. Judge Pope was born October 7, 1836, 
His earl^^life was spent on a farm. Young Pope had the advantages 
of the country school, but when he had i-eached the age of sixteen 
years had made a sorry record as a student, his highest ambition 
being to escape school duties and evade punishment for his frequent 
violations of the rules of school government. Fortunately he had 
a brother of scholarl}" acquirements, who opened a select school in 
the village of Orange the winter that our subject was sixteen, and in 
this school he became a conscript pupil, by order of a stern father. 
Finding himself obliged to attend school, his pride soon awakened 
him to a sense of shame for the great ignorance which he possessed 
when compared with his more studious schoolmates. There was no 
escape from the student life, and he could discover but one way to 
ameliorate his humiliating condition, and that was by hard study. 
Once fully resolved on this point, his really brilliant mind began 
to display its superior powers, and within two years he was in ad- 
vance of those of his age and leading his classes. He taught school 
some and worked on the farm until he had reached his twenty-fifth 
year, and then came west and learned the mason trade, and also 
blacksmithing ; these vocations he followed for many years in 



1076 HISTORY OF "WABASHA COUNTY. 

Beaver, Winona county. Having acquired some skill as a debater 
by attending lyceum in Vermont, he was frequently solicited to dis- 
play his oratorical abilities as a pettifogger in Beaver and vicinity. 
His first a])])earance before a court was not such as tended to encour- 
age his aspirations in that direction, he was pitted against a brow- 
beating ])ettifogger, who knew enough to discover that Mr. Pope 
knew nothing of the business in hand, and the latter lost his case 
and felt very much crestfallen. A second encounter of this kind 
aroused his ire and grit, and though defeated he resolved to and did 
procure suitable law-books, and was well prepared to meet his 
pugilistic opponent, when for the third time he had occasion to 
appear before Justice H. B. Knowles and plead a case against Mr. 
Oliver Porter, tlie browbeating pettifogger above mentioned. The 
latter undertook to employ his usual tactics, and by physical force 
silence young Pope, but found his mild-mannered o])ponent of 
former suits was ablaze with wrath and bursting with rage. He had 
risen to his feet, and stretching his tall form to its greatest height, 
he threatened with fierce language both lawyer and court, and menaced 
that tribunal of justice with utter annihilation unless he should be 
permitted to conduct his case according to the rules of practice. 
The effect was excellent, and from that time forth no one ever at- 
tempted to browbeat the new aspirant for forensic honors. It was 
more than eight years after this little episode occurred before Mr. 
Pope applied for admission to the bar. October 17, 1873, he passed 
a creditable examination and was admitted to practice by the circuit 
court of Winona county. The following year he came to Plainview 
and opened a law office. The spring of 1875 he formed a copartner- 
ship with Hon. H. P. Wilson, and the following fall was elected 
probate judge for Wabasha county, and was re-elected to the 
same position in 1877. His copartnership with Mr. Wilson 
was dissolved in 1876, since which time Mr. Pope has con- 
tinued to practice law without a partner. He is a member of the 
Masonic chapter and has thrice been elected master of the blue 
lodge ot Plainview. He was married December 11, 1864, to Sarah 
L. Welch, daughter of Samuel and LouizaWelch, of Winona county, 
by whom he has one child now living, Frank, born March 6, 1880. 
Henry Albert Stevens, barber, Lake City, is a son of F. R. 
and Angeline Stevens, early residents of this county. Both his 
parents were born in the village of Osen-obruch, Prussia, and the 
father died at Wabasha, March 29, 1862, the mother surviving him 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1077 

over eight years, passing away December 28, 1870. They reared 
three sons and two daughters. Fred R. and John are resident at 
Uclen, near Crookston, Minnesota. Eliza (Mrs. Joseph Buisson) and 
Angeline (Andrew Wheeler), dwell at Wabasha. Henry Stevens 
was born at Petersburg, Rensselaer county, New York, June 
3, 1851, and came with his parents to Wabasha in 1858, arriv- 
ing April 39. His father's death occurred when he was but eleven 
years old, and upon him devolved largely the care of his mother 
and sisters. When about fourteen years of age he began to learn 
his trade, and subsequently worked several years for a liveryman. 
He was married January 22, 1875, to Miss Mamie Thoney, a native 
of Switzerland. The same year he came to Lake City and opened 
the barber-shop he now operates, on Washington street. He now 
employs two assistants, and in addition a large millinery business is 
carried on by Mrs. Stevens in the handsome store over the shop. 
The largest business in both these lines in the city is conducted here, 
Mr. Stevens was reared under Episcopal tutelage, and affiliates in 
politics with the democratic party, frequently taking part in its con- 
ventions. One child was given him, July 15, 1877, and christened 
Harry Arthur. 

Marcus Carson, farmer. Lake City, was born in Wyoming 
county. New York, in 1836, and is the son of Stephen and Julina 
(Grover) Carson, natives of Otsego county, in the i^me state. His 
paternal grandfather was born in England, and his grandmother on 
the same side was a native of Germany, both having come to 
America in early childhood with their parents, who settled in the 
Mohawk valley. His grandparents on his mother's side were of 
New England stock, several generations back. Mr. Carson, like his 
father and grandfather, was reared and educated on a farm, and like 
his worthy progenitors, has made farming the business of life. In 
1858 he came to Minnesota and pre-empted a piece of land, which he 
paid for, and the same season returned to his home in York State. 
This land was some years later traded for eastern property, and Mr. 
Carson remained east till 1872, when he came to Minnesota with 
his family, and permanently located in Lake City, where he now 
resides, though still engaged in farming. The care of his fine one hun- 
dred and sixty-acre farm in Gillford township furnishes him employ- 
ment during summer, and his forty acres of timber in Wisconsin 
gives him ample employment through the winter months. He was 
married in 1863, to Miss Laura C. Humphrey, of this city, and they 



1078 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

have two children living, Grace E. and Alice L. Mr. and Mrs. 
Carson are members of the Congregational church. At the outbreak 
of the war of the rebellion in 1861, Mr. Carson enlisted as a private 
in the 9th N. Y. Vol. Inf., and on organization was elected first 
lieutenant, which commission he held when discharged on account of 
disability. 

Marcus A. HuMrHRKY, Lake City, is one of seventeen children 
bornto Tlieophilus and Cynthia (Ilayden) IIum])hrey. The subject 
of this sketch was born in 1808, at Canton, Connecticut, the native 
state of his parents. He followed farming till the approach of age 
prevented. When thirty years old he married Sina Fitch Chipman, 
born in New York, daughter of Lemuel and Laura (Meade) Chip- 
man, of Vermont birth. Mr. Humphrey became a resident of Lake 
City in 1868, engaging in the loan and real-estate business. He is 
a deacon in the Congregational church, of which himself and wife 
have been members forty years, and is a republican from principle. 
During his residence in New York, where he went when nine years 
old, he served his town acceptably for several terms as assessor, and 
was six years an eflScient member of the Lake City school board. 
Of his six children, three are living, as follows : Louisa F. (Mrs. C. 
D. Warren), Lake City; Marcus C, Marshall, Minnesota; Laura 
(Marcus Carson), Lake City. The others died at ages noted below : 
Alta, twenty-eight; Theophilus C, twenty-two; Nina A., twenty- 
one. 

Charles M. Colby, Lake City, is a son of Ford Colby, one of 
the pioneers of this state. This subject was born in Eaton, Compton 
county, Province of Quebec, June 29, 1844, and was therefore about 
fourteen years old when he came with his parents to this state. His 
youth was spent on a farm there and here, and his intellect trained 
in the common schools. Notwithstanding his limited educational 
opportunities, Mr. Colby is a gentleman of more than ordinary ac- 
quirements. For many years he owned and tilled a farm in the 
town of Lake, which he sold in 1883. For some time his winters 
were spent in mercantile pursuits in the city, and in 1881 he re- 
moved thither. For six years he was employed as drygoods sales- 
man by C. F. Rogers, and subsequently by C. F. Young. He was 
two years clerk in the Merchant's Hotel. He has always been a 
republican, and is a member of the Odd-Fellows lodge and encamp- 
ment here. January 19, 1881, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Alice, daughter of John Disney, one of the pioneers of Gillford 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1079 ^. 

township, this county. To this union has been given a daughter, 
now (March, 1884) one and one-half years of age. 

John Disney (deceased) settled in Gillford in 185Y, on the farm 
still owned by his widow. Thomas and Catharine Disney, his 
parents, emigrated from Ireland to New York city, where John was 
born March 17, 1803. Here the mother died in March, 1805, aged 
forty-four, and his father returning to his native land, and died there 
December, 1815, at the age of fifty-nine. This subject lived with 
a sister at Richmond, New York, till ten years old, when he ran 
away and joined the American army as a drummer. After knock- 
ing about the world for some time, he settled in this county as 
above related. In the fall of 1 878 he bought a residence in Lake 
City, where he continued to dwell till his death, which occurred 
October 27, 1880. June 9, 1823, he was married to Lois Clark, who 
died March 15, 1848, leaving four children. Robert, John and 
William reside in Gillford. Mary is the wife of Edwin Brown, at 
Joliet, Illinois. On June 23, 1849, Mr. Disney was a second time 
married to Mary Sweetman nee Wall, who bore him four children. 
By her first marriage Mrs. Disney had one daughter, Henrietta, 
now Mrs. Daniel Edwards, Lake City. The others are : Kate (Mrs. 
Albert Field), Zumbro Falls; Lois (Byron Miller), Mexico, New 
York ; Charles, attorney, Hudson, Wisconsin ; Alice (Colby), Lake 
City. Mr. Disney was a member of the Methodist church, and 
always supported republican principles. 

John C. Schmidt, brewer, Lake City. Lake City brewery, now 
owned and operated by John C. Schmidt & Co., was first started in 
1861 by John Mingus in a small frame building, where the present 
one now stands, on the corner of Gardner and Center streets. He 
was succeeded by the Wise Brothers, who built the present stone 
structure, in size 24x75 feet, and twenty feet high. Mr. Schmidt 
purchased this property in 1876, and in 1877 associated with him 
his present partner, Mr. Fred Lange. They are now doing a pros- 
perous business ; have a first-class outfit, with a capacity of twelve 
hundred barrels per year. Mr. Schmidt was born in Schweren, 
Mecklenberg, Germany, in 1833, and was reared on a farm. He 
was married October 15, 1855, to Miss Julia Lange, a native of the 
same place. On April 28, 1857, he with his wife and two children 
sailed from the city of Hamburg on the ship Bremen for America, 
and landed in New York on June 9. On the 11th of the next April 
they first set their feet on Minnesota soil at Read's Landing. Mr. 



1080 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Schmidt at once made a claim to one hundred and sixty acres of 
government land in the township of West Albany, and with his ax 
and an ox team began to make a home for his family. His land, 
being covered with a growth of oak timber and grubs, required the 
incessant labor of years to clear and tit it for use, but his sti'ong arms 
and determined will were equal to the task, and Mr. Schmidt in time 
had (what he could not have made for himself in his native land) a 
good farm. This farm was finally sold, and a prairie farm of a one 
hundred and sixty acres was purchased in the town of Lake. This 
he still retains. Mr. Schmidt gave the writer a little of his early 
experiences in Minnesota, and after repeated solicitations, consented 
that the following incident pass into history : ""Of course,'' said he, 
"we could not raise all we needed on a new and unimproved farm, 
and not having money to buy my bread the first year, I took a job 
of cutting and putting up hay for a man near Read's Landing. Not 
understanding Englisli very well, and the tricks of trade still less, 
I agreed to take my pay in groceries; supposing that included flour. 
When the work was done I called for my pay, and the wily merchant 
inquired what I would have. I named over the articles, including 
flour. He gave me all but the flour, saying that article was cash, 
and he must have cash for it, so I took my groceries and went home 
to find my family without bread. Of course I could not remain 
under such circumstances, so I went back to the river and secured a 
job with a raftsman on a keelboat, and in a few days had the price 
of one hundred pounds of flour, which I purchased, and carried from 
Head's Landing to my humble home on my back, a distance of four- 
teen miles." Such fldelity and devotion to a family is meritorious, 
and commands their lasting respect and esteem. Mrs. Schmidt also 
nobly did her part in their struggles to make a home and rear their 
family, and is now suitably rewarded with comfort and plenty. 
They hav>e six children living, whose names in the order 
of their birth are : Mary (now the wife of Lewis Hagen), Edward, 
August, Julia, Clara and Ida. 

Loyal D. Colby, farmer, of Plainview, and son of Jonathan 
Colby, also a Plainview farmer, was born in Orange county, Ver- 
mont, on April 20, 1836. In 1855 he accompanied his father to 
California. They went thither via the isthmus of Panama, and spent 
two years in the mines known as Garrotte No. 2, near Big Oak 
Flats. In the spring of 1858 they started from Vermont with eight 
horses, which they drove nearly the entire distance to Wabasha 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1081 

county. In 1863 lie bought eighty acres on section 16, in Plain view, 
but did not take up his residence thereon until after his marriage, 
which occurred January 1, 1867, the lady being the daughter of 
Smith P. Avery, a wealthy farmer of Orange county, Yermont ; 
the ceremony took place at her Yermont home. The children of 
this marriage are: Lula B., Gardner A., Carl W., Esther J. and 
Kolla W, P. Mr. Colby is a member of the Plainview Methodist 
Episcopal church, the masonic fraternity and the grange, and is inde- 
pendent in politics. His home is still on section 16, just east of the 
village, where he has one hundred and sixty acres of fine land. 

Colin Sinclair, lumber dealer. Lake City, is one of the largest 
dealers in this line in Wabasha county. His stock, which is full and 
complete at all times, consists of lumber — in every form and of any 
class desired, and always at the lowest possible price — shingles, 
lath, and manufactured doors, sash and blinds ; also hair, cement 
and lime ; wood also forms an important part of his trade. He also 
has one-fourth interest in the planing-mill. Mr. Sinclair has been 
here in this business since 1872, and has by careful and fair dealing 
built up a prosperous trade. He is also extensively interested in 
Minneapolis real estate, besides eighty acres of western land, and 
many lots in Lake City. He was born of Scotch parents, near 
Kingston, Canada, January 6, 1846. While he was yet in childhood 
his parents moved over the lake to New York State, and settled "in 
Brownsville, where they remained a short time, and then went to 
Watertown, New York. While here his mother died, and the father 
and family removed to Massachusetts, where they remained till 1859, 
when they came to Minnesota and located in Lake City. In 1862 
our subject, though only sixteen years of age, possessed the man- 
hood and courage to enlist in the cause of his country against an 
unjust rebellion, as a member of Co. G, 8th Minn, Yol. Inf He fol- 
lowed the fortunes of war for nearly three years, taking a part in the 
border warfare on the frontier against the savages, who were attempt- 
ing to devastate the pioneer Minnesota settlements. After peace was 
restored, and the army disbanded, Mr. Sinclair returned to his home 
in Lake City, and soon after was employed in the Minnesota pineries 
in the interest of large lumbering firms, and so continued till his 
settlement in business here. He was married at Eedwood Falls, 
July 14, 1876, to Mrs. Mary M. Oliver (formerly Miss Whaley), a 
native of New York. The name of their only child is Earl C. Mrs. 
Sinclair's eldest two children are Cora and William Oliver. 



CHAPTER XCIV. 



EARLY SETTLERS — CONTINUED. 



Hon. p. H. Eahillt, farmer, is a native of Limerick, where be 
was born, March 8, 1834. He was the eldest of three children born 
to Matthew and Mary Lynch (Rahilly), natives of Limerick. The 
elder Rahillv was an extensive farmer, and the subject of our sketch 
passed his time between the city and farm until the age of fourteen. 
When he was five years of age he was called to mourn the death of 
his mother, and in 1848 his father emigrated to Susquehanna county, 
Pennsylvania, where he yet lives. Li 1849 he was followed by 
Patrick, who remained with his father a few months, and then went 
to New York, where he lived until 1854. In that year he located 
at Rochester, Minnesota, entering the employ of, and part of the 
time in partnership with, W. D. Leroy, at that time one of the lead- 
ing men of the state. August 23, 1860, he wedded Catherine Nor- 
ton, of Gal way county, Ireland, and soon after he located on the 
farm in Mount Pleasant, where he has since resided. His marriage 
was blessed with seven children : Mary J., deceased, Jennie L, 
Mary A., James M., Agnes K., John T., deceased, and Margaret. 
Mr. and Mrs. Rahilly belong to the Catholic church. He is a 
democrat, a man of extended reputation, and has often been called 
to the public service as a legislator. The election to his first term 
was in 1874, In 1876 he was nominated on the democratic ticket 
for state auditor, but was defeated. In 1877 he was again sent to 
the legislative halls, and in 1879 he was elected to the state senate. 
In 1882 he was again sent to the legislature, of which he is now a 
member. Mr. Rahilly is one of the most extensive farmers in 
southern Minnesota, and his farm in Mount Pleasant comprises 
twelve hundred acres. In J 877 he purchased twenty-three thousand 
acres of land in Traverse county, most of which he has since sold. 
He now owns five thousand acres there, which is being rapidly im- 
proved. He makes a specialty of small grains, but has a good sup- 
ply of stock. 



EAKLY SETTLERS. 1083 

Andrew J. Fowler, Lake City, is a direct descendant of Capt. 
William Fowler, who came from England to New Haven, Connecti- 
cut, in 1664. Amos Fowler, grandfather of this subject, was a cap- 
tain in the revolutionary war. In Lebanon, New London county, 
Connecticut, June 13, 1835, Andrew J. Fowler was born to Amos 
and Lydia (Backus) Fowler, who were also born in that state. Up 
to seventeen years of age his life was passed on a farm, his educa- 
tion being supplied by the common schools. His habits were, how- 
ever, studious, and he contrived to fit himself for the responsible 
positions he was afterward called to fill. He was employed as clerk 
in a store in Hartford for some time, and afterward engaged in the 
grocery trade there. In 1 856 he took a life-partner in domestic concerns 
in the person of Miss Ida E., daughter of Horace Grant, both born 
in Connecticut, the former at South Windsor, and she has proved a 
valuable helpmeet. In 1860 Mr. Fowler visited Lake City, and 
being pleased with the locality, brought his family here the follow- 
ing spring. He purchased land in Mount Pleasant township, where 
he engaged in farming for a short time, subsequently selling the 
land. For four years he kept books for a mercantile firm in Lake 
City, and served the American Express Company as agent one year. 
In December, 1871, he entered the First National Bank, where he 
served successively as bookkeeper, teller and cashier. In March, 
1876, he entered upon the duties of county treasurer, to which post 
he was elected in the November previous. He was twice re-elected, 
and retired from the ofiice in 1882. Mr, Fowler has always been a 
democrat. He has always taken an active part in fostering schools, 
and served some time as president of the Lake City school board ; 
was justice of the peace; two years alderman; in 1869 was elected 
to the state legislature, and re-elected next year, serving in the ses- 
sions of 1870-71. The first two children given to Mr. and Mrs. 
Fowler were christened Andrew and Florence Augusta, and died 
in Connecticut. Five are now living, namely, Arthur G., Lake 
City Bank; Amos S,, engineer. Lake City mills; Alice M., Annie 
R. and Adelaide, at home. 

Landon & BuRCHARD, dcalcrs in drugs, groceries, etc., succeeded 
A. Y. Felton in the year 1874, under the name of C. O. Landon & 
Co., in August, 1877, comprising C. O. Landon, C. D. Burchard and 
E. S. Case. In August, 1877, C. D. Burchard bought E. S. Case's 
interest, leaving the firm Landon & Burchard. During the spring 
of the same year G. C. Landon, son of C. O., entered the business 



1084 HISTORY OF WAIJASHA COUNTY. 

as clerk, and in May 1, 1883, assuming his father's interest, became 
partner in the firm as it now stands, Landon & Burchard. Lan- 
don, Jr., or G. C. Landon, was born in 1859 at liock Falls, Wis- 
consin, whence his parents removed with him to Plainview in 1861. 
Here he passed through the high school, and by thrift and industry 
has gained the respect and patronage of the community ; evidently 
a rising young merchant, and a mason of high order. C, D.- 
Burchard, the other partner, was born in Gainesville, Wyoming 
county, New York, December 23, 1851 ; whence he migrated with 
his parents in June, 1856, to Plainview. Greenville of ancient days 
was the scene of his schooling until 1867. 

Andrew J. Taft, blacksmith, has been a resident of Maze])pa 
since 1861, and is reckoned among the substantial citizens of that 
village. Besides carrying on a flourishing blacksmith and wagon 
business, he is one-half owner in the only hardware store in the place, 
which also does a good business. Mr. Taft's parents, Samuel and 
Kachel (Hanson) Taft, were natives of New England and New 
York respectively, and at the time of his birth (June 6, 1831) were 
residents of the town of Trip's Hill, Montgomery county, New York. 
When he was nine years old they removed to Whitewater, Wis- 
consin, and there died. When nineteen, young Taft began work at 
his trade. He was for some time employed in the wagonworks at 
Whitewater and also at Berlin. After spending a year in California 
he returned to Wisconsin, and was married there in the fall of 1855 
to Mary Kadner, a native of Canada. He is now the owner of his 
shop on Walnut street, a good residence, and joint owner of the 
store. He has been two years a member of the village school board, 
and a like period of the village council. He is a thorough democrat, 
and his religion is the golden rule. Three children have been given 
to him : AVilliam Lawrence clerks in his father's store ; Helen Isabel 
is wife of his partner, O. B. Munger ; Maude E. is at school in 
Rochester. In 1865 Mr. Taft served nine months as a recruit in the 
1st Minn. Heavy Art. at Chattanooga. 

Fetp:r Clemens (deceased) was a veteran of the German army, 
having served eight years in the war against Napoleon. He was 
also a pioneer of the Roman Catholic church in Mazeppa, having 
thrown open his house for services some years before the erection of 
a church here. He practically built the first edifice, ])aying nearly 
all its cost from his own pocket. Mr. Clemens was born in Haater, 
Gruebenmacher, Germany, December 11, 1808, and died here July 



EAKLY SETTLEES. 



1085 



3 1871. At twenty-seven years of age lie learned the mason's trade, 
and followed it nearly all the rest of his life. He was married 
November 18, 1854, to Mary Keuland. He landed in New York on 
January 1, 1855, and took up his residence in Westchester. Thence 
he removed to Minnesota, and bought a quarter-section of land in 
Pine Island township, near Mazeppa. Here he lived till 1865, when 
he moved to this village. He was the father of twelve children, 
four by his first marriage. All are living in this vicinity. Here are 
their names : Matthew, Nicholas, Peter, John, Mary (Mrs. George 
Hertzig), Matthew D., Catharine (Mrs. Nic. Hoffman), William, 
Anna (Mrs. J. B. Gregoire), Elizabeth; Barney, the youngest, is dead. 
William H. Warring, farmer, has made his home on section 13, 
Chester, since 1860. At that time he bought the claim of another 
man to one-fourth of this section, and entered it as a homestead. 
He has since added eighty acres more to his domain. He is an ac- 
tive member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and is now record- 
ing steward of Gillford circuit. He has been seven years treasurer 
of his town, and eleven of his school district ; has also been school 
director, and was town supervisor in 1866-7. That he is an ardent 
republican is testified by his three years' service in the Union army. 
He enlisted in the tall of 1861 in Co. G, 3d Minn. Inf., and served 
in the Western army. Was taken prisoner at Murphreesboro, and 
spent six months in prison. At Vicksburg was taken sick and suf- 
fered much through disease. Mr. Warring was born in Albany, 
New York, September 18, 1830. His life up to eighteen was passed 
in the city of his birth, and his father then removed with his tamily 
to Sauk county, Wisconsin. As above related. Mr. Warring became 
a citizen of Wabasha county in 1860. He was married June 19, 
1852, to Maria Carpenter, a native of Pennsylvania ; her parents, 
Jonathan and Cynthia Carpenter, were natives respectively of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. Six childrem have been given to 
Mr. and Mrs. Warring, christened thus: Nathan A., Thomas B., Mary 
E. (Mrs. H. McLeoud, Beardsley, Minnesota); Annie (died at 
eighteen), Hannah Y. and Eva, at home. The family now includes 
the two children of the eldest son, their mother having died, named 
Bertha Z. and Mark A. Mr. Warring's grandfather, John Warring, 
was a soldier in the war of 1812. Thomas B., son of the latter, and 
father of William H., was one of the pioneers of Wabasha county. 
He was born in Connecticut in July, 1803, and married Susannah 
Woodsworth of the same nativity ; the latter was born December 



10S6 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

31, 180-4, and is still able to travel alone, going to and fro between 
her children in different states. Four of her sons were in the army, 
and still survive. With her husband she took up residence in Gill- 
ford in 1856, and dwelt there till after his death, April 3, 1870. 
Mr. Warring served as supervisor of that town. He was an ardent 
democrat, but voted for Lincoln at his second election. 

Julius Fricke, a native the Elbe, near Hamburg, Germany, 
emigrated to America in 1852, landing at New York city, where he 
was married to Miss Annetta Tebbens, October 5, 1853, by whom 
he had seven children, three boys and four girls. Two boys now 
sleep in Plainview cemetery, and Alfred, born February 22, 1864, 
the remaining son, works with his father, who in the year 1860 
established the first harness-shop in Plainview, close to the site of 
his present place of business. Mr. Fricke resides in a handsome 
brick dwelling, which he erected in 1877 on his village farm of 
eighty acres, in close proximity to residence of Dr. Tefft. Besides 
this he is the owner of a farm of one hundred and two acres, which 
he bought of Hiram Schlacht, and is recorded under warrant 74,708. 
He is recognized as perfect master of the harness business in all its 
branches. 

S. S. Kepler, now and since 1870 of the Eau Claire "News," 
Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and also member of the firm of Kepler & 
Co., dry goods, was for twenty years a resident of this city, and for 
the greater part of that time actively engaged in trade on his own 
account. Mr. Kepler is a native of Pennsylvania, and having 
become acquainted with the conduct of business, as clerk, came to 
Wabasha in the spring of 1856 as clerk for the mercantile house of 
H. S. Allen & Co., lumbermen on the Chippewa, who had estab- 
lished a house here for the sale of general merchandise, and 
also a lumber yard. The manager of the business here, W. 
H. Creamer, went to JN"ew York in the summer of 1856, and 
dying there, the charge of affairs here was committed to Mr. 
Kepler until the arrival of W. J. Arnold that fall, who was 
at the head of business here until the stock was removed to 
Chippewa Falls, the following spring, and the business at Wa- 
basha closed. In the fall of 1857 Mr. Kepler started trade on his 
own account, and the following spring was joined by W. S. Jackson, 
with whom he was associated in business directly until 1876, and 
indirectly until the time of Mr. Jackson's death some years later. 
Their first business house was on the south side of Main, just east of 



EAKLY SETTLERS. 1087 

Kurd's Hotel, and from this location they removed in 1864 to the 
corner ot Main and Alleghaney streets, where in 1879 they built 
what is now the corner storeroom of Masonic block, and occupied 
by E. J. Dugan, dry goods merchant. The firm of Kepler & Jack- 
son shipped the first wheat ever shipped from Wabasha market 
in the fall of 1858, and were very actively identified with all the 
business interests and educational and religious affairs of the city. 
In addition to the lots and buildings owned by Mr. Kepler on the 
east side Wabasha, he has a tract of about fifty acres on the west 
side, platted in part, and containing some of the most eligible 
building sites in the city. Though no longer a resident, Mr. Kep- 
ler takes a deep interest in all that concerns the life of the city, and 
his face is frequently seen on these streets. Mr. Kepler was mar- 
ried in the city which for twenty years was his home, August 20, 
1868, to Miss Kate McDougall, also a native of Pennsylvania. They 
have one son, W. S. Kepler, born in this city l^ovember 18, 1870, 

Henry Burkhardt, sheriff, office in county jail. Sheriff Burk- 
hardt was elected in the fall of 1881 and his term of office will expire 
with the close of the present year, December 31, 1883. His depu- 
ties are : Kudolph Eichenberger, Wabasha ; Robert Romick, Lake 
City ; William Baxter, Plainview ; John Gregory, Mazeppa. Mr. 
Burkhardt is a native of Switzerland, came to America in 1854 and 
was in Madison county, Illinois, until his removal to Wabasha in 
1860. The following year, 1861, in the spring, Mr. Burkhardt 
removed to Read's Landing and engaged in business, establishing 
his meat-market and dealing in live-stock. This business he still 
conducts, its management at present being in the hands of his son 
Otto. Mr. Burkhardt has been prominently identified with the 
business of Read's Landing and also with its local government, for 
the past twenty -two years, as well as interesting himself in county 
affairs, serving as commissioner of the county for the fifth district 
from 1877 to 1881. In 1856 Mr. Burkhardt married Elizabeth 
Burgher. They have seven children living : Rudolph, born 
December 27, 1857, now married and living in Polk county ; Otto, 
in charge of the business at Read's Landing, born March 28, 1864. 
Fannie, born March 4, 1866 ; Annie, born January 24, 1868 ; Ber- 
tie, born April 5, 1870 ; Henry, Jr., born June 12, 1872 ; Edwin, 
born February 13, 1878. 

D. M. McKenzie, livery and sale stables, corner Main and Wal- 
nut streets. Premises front fifty feet on Main street, running to the 



1088 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

river in the rear, with booking office on the corner of Main. This 
business was established in 1860 where now conducted, and the 
present stock is fifteen head of horses, and ten buggies and car- 
riages. Two 'buses are run to the trains and the stable force is 
three men. Mr. McKenzie is a native of Perth, Ontario ; came to 
Wabaslia county in 1853 with his ])arents, who the following year 
entered the farm on which Ed. Drury is now living, just within the 
city limits on the east Sec. 4, T. 110, R. 11 W. This farm Mr. Mc- 
Kenzie sold in 186-1 and removed to town, having, as before said, 
previously established himself in livery business. He had the mail 
contract between this city and Faribault in 1858-60, and in the 
latter year, in connection with George Hays, took the contract for 
carrying mail between this place and Rochester, which they held 
four years, during which time they maintained a passenger stage 
route. Mr. McKenzie was married in this city in 1861, to Miss 
Annie C. Campbell. The}' have seven children, all at home, three 
of them attending school in this city. 

LuGER FuRNrruRE Company, office and salesroom on the south 
side of Main street, three doors from Alleghaney. This business, 
now conducted as a joint stock company, employing lai-ge capital 
and scores of workmen was started in a very quiet way, by Ferdi- 
nand and John Luger, in 1861, at which time they started a small 
shop, doing hand-work, and supplying the retail trade of this section 
of the county. From this small beginning the industry has grown, 
enlarging from 3''ear to year as capital increased and demands for 
goods were created, until they have reached their present propor- 
tions, and are justly rated the largest furniture manufactory in south- 
ern Minnesota. The original shop was located on the east side of 
Pembroke, just north of the alley between Main and Second streets, 
and was afterward removed a few doors south of that location, 
a larger shop built and machinery driven by horse-power employed. 
From Pembroke street a change was made to Main street, north 
side, just west of the Wabasha bank, and in this location they 
remained until 1872, when their present manufactory was built on 
block 28, original town plat of "Wabasha. Ten years afterward, 
March 15, 1882, the Luger Furniture Company was organized. 
This is a joint stock concern, capital one hundred thousand dollars, 
under the following management : president, Ferdinand Luger ; 
secretary and treasurer, F. J. Luger ; superintendent, John Luger. 
Tlie manufactory proper is a three-story frame structure, 35x100 



ExlELY SETTLERS. 1089 

feet, amply supjDlied with improved machineiy for performing their 
work economically and with dispatcli. The engine and boiler house, 
24:X-iO feet, is furnished with an engine of thirty-tive horsepower, 
the fuel for driving which is principally furnished from the refuse 
of the factory, except during the winter season, when a greater sup- 
ply of steam is needed for heating purposes. The finishing room is 
32 X 50 and the wareroora 144x32 feet. The business consists in 
the manufacture of all kinds of common furniture, chairs and bed- 
steads being their specialties. One of the principal markets for 
their goods is at Fargo, Dakota, where they have a warehouse and 
salesroom, for the distribution of their products throughout that 
section of the northwest. They have also a branch office at Moor- 
head, in this state. The business at that point is under the man- 
agement of Ferdinand Luger, president of the company. The 
number of hands employed at the manufactory is from fifty to sixty, 
and the value of their manufactured products about two hundred and 
fifty thousand dollars per annum. Their supplies of hard and soft 
maple, butternut, oak, elm and basswood are drawn from the valley 
of the Chippewa. Their walnut is obtained in Iowa. The retail 
salesroom and office on Main street is 25 X 60 feet, and they occupy 
the entire second story of the block, the whole affording forty-five 
hundred square feet of floor room. The secretary of the company, 
F. J. Luger, has an office comfortably fitted up in the rear of the 
salesroom, and" the retail department of their business at this point 
is under his charge. Luger Brothers, the founders and principal 
stockholders of the company, were originally from Yoralberg, Tyrol, 
Europe. There were eight brothers of them practical cabinetmak- 
ers, and those who have become residents of Wabasha emigrated to 
America in 1S51, and were for six years in Dubuque, Iowa, before 
locating in this city. 

Uriah Whaley was born in New York in 1826. At the age of 
nineteen he left his home in the east and has spent his whole life in 
the west. He was two years in the service of the government, with 
the 8th Minn., and was in some of the principal battles of the war. 
Mr. Whaley has a family of eight children. He has always been a 
hard-working and industrious man, being engaged in farming in 
early days, but now an employe of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul Railroad Company. 

John L. Safford, since 1860 a farmer of Plainview township, 
was born in Allegheny countj^, I^ew York ; received a common- 



1090 IIISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTi'. 

school education somewhat limited on account of the illness of his 
father. In 1845 the family removed to Walworth county, Wiscon- 
sin. In 1860 young Safford, then in his twenty-sixth year, came to 
Wabasha county and settled on the southeast quarter of section 16. 
He offered his services to the government in August, 1862, and 
became a private in Co. C, of the 10th Minn. Inf. ; was honorably 
discharged as a corporal August 21, 1865. He returned to Plain- 
view, and on the 30th of the following month was married to Rose 
C. Jolly, of Plainview, a native of Indiana and stepdaughter of Mr. 
William Boatman, a pioneer of Plainview township. He erected a 
house on his farm and resided there until 1873, when he sold this 
place and bought another of eighty acres, in section 14, where he 
now resides. Mr. Safford is giving some attention to dairy farming. 
Is a member of tlie Grange, No. 41. The family are members of 
the Christian church. Mr. Safford is republican in politics. His 
children are : Mary A., born August 26, 1866, and Leonard, born 
March 6, 1869. 

William Foreman, son of Charles and Elizabeth (Fisher) Fore- 
man, was born in Ireland. He was married to Maggie G. Robert- 
son, June 13, 1872. Mrs. Foreman is a native of Canada, of Scotch 
descent. She came to Wabasha county in company with her father's 
family and settled in West Albany township. She is the eldest of 
eight children and has a brother, James, now living in Lyon county, 
Minnesota. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Fore- 
man, the eldest of which is Harry H., and Ethel Maud and Roy 
Elmer are the names of the other two. Mr. Foreman is well known 
all over tlie townshi]) ; has been a stanch republican all his life ; 
has been town clerk for a number of years. He is a member of 
Wapahasa Lodge, A. F. A. M. , No. 14, of Wabasha city. Also Relief 
Chapter, No. 6, of the Knight Templars of Lake City. Mr. Foreman 
has a farm of one hundred and sixty acres in home place, and two 
hundred and forty acres in Lyon county, Minnesota. He carries on 
threshing during the threshing season quite extensively, running 
three steam threshers ; has also a wood-saw. He has had charge of 
the Wabasha Elevator. 

Hon. Francis W. Knapp. The subject of this sketch was the 
third child in a family of five children born to Charles B. and 
Catherine (McTntyre) Knapp, the former a native of New York 
State, and the latter of pure Scotch descent. Mr. Knapp was born 
in Ottawa City (then By-Town), Canada, April 17, 1838. He 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1091 

attended school in Canada for a few years. His father, who was a 
cabinetmaker, removed with his family, in 1847, to Medina, Dane 
county, Wisconsin, where he located one hundred and sixty acres of 
government land for a home, and continued to work at his trade, 
and also followed the business of an architect and profession of a 
patent-lawyer. While the family continued to reside in Medina 
Francis received a good common school education, and, being of a 
studious disposition, was sent to the State University, at Madison, 
Wisconsin, where he intended to complete a full collegiate course, 
but, owing to defective health, was obliged to abandon this plan at 
the close of the first year. *He now turned his attention to farming 
and school-teaching for two or three years. In May, 1860, he came 
to Minnesota and bought from Levi Emery eighty acres on section 
35, Highland township, and his family came the following fall. His 
farm now contains two hundred and eighteen acres, on sections 34 
and 35, on which he has some fine improvements. He was married 
December 24, 1859, to Hannah E. King, daughter of Jaira M. and 
Maria (Lum) King, a native of Montville, Ohio, where she was born 
June 11, 1839. Their union has been blessed by five children, 
namely, Grace M., born August 23, 1861, a pupil in the State 
Normal, at Winona; Hannah E., born April 17, 1866, also a 
student of the Normal ; Albert H., born June 26, 1868 ; Catherine 
M., born July 13, 1871 ; and Charles F., born June 11, 1875. Mr. 
Knapp has taught school several times since coming to Minnesota. 
He was a soldier in the 10th Minn, for three years, and lost two 
fingers from his right hand in the last charge at ISTashville, for 
which he draws a pension of ten dollars per month, and ranked as 
sergeant when discharged. Mr. Knapp is a republican in politics 
and has taken quite an active part in political contests. He has 
been treasurer, assessor and supervisor of the township, and was a 
member of the lower house of the Minnesota legislature in the win- 
ter of 1867-8. 

Wesley Kinney, attorney, is a grandson of Dr. Abijah Kinney, 
of Hartford, Connecticut. Ogden, father of Wesley Kinney, mar- 
ried Huldah Walker, who was born, like himself, in Otselic, New 
York. They died within two weeks of each other, Mrs. Kinney on 
April 19, and her husband May 2, 1882, and are buried in the same 
town. Three Kinney brothers came from England and settled in 
Maine, New Hampshire and Connecticut, respectively, and this 
family is descended from the latter. Wesley Kinny was born in 



1092 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Otselic, Chenango county, New York, December 15, 1837. His life 
was passed on the home farm till sixteen years of age, attending the 
common schools. His education was completed at the academy in 
Charlottesville, New York. In 1857 he began reading law at Delhi 
with William Murray, Jr., and a year and a half later entered the 
law office of Wait & Berry, at Norwich, New York. In May, 1860, 
he was admitted to practice in the superior court, at Binghamton. 
He became a resident of Mazeppa in 1861, and the following year 
was admitted to the United States district court. He soon became 
associated with F. M. Wilson, and practiced at Lake City eight 
years, during most of which time he was city justice. Keturning to 
Mazeppa, he continued his practice, and has done much for the ad- 
vancement of the village. He drew up its charter and most of its 
ordinances, and was active in securing its incorporation ; was first 
recorder' of the village. In 1882 he bought a farm of sixty acres, 
partly in the corporation, partly in Pine Island township, on which 
he took up his residence, and to which he gives part of his attention. 
On August 13, 1865, he was united in wedlock with Acsie A. 
Ford, daughter of one of Mazeppa"'s early pioneers. She was 
born at Lebanon, New York, May 29, 1846. Their children were 
born and christened as herewith noted : February 8, 1870, Maude ; 
August 5, 1873, Alvin C; May 23, 1883, Kent Ford. Mr. Kinney 
is very liberal on religious questions. In politics he is a democrat. 
He was a member of the A.O.U.W. until the Mazeppa lodge was 
abandoned. 

Lucius Kinney, farmer, is an elder brother of the above. His 
parents lived during the year 1833 on a farm in Georgetown, Mad- 
ison county, and Lucius Kinney was born there on September 27. 
He was reared on the home farm in Otselic, and received a common 
school education. January 9, 1854, he was married, the bride being 
Miss Lydia Bishop, a native of Otselic. Her parents, John and 
Lydia Bishop, were of New Hampshire birth, Mr. Kinney came to 
Minnesota in 1856, arriving in Mazeppa September 3, and took up 
government land in Zumbrota township. A year later he sold out 
and went back to New York. For sixteen years he engaged in 
farming there, most of the time on his father's homestead, and again 
took up a residence in Minnesota. After a stay of two years in Lake 
City, he bought a farm of seventy acres of land near Mazeppa, in 
Goodhue county, and has ever since dwelt in this village and tilled 
the land. Mr. Kinney has always had a horror of debt, and went 



EAKLY SETTLEKS. 1093 

without many things desired rather than violate his cash rule. He 
has always been a democrat. Himself and wife joined the Metho- 
dist Episcopal church many years ago. They have two sons. The 
elder, Frank Clinton, born June 29, 1856, resides in Smyrna, New 
York, where he married Miss Catharine Wentworth. John Wesley, 
March 30, 1860, dwells with parents. 

John McBkide, city justice, was born in Whitehall, Greene 
county, Illinois, in 1821, hence was one of the pioneer children of 
that state. His parents, James and Kancy (Taylor) McBride, were 
natives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively. The paternal 
great-grandfather of Mr. McBride, was a native of the Highlands of 
Scotland, and came to America and visited Kentucky prior to the 
days of Daniel Boone, the noted Kentucky pioneer. History states 
that Mr, McBride located his claim by writing his name on a tree, 
and soon went to Virginia where he settled, and remained till the 
time of his death. Our subject obtained his education in the pio- 
neer schools of his native state, to which he has, by reading and 
observation, added liberall3^ January 24, 1842, he married Mrs. 
Sinia Smyth, a native of Kentuck}^, who was then the mother of one 
son, Charles W. Smyth, elsewhere mentioned in this work. In 
1845 Mr. McBride with his family removed to Council Hill, 
near Galena, Illinois, but soon after went to Miningtown, Wis- 
consin. In 1857 he removed to Guttenberg, Clayton county, Iowa, 
where he began the publication of a newspaper, which he removed 
in 1861 to Lake City, and conducted it as the Lake City "Times" 
till 1865, when he sold out and entered into mercantile pursuits. 
In 1877 he was elected city justice, and this position still retains. 
Mr. McBride has filled many positions of official trust since his resi- 
dence in Lake City. In 1862 he was appointed notary public, and 
still holds the commission, and was the same year appointed mili- 
tary commissioner by Gov. Eamsey. During the early part of the 
late war, was United States recruiting officer, and was for eight years 
commissioner of deeds for the State of Wisconsin, appointed by Gov. 
Fairchild. He is now a successful and extensive United States claim 
agent. He is the father of five children, three of whom are living, 
Perrj^ P., a compositor, now in St. Paul; J. Albert, a merchant in 
Millbank, D. T., and Mary E., at home. 

Charles W. Smyth, Lake City, was born in Greene county, Illi- 
nois, September 20, 1836, and is son of Francis and Sinia A. 
Smyth, natives of Virginia and Kentucky, respectively. The former 



1094 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

died when his son Charles was about three years old, and the latter 
was married in 1842, to John McBride, Esq., a respected citizen of 
this city. She lived till January 18, 1871, when she was accident- 
ally killed in attempting to jump from a cutter while out riding with 
lier son, the horse being unmanageable. In 1845, when our subject 
was but nine years old, he with his parents removed to Council Hill, 
near Galena, Illinois, where they remained for a short time* and 
then settled in what is now Lafayette county, Wisconsin. Their 
stay here, however, was not permanent, as they again went to 
Stephenson county, Illinois, and engaged in farming for a few years, 
after which they went to Iowa, and located in Clayton county, where 
liis stepfather published a newspaper till 1861. On the last boat up 
the river in the fall of that year, our subject came to Lake City, and 
at once found em]jloyment in a lumber-yard. This he followed but 
a short time, and then went into the "Times" office as a type-setter 
for his stepfather, who was then publishing that paper. One year 
later he entered the employ of F. W. Hahn, a large clothier of this 
town as clerk, with whom he remained about two years. His next 
business enterprise of any importance was his present. He bought 
an interest in a meat-market, and has successfully conducted the 
butcher business in this city for nearly twenty years. November 
17, 1867, he was united in marriage to Mrs. Sarah Corwin, a 
daughter of Henry Heys, Esq., of Goodhue county, Minnesota, a 
native of England. They have four children, whose names in the 
order of their birth are: Libbie T. Corwin, Druzilla A., Julia A. 
and Carrie M. Smyth. Mr. Smyth is a charter member of the 
Masonic lodge of Lake City, is also a member of the chapter and 
commandery, and of the I.O.O.F., and an enthusiastic worker in 
and supporter of these societies. 

Daniel C. Corwin, Lake City, is the eldest of ten brothers who 
never disagreed, is a native of Long Island, New York, and was 
born March 10, 1828. His father, Capt. Henry Corwin, was a sea- 
faring man, and his son started on the water when but nine years 
old. He followed boating till the age of fifteen, when he left the 
sea to take a position in a wholesale store in Norwich, Connecticut. 
He held this position four years, when he turned his attention to 
art study, at the same time serving his teacher as clerk in his store. 
After ])ursuing his studies two years, he returned to Brooklyn, and 
continued this line of business in and about Long Island and New 
York till 1859. His time was principally employed in sign and 



EARLY SETTLERS. 



1095 



display painting, thongli he produced some very fine specimens of 
landscapes and oil portraits. The action of chemicals used in his 
work had by this time so impaired his health that he was compelled 
to abandon a well-established business, and seek a more health-in- 
vio-orating climate. The same year he came to Minnesota, and pur- 
chased a farm in Goodhue county, where, after two years' rural life, 
a portion of his former strength was regained. He then sold the 
farm and removed to Lake City, where he started in business, which 
he continued till 1S79, when he met with a total loss by fire. He 
soon after started in a small way on Main street, where he keeps a 
restaurant and dining-hall. Mr. Corwin was married in 1848 to 
Mary C. Smith, who died in 1862, leaving one child that has also 
passed away. His second marriage was in 1862 to DianthaL. Eun- 
dle, by whom he has two children, Louis A. and Mary E. 

Patrick Shields was born in County Galway, Ireland, in the 
year 1831. His parents, Stephen and Bridget (Laylor) Shields (or 
Shiel) were small farmers. When twenty-six years old he emigrated 
to the United States, and found work in the Stark cotton mills at 
Manchester, New Hampshire. Here he espoused Margret Beggan, 
also a native of Galway county. In 1859 he removed his family to 
Fox Lake, Wisconsin, where he worked on a farm until just prior to 
the breaking out of the great rebellion. About this time he came to 
Wabasha county, and bought out a squatter on secticm 30, in High- 
land township. He now occupies a farm on section 29 in the same 
township, and has in addition to this place another of eighty acres 
on sections 20 and 21. His wife is an invalid, but has borne him 
the following children, viz : Mrs. Elizabeth Eodney, of Highland; 
John, born February 5, 1858, a young man of good business ability 
and fine education, residing at home ; Maggy Curran, born October 
12, 1859; Hanore, born July 30, 1861; Mary, born September 29, 
1867. In early pioneer days Mr. Shield used to go barefoot in cold 
weather, as he was too poor to purchase suitable covering for his 
feet, and has endured many other hardships, but is now in comfort- 
able circumstances. Four years after his arrival in Highland he sold 
his original claim for two thousand dollars in cash. He is a Catholic, 
and in politics independent. 

Ira J. Humphrey was born in Steuben county, New York, 
October 25, 1826, his parents being William and Hannah (Harris) 
Humphrey, the former a native of New York State and the latter of 
Virginia. He received a common-school education. July 15, 1849, 



1096 HISTOItY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

he espoused Mary A. Randall, a native of Orange county, Kew 
York, then in her twentieth year. Her parents, William and Anna 
(Davenport) Randall, were both born in the same state. Mr. 
Humphrey continued to reside at the old home until 1854, when he 
removed to Illinois ; from here he went to Vernon county, Wisconsin, 
and again to Tunnel City, Wisconsin, where he kept hotel, and 
Mrs. Humphrey opened a millinery store. In 1861 they came to 
Highland, and took up the eighty acres on section 20, where they 
still reside. Mr. Humphrey served eighteen months in the Ist 
Minn, bat, which was with Sherman in his famous march to the sea. 
Mr. Humphrey is an excellent farmer, an indifferent politician and 
a genial man. Mrs. Humphrey has established a local reputation as 
a prophetess. This worthy couple have been blessed with three 
sons, .lames, Milo and Charles, now residents of Brown county, 
Dakota. 

Chakles O. Landon. Jesse Landon, the father of the subject 
of this sketch, was the son of a Herkimer county, New York, farmer, 
and himself a farmer. He married Harriet Fish, and was residing 
on a farm in Chautauqua county, in the same state, on August 23, 
1826, when Charles, the third child of their large family of thirteen 
children, was born. He remained on the farm with his parents until 
the day he reached his majority. His educational advantages were 
very inferior, and the excellent practical education which he possessed 
was due to his own keen and penetrating powers of observation, 
unaided by even the district schoolmaster, as both summer and 
winter young Landon's services on the ftirm were thought to be 
indispensable. With but one suit of clothes and almost penniless, on 
the day that he was twenty-one, he departed from the parental home 
to seek his fortune. For four years he labored as a farm-hand among 
New York State farmers, and saved up his meagre earnings until 
they amounted to several hundred dollars. Finding himself able to 
do a little farming on his own hook, in 1851 he took to himself a 
wife, and rented a place. During the next three years he continued 
to engage in agricultural pursuits and the buying and selling of 
stock. In 1854 he made his first trip to the west, bringing to the 
Illinois market several iine horses. Being nmch pleased with the 
new country, he went back east fully resolved to return with his 
family as soon as he could settle up his business affairs there ; and 
the following year found him the owner of a farm in Green Lake 
county, W^isconsin. He resided here but one year, then spent five 



EARLY SETTLERS. 



1097 



years in Dunn county in the same state, where he pre-empted a claim 
near Eau Claire. Finding the western fever still firing his veins, 
and being dissatisfied with Wisconsin, he sold out in 1861 and came 
to Wabasha county, locating on one hundred and sixty acres of school- 
land on section 16 in Plainview township the ensuing year, after a 
few weeks' experience as a grocer in Plainview village. Four years 
later he sold this farm, and in 1867 bought the village residence 
which he still owns and occupies, and opened a real-estate and loan 
office in Plainview. In 1874 he became the senior partner in the 
firm of C. O. Landon & Co., successors to A. Y. Felton, drugs 
and groceries. Being prospered in both branches of his business, 
Mr. Landon, in the spring of 1883, relieved himself of a portion of 
his business burden by transferring his interest in the store to his 
son, George C. 'Landon. Mr. Landon has been twice married ; his 
first wife was Sarah Curtiss, whom he espoused in Warren county, 
Pennsylvania, in 1851, and who died November 7, I860, leaving 
two children. Jay Landon, a hardware merchant of Winona, Minne- 
sota, and George C. Landon. The present Mrs. Landon was Miss 
Martha J. Kenney, of Dansville, New York, to whom he was 
married September 9, 1861. Grace Landon is the only child of this 
union surviving, a son (Charles) having departed this life in his 
fifteenth year, on January 11, 1883. Mr. Landon is a member of 
Plainview lodge of A.F.A.M., and of the Congregational church. 
In politics is a republican ; has been for several years a justice of the 
peace, and officiated as chairman of the township board of super- 
visors. ^ 

William Janti, farmer, Chester, was born August 15, 183/, near 
Arlow, Belgium, and was reared there on a farm, attending school 
till fourteen years old. In 1853 he came to Sheldon, Wyoming 
county, New York, where he engaged in farm labor. In 1861 he 
became a resident o± this town, purchasing eighty acres on section 6. 
In 1883 he sold this and purchased the southwest quarter of the same 
section, where he lives and has a beautiful farm. He was a poor 
man when he came to Minnesota. Both himself and wife have 
worked hard to make themselves a home. In the fall of 1883 the 
latter followed a plow day after day, because help was scarce and 
dear. Their wedding occurred June 17, 1866, the bride's name being 
Anna Megers. She was born in Luxembourg, and is a sister of 
John N. Megers, elsewhere mentioned. Their children were born 
and christened thus: Sarah A., May 26, 1867; John, October 4, 



1098 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

1871 ; Eva M., June 20, 1874 ; Mary, September 17, 1879 ; Chris- 
tina, September 26, 1881. All the members of the family are 
Catholics, 

One of the latest business enterprises of the wideawake town of 
Plainview is the creamery at the west end of the business center. 
A. Y. Felton, manager and sole owner, started this venture with four 
teams and two inside factory hands in the spring of 1881, for tlie 
making of creamery butter ; and in the fall of the same year added 
his additional interest as dealer in dairy butter and eggs. By careful 
management and liberal dealings in trade he has been able to increase 
his number of teams to six, which are employed in the daih^ hauling 
of cream from the neighboring farmers. From five to six hundred 
inches is the average daily collection, and even as high as seven 
hundred was the return of one single day. For the greater part of 
the butter here made a ready market is found at reasonably good 
prices in St. Paul, Minneapolis and the Northwest, the eastern 
markets receiving the balance. Mr. Felton originally came from 
Vermont, in 1861, and immediately on his arrival in Plainview 
clerked for Ozias Willcox, and continued in his employ until 1866. 
He subsequently succeeded Crowley & Co. in the drug business, 
which he retained until 1874. He was elected in the fall of 1867 
county treasurer, in which capacity he faithfully served his fellow- 
men until 1871. To the school board he was elected and returned a 
member until 1878, and among other posts of honor and business 
schemes he oiSciated as president of the telegraph company then 
operating a line between Plainview and Minneiska. The creamery 
success has been marked and acknowledged, not alone in this his 
native clime, but on the other side of the great deep. At the state 
fair, held at Rochester, besides other premiums, Mr. F. was awarded 
England's silver cup, contributed by Higgins & Co., of Liverpool, 
for the best creamery butter salted with their salt. In addition to 
the four acres of land which he purchased from S. W. Danforth in 
1875, and on which he subsequently erected his homestead, and still 
later his factory in close proximity to his house, farms at Highland, 
Minnesota, Redwood county and Kingsbury county, Dakota, are his. 
For fifteen years in succession he served as trustee of the Congrega- 
tional church, and now stands, as he is reputed to have always stood 
in the community, with the best ; a man esteemed for industry, honor 
and respectability. 



EAKLY SETTLERS. 1099 

William A. Johnson (deceased) was one wlio was useful to 
Greenfield township. He was a native of "Warren county, New 
Jersey, born in 1815. At an early age he entered a store as clerk, 
and eventually began mercantile business for himself at Sodom, and 
afterward at Popeville, in his native county. For ten years he was 
employed as a clerk in the United States treasury department. He 
became a resident of Greenfield in 1861, and bought one hundred 
and sixty acres of land. He had been a successful business man, 
and now wished to retire from active life in the invigorating climate 
for which Minnesota is so famous. His farm was rented, and he oc- 
cupied his mind by conducting a store and hotel. He secured a 
postofiice here in 1862, and took cliarge of it. The name applied to 
this office was Pauselim, and Mr. Johnson platted a village under 
the same cognomen, on section 27, in 1863. He served some time 
as justice of the peace, and was chairman of the town board in the 
years 1862-3-4-5. He adhered to the democracy in political mat- 
ters, and his religions faith was represented by the Baptist church. 
He passed away in January, 1870, leaving a widow and one son. 
The latter, named Isaac L., resides in Washington, District of Co- 
lumbia. Mrs. Johnson died here in 1882. Her maiden name was 
Sarah La Kue, and she was a native of New Jersey. 

George Howe, Kellogg, is a native of Prussia, having been 
born in the Rhine Province, in February, 1844, His people were 
farmers, and removed to America when he was in his fourteenth 
year, settling in Iowa. The parents, John and Susan Howe, died 
there. Our subject attended an English school about three months, 
and, with the rudiments of our language thus acquired, was enabled 
to perfect himself in the requirements of an American citizen. He 
has served as town and village justice four years, three years as 
chairman of the Greenfield board of supervisors, and one year as re- 
corder of Kellogg village. His political afiiliations are with the 
democratic party. He was reared in the Catholic church, and still 
adheres to its faith. Is a member of Read's Landing Lodge, I. O. O. F. 
In 1860 Mr. Howe settled on a farm in Glasgow township, this 
county, where he dwelt until 1874. At this time he built the only 
brick building in Kellogg, and opened a saloon therein. Lie still 
owns the building, which he rents, and has abandoned the saloon 
business. He was the prime mover toward the incorporation of the 
village, and secured this end in a few weeks. In 1868 Mr. Howe 
took a "rib" from the family of Michael Schouweiler, one of the 



1100 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

pioneers of Highland, in the person of liis daughter, Catharine, born 
in Teepes, Ohio. Their eldest daughter, now only thirteen years 
old, is an ardent student of history, and can name all the American 
presidents, in order, without hesitation. The youngest, an infant 
boy, is not christened at this writing. The others, in order of age, 
are named Michael, Catharine, John, George, Dora and Edward. 

Makcus Morton Ingraham, carpenter, Lake City, was born in 
Savoy, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, June 2-i, 1828. His parents, 
Obediah and Abigail (Smith) Ingraham, were also natives of Massa- 
chusetts. The father operated saw and grist mills, and Marcus was 
his assistant till he was twenty-three years old. His education was 
furnished by the village school, and was but rudimentary. On his 
removal to Ashippun, Dodge county, Wisconsin (in 1851), he taught 
school two terms in the winter intervals of his farming operations. 
He became a resident of Minnesota in 1857, and built a home at 
Center Point. Two years later he moved the building to Lake City, 
and has made this place his home ever since. Many buildings in 
and near the city are monuments of his skill. On January 19, 1862, 
Mr. Ingraham's name was enrolled as a defender of his country. 
He was made second lieutenant of Co. H, 5th Minn. Vols, in Gov. 
Hubbard's regiment. Our subject served in the western army, com- 
manding his company part of the time. He participated in the bat- 
tles at Farmington, first and second Corinth, and the campaigns in 
Mississippi and Tennessee. He was obliged to resign on account of 
the jealousy of his captain, and was enrolled in the 1st Heavy Art. 
with the same rank. This regiment was stationed at Chatta- 
nooga during Mr. Ingraham's connection with it. It is almost need- 
less to say he is a republican. During his residence at Center Point 
lie served as town clerk, assessor and justice of the peace. October 
18, 1848, dates the marriage of M. M. Engraham to Miss Lucinda 
L. Fuller, both born and reared in the same town. Mrs. Ingraham's 
parents, Ira Fuller ^nd Keziah Leonard, were also born in Massa- 
chusetts. To Mr. and Mrs. Ingraham seven children have been 
given, resident as below noted : John M. keeps hotel at Menomo- 
nee, Wisconsin ; Abby H. (Mrs. Luther M. Follett), Appleton, 
Wisconsin; Julia A. (wife of P. A. Rockwell), St. Paul; Francis L., 
with elder brother; Gellette P., with eldest sister; Charles II. and 
Bessie P., at home. 

Frank A. Burdett, Lake City, grain dealer, is among the early 
residents of Wabasha county. His grandfather, Ebeneezer P>urditt 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1101 

(born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, 1Y61), was a revolutionary soldier 
and served on a colonial privateer. Abel, son of the latter, was 
born in Gilsum, New Hampshire, January 20, 1790. Bethsheba 
Gibson, daughter of another revolutionary hero, born in Fitchburg, 
Massachusetts, in 1785, married Abel Burdett, died April (j, 1866, 
in Lake City. Her husband died in Zumbro, this county, April 18, 
1858. This couple dwelt many years in Grafton, Vermont, where 
was ushered into the world, July 18, 1821, the person whose name 
heads this paragraph. During the early years of the latter, he spent 
some time at the common school, and subsequently managed the 
farm while his father dealt in stock. The farm was exchanged for 
hotel property, and Frank was his father's assistant in conducting 
the house for fourteen years. April 21, 1846, he was united in 
wedlock with Miss Jeannette Mack, whose parentage is elsewhere 
given with that of her brother, J. R. Mack. Windham, Vermont, 
is Mrs. Burdett's native place. Mr. Burdett spent over two years in 
California, at raining and other occupations, with moderate success. 
Returning to Vermont in 1855, he took up a permanent residence in 
the west next year, arriving in Columbia county, Wisconsin, in July. 
In the fall of 1857 he came to Zumbro and engaged in farming there 
four years. Removed to Lake City in the fall of 1861, and began 
to deal in produce. At one time he had four warehouses in opera- 
tion, one being at Stockholm, across the lake, and has been signally 
successful. He served the town of Zumbro two years as assessor, 
and Lake City one year; was also justice of the peace in Zumbro. 
He adheres to democratic principles of government, and is orthodox 
in religious faith. Mr. and Mrs. Burdett have one son, now thirty- 
seven years of age, named Frank D. When eighteen he entered 
the Union armj^, and served about a year. When he went from 
home he weighed one hundred and sixty pounds, and on his dis- 
charge weighed, with soldier overcoat, just half as much. His home 
is now in La Crosse. The two daughters, Sarah A., resides at home, 
and Flora C. (wife of J. M. Ford), at Wahpeton, Dakota. Abel 
Burdett was the father of three children. Elvira (Lawrence) died in 
Danville, Illinois, and Sarah (Ranney) at Linden, Wisconsin. 

J. C. Bartlett, register of deeds. Mr. Bartlett's official term 
began January 1, 1880. He was re-elected in the fall of 1881, and 
will complete his second term December 31 of this year, 1883. Mr. 
Bartlett is a native of New York, came to Wisconsin with his father's 
family in 1843, settling in Walworth county. His first purchase of 



1102 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

land was made in this county in 1S58, but he was not a permanent 
resident of the county until 18G1, at wliich date he came to Wabasha, 
and the following year removed to his farm, which was his residence 
until he engaged in grain trade in Lake City in 1869, when he re- 
moved to that city, which was his home until he assumed charge of 
the register's office in 1880, since which date he has resided in this 
city. "Was elected county commissioner for the Mazeppa district, 
and served three years prior to removing to Lake City, and was after- 
ward elected to the same office from Lake City district for two terms, 
Mr. Bartlett married Miss A. T. Bliss, of Walworth county, AVis- 
consin. They have four children, all attending the public schools of 
this city. 

George S. La Rue, the druggist, bookseller and grocer of 
Plainview, Minnesota, came and, with his parents, settled about two 
miles west of the present village in the year 1861. He is a native of 
Canada, where he was born in the year 1851, and whence, while 
young, he was by removal of his parents taken to Wisconsin. Here 
in Dodge county, near Waupun , he attended public school, and at 
the age of ten years moved westward to his present place of business. 
His business life was commenced as apprentice in drugs to T. G. 
Bolton, the pioneer druggist of Plainview, with whom he continued 
for a year and a-half, until, associating with himself some leading 
members of the community, he was enabled to buy out his boss, in 
common parlance, and assume the responsibility of the business of 
the new house under the firm name of G. S. La Rue & Co. This he 
continued successfull}', and sold out his interest in 1878 to Goddard 
& Co., to enter as partner with Amerland in the banking business 
under the firm of Amerland & La Rue, bankers. At the end of 
eighteen months he disposed of this interest to Judge Wording, for 
the purpose of re-entering in 1880 his former line of drugs, which he 
did by purchasing stock and fixtures of Goddard & Co., which he 
now conducts with energy and ability-, rendering to every customer 
a proper equivalent for all monetary exchanges. Mr. La Rue enjoys 
the full rights of the order of A.F. A.M., and a growing reputation for 
excellence in goods and square dealing in trade. He was married 
in Elgin, JNIinnesota, to Mary D. Woodruff, of that place, and has 
one daughter, born April 15, 1881. 

George Stratton was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, March 
2, 1827. John Stratton, the father of the present subject, was born 
in Sherborn, Massachusetts, and was descended from Samuel Stralton 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1103 

who came to this country from England in 1652, and located near 
Watertown, Massachusetts, on what is now the site of the Mount 
Auburn cemetery. John Stratton's wife was Lydia Hyde, a descen- 
dant of the Hydes who came to America in 1830, and were among 
the first settlers at what is now Newton, Massachusetts. Mr. John 
Stratton was a merchant and did business in Leominster, and was also 
the possessor of a fine farm. George was his eldest child, and was 
afl'orded a good education, obtained chiefiy at the Lunenburg Aca- 
deni}'. Not, being of a trafficking turn of mind, young Stratton did 
not take kindly to his father's calling, and at the age of twenty-one, 
having picked up some knowledge of the house-painter's art, formed 
a copartnership with Xenophon Adams, of Leominster, and opened 
up a shop. Being a clever manipulator of the brush, he succeeded, 
and continued to follow the business for several years. He also had 
charge of the machinery of a button factory, envelope factory, and 
other machinery in turn for several years prior to his coming to Min- 
nesota. In 1861 he came to visit a brother at Plain view, and, being 
pleased with the county, and finding plenty of work at good wages, 
decided to remain here. Although Mr. Stratton has never taken to 
himself a wife, he has made himself a nice home in the village of 
Piainview. During his life he has found time to use the brush of 
the artist, as well as that of the painter, and has several finely exe- 
cuted works of art as a result. 

Samuel Hall was born in Ireland in 1826. At an early age he 
came to this country and settled in New York, where he resided 
several years. In 1861 he removed with his family to Hyde Park 
township, where he has since resided. As the country was new, and 
since there were no means of transportation west from Bead's Land- 
ing, Mr. and Mrs. Hall were obliged to walk from that place and 
carry the necessities for such a journey. By industry and thoughtful 
management they overcame the hardships of early times and are 
now living in ease and plenty. To them have been born nine chil- 
dren, eight of whom are still living. 

Hon. William S. Baxter came to this planet by the way of Sid- 
ney Plains, New York, on February 21, 1836. He was the second 
child of the numerous offspring of Charles A. and Maria (Bush) 
Baxter. Both branches of the family were natives of New York 
State. Ere William had reached adult years, death removed his 
parents, and he was taken into the family of his uncle, Jabin Bush, 
a wealthy farmer and merchant of Tioga, Pennsylvania. In 1856 
67 



110-i HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

he came to Minnesota and spent a year in Dodge county. Soon 
after engaged in the livery business in Rochester, Olmsted county. 
When the war broke out in 1861 he promptly responded to Uncle 
Sam's call for volunteers and was enrolled as a private in the 2d 
Minnesota Infantry. In April, 1862, disability compelled him to 
resign his ottice as second lieutenant and return to more peaceful 
pursuits. Having disposed of his Rochester livery stable in the 
meantime, he took the proceeds and purchased a farm in the town- 
ship of Highland. A few years since he came to Plainview to 
reside. He has recently filled acceptably the office of deputy sheriflf 
for the southern towns of the county, and in 1875 sat as a represen- 
tative in the state legislature hall at St. Paul. He is a republican 
and a Royal Arch Mason. He married Helen Austin, a native of 
Ohio, March 31, 1864. Mrs. Baxter died in 1879, leaving but one 
child, Susan M., surviving. 

Christian TJmbreit. one of Highland's prosperous farmers, was 
born in Germany, September 29, 1840. His parents were Henry 
Jacob and Henrietta (Beck) Umbreit. Christian's parents came to 
America with their family, consisting of eight children, when he 
was about the age of eleven. His father, being acquainted with 
agricultural pursuits, at once secured a small farm in Farmington 
township, Washington county, Wisconsin, and made it the family 
home. In the spring of 1862 Christian and Emil, his brother, bade 
farewell to the paternal home and came to Wabasha county, Minne- 
sota, where Christian located a homestead on section 4, in Highland 
township; here he continued to reside for twelve years, when he 
disposed of this place and bought one hundred and eighty of Mrs. 
Humblin, of section 25, on which he now resides. October 3, 1864, 
he enlisted as a private in Co. E, 1st Minn. Heav}^ Art, and was 
discharged September 27, 1865. He is independent in political 
matters, and a member of the Dutch Reform church, of Highland. 
In the autumn of 1863 he was married to Miss Eve Rheingans, 
also a native of Germany, where she was born in 1844. They have 
a family of hve children, viz : Anna, born October 23, 1866 ; 
Bertha, October 24, 1868 ; Laura, August 28, 1870 ; Henry, April 
1, 1876, and Erbert, August 12, 1880. 

WiLLAKD W. Dean, farmer, Chester, was born at Lockport, New 
York, in August, 1829. His father, Harris Dean, was a native of 
Connecticut, and served in the United States army through the 
war of 1812. He married Sally Oliver, of Vermont, and settled 



EAELY SETTLERS. 1105 

on a farm at Lockport. Here tlie subject of these lines passed his 
youth till eighteen years old. His father died when he was only 
two years old, but he was kept at school, part of the time at Wilson 
College. When eighteen he set out for the west, and dwelt about 
thirteen years in Wisconsin, most of the time at Berlin, wliere he 
was engaged in draying. He was married in 1853, to Eliza Eggle- 
ston, a native of Greenwich, Washington county, Kew York. In 
1860 they came to Minnesota and dwelt two years on a farm near 
Rochester. Three years later Mr. Dean bought the farm where he 
lives, on section 32, and has ever since been a resident of Chester. 
All his family, save one, are members ot the Free-Will Baptist 
church in Mazeppa. Mr. D. has always supported the principles of 
the republican party. His children were christened, and i:eside, 
as follows : Emma (Mrs. Myron Mack, now studying for the min- 
istry), at Hillsdale, Michigan ; Harris, Rochester ; Lester, Minnie 
and Lydia, at home. 

RiCHAKD Bullock, farmei', purchased one hundred acres of hind 
in Zumbro township, section 13, in 1862, and shortly after took 
up his home thereon. He is a native of England, having been 
born in Oxfordshire, July 18, 1820. His parents were William and 
Sarali Bullock, who settled in Erie county. New York, when our 
subject was sixteen years old. All his schooling had been received 
previous to this time, in the old country. He was reared on a farm, 
and after reaching his majority owned a farm in New York. He 
subsequently removed to Pennsylvania, and came from there 
here. Besides the home farm, he now has a quarter-section in Big- 
stone county, this state. His capital was small on arrival liere, and 
his own industry and enterprise have ?nade him independent. He 
has always been a republican, but now holds aloof from politics. 
Although not a member of anj^ church, he is a believer in the 
Christian religion and an active supporter of the Wesleyan Metho- 
dist church here. He was married June 4, 1848, to Rutli Amelia 
Stocking, who was born in Erie county. New York, September 17, 
1830. Their eldest child, Martha Cordelia, was born January 10, 
1851 (now Mrs. Dwight Lyman), and resides in Redwood county ; 
Sophia Jane, June 21, 1853, married Adelbert E. Randall, now 
sheriff of Bigstone county. 

Amos Barnes (deceased) became a resident of Zumbro in 1862, 
and was one of its most successful farmers. He was a native of 
England, born in Kent county July 6, 1832, and died here July 25, 



1106 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

1881. He was very patient under a severe affliction, cancer of the 
bowels. He was converted in 1867, and joined the Wesleyan 
Methodist church and died at ])eace. He was reared to farm labor, 
and emigrated in 1852 to New York, where lie remained six years, 
and then removed to Walworth county, Wisconsin. Here he was 
married A])ril 28, 1862, and set out at once to occupy his Jand in 
Minnesota, purchased in 1859. The farm embraces one hundred 
and sixty acres on sections 14 and 23, the residence on the former. 
Mrs. Barnes was born in New York city. Her maiden name was 
Mar}' Munden, and her parents — Frederick and Mary A. — were 
natives of England. She is also a member of the Wesleyan church. 
Four children are left to stay her widowhood, all at home, chris- 
tened Xjreorge A., Marie Antoinette, Charles E. and John A. 

Frrz Gerald Slocum, Lake City, is a descendant of Anthony 
Slocum, who came from England to Massachusetts in 1630, and was 
one of the founders of Taunton, that state. Capt. Henry Sherman, 
who served the colonies in the revolutionary war and in Anthony 
Wayne's campaigns against the Miami Indians, made his home, in 
Providence, Rhode Island. Here grew up and married his daughter 
Mary and Samuel Slocum, parents of Fitz Gerald Slocum. The 
latter was born in Bristol, Addison county, Vermont, where he 
enjoyed limited educational advantages till fourteen years old. His 
parents then removed to Crawford county, Pennsylvania, and took 
up the task of opening a farm in the wilderness. At eighteen our 
subject went to New Jersey in the employ of some stock drovers, 
who afterward took him into partnership. September 16, 1843, he 
married Sarah P. Griggs, who was born in East Amwell ; her 
grandparents and parents, John and Catharine Griggs, were, like 
herself, born in New Jersey. In 1845 Mr. Slocum opened a hotel 
in Frenchtown, and subsequently engaged in the same business at 
Flemington. New Jersey. In 1854 he went to Wauwatosa, Wiscon- 
sin, and kept a hotel till his removal to Lake City in 1862. For a 
short time he engaged in the sale of agricultural machinery, and 
bought produce for nine years ; was six years employed at the Bos- 
ton Mills, and is now with the Lake City Flouring Mill Company. 
For five years after his arrival he supervised the construction of 
Lake City streets and roads ; was five years constable, one year 
policeman, and four years city marshal ; has always been a democrat. 
Was a charter member of the Odd-Fellows' lodge and is a member 
of the Masonic order. In religious faith Mr. Slocum is a Univer- 



EARLY SErrLEES. 



1107 



salist, wliilo most of his family attends the Episco}3al churcli. Their 
pleasant home on Elm street is the result of Mr. Slocum's toil and 
perseverance. His nine children are all in Lake City and were 
christened as below : Frances C. (Mrs. Erwin Alexander), Sarah, 
Helen (Mrs. Chas. F. Frost), Catharine, Lucy (Mrs. Arthur B. 
Hill), Susie, Jennie, Harry L. and Fred Gerald. 

J. G. Laurence, president of the Wabasha Mill Company, is a 
native of Syracuse, New York, where he was born May 1, 1836. 




ELEVATOR, WABASHA. 

In 1862 he came to Wabasha county and opened a farm of eleven 
hundred acres five miles southeast of town, at what is now known as 
Midland Junction, the intersection of the Midland railroad with the 
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. This farm Mr. Laurence continues 
to operate, growing grain and raising stock, of which latter there are 
at present on the ranch forty head of cattle, three hundred hogs, 



11 OS HISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

twenty head of horses and five hundred sheep. Mr. Laurence has 
been more or less in public life since removing to the county. He 
was elected county commissioner in 1864, serving two terms ; was 
register of deeds from 1872 to 1875 ; was elected a member of the 
state senate in 1880 and re-elected in 1882 ; and is now serving his 
third term as mayor of the city of Wabasha. That he has been 
thoroughly identified with all the interests of the city, its railroads, 
improvements, industries, etc., will be fully ap])arent on reading the 
historj' of the various enterprises in which he has taken part. Mr. 
Laurence was married June 6, 1872, to Miss Alice G. Wyman, of 
Wabasha. They have two children : W. Hamilton, born February 
24, 1875, and C. Wyman, born November 25, 1879. 

Capt. Daniel Davison was born July 27, 1826, in Pennsylvania, 
of American parents. His education was obtained in a common 
school, and is somewhat limited on account of his father's early death. 
He remained in his native town about ten years, when he moved 
with his parents to Muscatine, Iowa. His stay at this place was not 
long, however. The Indians at this place being very hostile and 
warlike, his father deemed it necessary to move, which he did, and 
we next find him located at Marion City, Missouri, then a thriving 
town. Shortly after moving to the aforesaid place his father died, 
thus leaving young Daniel, a boy of ten, to shift for himself. He 
remained in this place about three years after his father's death, when 
he again moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and was engaged in vari- 
ous occupations until about nineteen years of age. He then went 
to work on the river as common laborer for almost two years ; he 
was then pilot, captain, etc., and remained as such the rest of his 
stay in St. Louis. Mr. Davison moved to Minnesota in the year 
1861 and settled at Read's Landing; commenced work in the lumber 
business and continued for one year, when he found better employ- 
ment in his old business as ca])tain and pilot on the river, and has 
pursued same business ever since. At the commencement of the 
civil war he offered his services as volunteer in the 3d Minn. 
regt., but was refused on account of a partially crippled hand. 
In religion Mr. Davison is a Methodist, and in politics a re])ublican. 
It was on account of his political views that he was obliged to leave 
St. Louis. He was an honorary member of the organization known 
as the St. Louis "Grays," and at the breaking out of the rebellion 
there was an organization known as the minute-men, organized 
under Gen. Frost, and Mr. Davison was asked to join the same, but 



EAELY SETTLERS. 1109 

refused. After refusing Le was naturally looked upon as an enemy, 
and his business being upoii the river he thought it unsafe to leave 
his family in St. Louis, and consequently moved to Kead's Land- 
ing. He was married about the year 1854, to Maria Caroline 
Kna])ke. They have had ten children, eight of whom are still 
living. 

Herman Dieterle, foreman, in charge of Jewell & Schmidt's 
tinshop, is a native of Tubingen, Wurtemberg. He learned his 
trade as a tinsmith there, and followed it for years prior to his com- 
ing to America in 1854. He was in New York city and the eastern 
states for three years, then came west ; was in Chicago one season, 
and from there removed to Alma in 1858, having been informed 
that there was no tinsmith within fifty miles of that city. Supposing 
it to be a town of some importance Mr. Dieterle came with the ex- 
pectation of finding a good opening for business, but as there were 
at that time only two or three small buildings there, the prospect 
was not flattering. Not discouraged, however, he stuck his stakes, 
built a shop, and remained there until 1862, when he came to this 
city, entered the tinshop of Joshua Egbert, and has been in the 
constant employ of that house and its successors (with the exception 
of, one year spent in the United States army) ever since. He enlisted 
in Co. G, 2d Art. regt., and served until mustered out In 1879, 
desiring to devote some attention to fruit culture, and choosing a 
location somewhat removed from the center of business, Mr. Dieterle 
removed to his present home at the east end of the city, corner of 
"Washington and Wabasha streets. He has a pleasant location on 
rising ground, aflbrding a good view of the river, and his three lots 
are completely covered with vines and small fruits. He has of 
grapes two hundred vines ; raspberry bushes, four hundred ; currant 
bushes, two hundred; and, besides a fine strawberry bed, apples, 
plums and cherries in considerable numbers. Mr. Dieterle is a stu- 
dent of all matters connected with the working of metals. His 
library on these subjects is quite complete, and he is a regular con- 
tributor to the periodicals treating these subjects. He is also thor- 
oughly conversant with all the late inventions in mechanical arts, 
and takes the patent-oiSce reports as they are regularly issued. May 
26, 1863, Mr. Dieterle was married to Kegina Eberle. They have 
two children : Henry, born August 18, 1866, who has almost com- 
pleted his apprenticeship under his father's instructions, and Minnie, 
born August 23, 1875, who attends the Sisters' school in this city. 



1110 HISTORY OF AVABASIIA COUNTY. 

W. S. McAktiiuu, general cooper factory on Second street, near 
the Wabasha Milling Companj^'s gristmill. This business was es- 
tablished in 1869, some blocks nearer the business center of the city, 
and removed to its present location in 1875, at which time the shop 
was built. The main building is 22 X 60 feet and the storage room 
is 20x50. The business consists principally in the manufacture of 
flour barrels, butter tubs, and amber-cane and syrup kegs. The 
usual number of hands employed is from six to twelve. Mr. W. S. 
McArthur is a native of Canada, learned his trade there, came direct 
from that province to Wabasha in 1862, started in business at once, 
and has now conducted it in this cit}^ a little over twenty-one years. 
In Maj", 1858, he nuirried Miss Margaret Wilson. They have three 
children, one of them attending Wabasha city school. 

L, & J. Affeld, livery, sale and feed stables, corner Second 
and Bailly streets. Business established by Louis F. Affeld in 1882 
in connection with the Green Bay House, which his father (Godfred 
Affeld) opened in 1869, and which has been under Louis F. Affeld's 
management since 1877. The livery stock consists of thirteen head 
of horses, ten carriages and buggies, and tliere is a stable force of 
four hands. The stock is quite new, maintained in good condition, 
and being within one block of the Commercial Hotel, is in a good loca- 
tion for business. The barn, built in 1882, is 32x60 feet, with car- 
riage house, 24x32 feet, attached. Louis F. Affeld is the son of 
Godfred and Dorothea Affeld, natives of Bavaria, who came to 
America in 1 853, and three years later to Minnesota, settling near 
Crystal Lake, where Louis was born June 12, 1859. The family 
came to this county in May, 1862, residing for a time in Read's 
Landing, and settled in this city one year later. Mr. Godfred Affeld 
pursued his trade as a wagonmaker until 1869, when he opened the 
Green Bay House. There are six children, only two of whom are 
now living at home, Louis F. and his sister Hulda, who was born 
March 4, 1855. 

Alexander Gray was born in Banffshire, Scotland, January, 
1826; died October 22, 1869. He was the eldest child born to Alex- 
ander and Isabella Gray, and a brother to James Gray, a sketch of 
whose life also appears. When a young man, he spent several years 
in Australia, and in 1862 he emigrated to America, coming directly 
to West Albany township, and soon located on the farm he occupied 
until his death. He was married in Scotland to Mary Dingwall, of 
Banffshire, who died October 28, 1880, leaving live children, James 



EAELY SETTLEKS. 1111 

E., Alexander D., William, Jeanett and George A. Mr. Gray and 
wife both belonged to the United Presbyterian church. He was a 
republican, and at the time of his death was justice of the peace. 
He left a good farm of two hundred and forty acres, and with his 
death the community lost one of its best citizens. James E. , who is 
living on the homestead, is a young man of intelligence and promise. 
He devoted three years to the scientific course of the State Univer- 
sity, and for a number of years has been a successful teacher in the 
neighborhood. 

James Gray, farmer, is a native of Banffshire, Scotland, where 
he was born September 15, 1832. He was fourth of four children, 
born to Alexander and Isabella Annaud-Gray. The former was a 
cartwright, and died when James was a child. At the age of thir- 
teen the subject of our sketch learned the tailor's trade, following it 
until he was twenty-one, when he went to Australia. The six years 
passed here were mainly devoted to mining, and after returning to 
Scotland, he emigrated to this country in 1861, locating on the farm 
he now occupies. April 26, 1864, he was married to Ellen Perry, a 
native of Banffshire. Six children were the fruit of this union, viz: 
Alexander P., Margaret (deceased), James G., Mary A., William 
W., and Ellen. His wife died February 16, 1876. December 21, 
1879, he wedded Hannah McCracken, to whom have been born two 
children, George S. and Ann D. Mr. and Mrs. Gray are both mem- 
bers of the United Presbyterian church. In politics he is republican. 
He is now chairman of the board of supervisors, which office he has 
held several years. He has a rich farm of one hundred and sixty 
acres, and may be numbered among the best citizens of the town- 
ship. 

Parley Brown, attorn ey-at-law. Lake City, is a native of Lor- 
raine, Jefferson county, Kew York, and is the second child of Walter 
and Abigail (Risley) Brown, who reared a family of fourteen children, 
eight of whom are now (188-1) living. His parents were natives of 
Argyle, Washington county, New York, and Hartford, Connecticut, 
respectively. He was born April 11, 1818, and was reared on a farm 
till the age of twenty-one, at which tinie he entered a mill with a 
view of learning the trade. His tastes, however, inclining toward 
the legal profession, he soon after began reading law. Being 
deprived of educational advantages during early youth, or rather 
enjoying only such as the primitive schools in the backwoods 
afforded, his way to the bar was necessarily slow and tedious. But 



1112 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

"as the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong," so it 
was with Mr. Brown. He completed his law course, and was admit- 
ted to the bar at Syracuse in 1S59 by the su])reme court of the State 
of New York. In 1862 he removed to Minnesota, located at Lake 
City, and at once entered on the practice of his profession. In 1840 
he was united in marriage with Miss Maria Myers, who was a native 
of Schoharie county, ISTew York. She bore a family of six children, 
two sons and four daughters, and died in 1876. Mr. Brown's second 
marriage was in 1875, to Miss Charlotte Totman, who, too, was born 
and reared in Jefferson county. New York. Mr. Brown takes little 
interest in politics, and has been a life-long democrat. 

Charles La Rue, fanner, Greenfield, has been a resident of this 
township since the spring of 1862, at which time he took the manage- 
ment of the farm he now occuj^ies — then the property of his brother- 
in-law, W. A. Johnson — -on section 22. Among the earliest 
families of New Jersey was that of La Rue, of French extraction. 
Isaac La Rue, father of this subject, was born and reared in that 
state, as was his bride, Martha Gregg. To them a son was born 
July 29, 1S38, in Warren county, and christened Charles. The 
latter was reared on the home farm, and attended the common school 
some after he was fourteen years old. Nature did much for him, 
and he contrived to fit himself for a useful citizen. He has served 
four years as supervisor of Greenfield, elected by democratic votes. 
Is a member of Kellogg masonic lodge, of which he is now junior 
steward. His parents were Presbyterians, and his religious sympa- 
thies are with that faith. In 1879 he was united in marriage to 
Mary, daughter of James and Jane Carpenter, all of New York. 
Mrs. La Rue was born in Madison county. One son has been given 
to this union, born April 25, 1880, and christened William J. 

James F. Rogers, of the firm of J. Dobner & Co., dealers in 
agricultural implements, Lake City, was born in New London, New 
Ham])sliire, December 28, 1829. He is the first son and second 
child of Charles H. Rogers, who is a lineal descendant from an 
English family of that name, who settled in Virginia toward the 
close of the sixteenth century. He received a classical, to which 
was added a theological course, with a view to entering the ministry. 
His tastes, however, inclining more to commercial pursuits, .he made 
the manufacture and dressing of cloth his principal business. He 
was also what might be termed a public-spirited man, having been 
twice chosen to a seat in the New Hampshire state senate, and for 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1113 

several years occupied the responsible position of high sheriff. His 
wife and our subject's mother was Miss Abigal S. Copp, daughter of 
Kobert Copp. They died and are buried in Grafton county, New 
Hampshire. In 1863 Mr. Eogers came to Minnesota and per- 
manently located in Lake City, and soon after engaged as salesman 
in the store of Cooper & Rogers, and four years later embarked in a 
general merchandise business on the corner of Washington and 
Center streets. After conducting business in that line six years he 
turned his attention to the sale of reliable and improved farm 
machineiy. He was married May 1, 1860, to Miss Mary M. Water- 
man, of Norwich, Vermont, who died in February, 1868. His 
second marriage was on May 31, 1870, to Miss Margery E. Carson, 
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their children's names are Charles 
W., Azzy F. and Fred E. Mr. Rogers has served this count}^ several 
years as deputy sheriff, and this, city for the last twelve years as 
constable. > 

Yan Ransalaer Lee, veterinary sui-geon, Lake City, is a grand- 
son of Ephraim Lee, who entered the colonial army at seventeen 
and served through the revolutionary war. Ephraim Lee was born 
in New York, of Yirginian parents, and moved to Canada when 
James — his son, the father of this subject — was three years old. 
James Lee grew up in Canada, married Elizabeth McYeigh, and 
settled on a farm in her native town, Elizabeth, Leeds county, 
Ontario, where Y. R. Lee was born in March, 1817. Schools were 
few and primitive in that region and period, and our subject reached 
the age of seventeen with very little book culture. His parents 
then removed to Ohio, and when eighteen he set out to make his 
own way in the world. For some years he was employed as 
teamster and in various kinds of labor. In 1844 he opened a livery 
stable at Milan, Ohio, and began the practice of his profession, 
which his father had followed and taught him. By study he has 
improved upon his old practice, and has followed the homoeopathic 
system twenty-four years. In 1854 he moved with a team from 
Milan to La Crosse, and came to Lake City in the fall of 1863. His 
practice is successful and he is widely known. For two years he 
kept the Lyon House, the leading hotel, and was landlord of the 
Sherman House, now burned, five years. In theological views Mr. 
Lee is a confirmed Universalist, and politically has always been a 
republican. He has been twice married : in 1844 to Wealthy A. 
Emerson, who died childless seven years later ; in 1852 to Eliza- 



1114 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

betli, daughter of Aslier Chapman, botli born in Amlicrst, New 
Hampshire. Three chikh'en have been given to the latter union. 
The eldest, Charles II., is in Minnea])olis ; the youngest, Marian 
Wealthy, keeps house for her iatlier. Francis is his father's assist- 
ant in business. In the fall of 1882 the mother of these children 
passed away and calmly waits their coming on the other shore. 

Frank A. Wells was born in Pompey, Onondaga county, New 
York, December 3, 1831. His parents were Russel and Sophronia 
(Adams) Wells. Mr. Wells' early life was spent on a farm. His 
education was obtained at the Pompey Hill Academy, He spent 
several years teaching in Tsew York State, a portion of the time 
holding the position of principal in the Manlius graded school. 
December 23, 1855, he married Miss Sarah Alexander, of Fabius, 
Onondaga county, and in the spring of 1861 removed to Sparta, 
Wisconsin, where he engaged in teaching and agricultural pursuits 
for two years. In 1863 he came to Wabasha county and ])urcliased 
the Sprague place on section 29, in Highland. In the autumn of 
1873 he disposed of this place and bought the Betsey Hall place, 
just northeast of Plainview village, where he has since continued to 
reside. Mr. Wells is a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, 
which he joined March 21, 1853, at Manlius, New York, the lodge 
at that place. Military Lodge, No. 92, being one of the oldest in 
that state. He was one of the charter members of Illustrious Lodge, 
No. 63, of Plainview, and was its first master. He is at present 
High Priest of the chapter, and a Knight Templar. He is indepen- 
dent in politics, but has held several offices of trust in the township. 
His family consists of four children, namely, Lillian (Mrs. F. D. 
Washburn), of Buffalo Lake, Kenville county, Minnesota ; Florence 
A., Isabelle Winona, dnd Maud, all at home. 

George Hebbeln, farmer, was born in Germany. He is the 
youngest son of Hans and Ann J. Hebbeln, of Holstein, Germany. 
When about twenty-two years old Mr. Hebbeln came to Iowa, but 
soon changed to Olmsted county, Minnesota. Here he worked for 
five years, when he returned to Germany on a short visit. He 
bought horses in Iowa for a short time, and finally bought his 
present farm of one hundred and sixty acres of fine land, all culti- 
vated. He has always been a democrat in politics, and one of our 
reliable citizens. He was married in 1871, to Mola Gaducke, of 
Germany. He has three children. 



p:aelt settlers. 1115 

Egbert White, builder, Lake City, is descended from a long line 
of Connecticut ancestors, of English origin. His maternal grand- 
father, Yan Vorns, was banished to Nova Scotia during the revolu- 
tion for toryism. James White, the father of this subject, was a 
native of Connecticut. He married Sarah Van Vorns, of New York, 
and located in Brooklyn, where Robert White was born, September 
7, 1824. When the latter was five years old the family moved to 
Delaware county, and afterward to Rockaway, Long Island. His 
elder brothers were prominent builders in Brooklyn, and he learned 
his trade with them, being foreman of their shops several years. In 
1848 he went to Bloomington, Illinois, in 1849 to St. Louis, Missouri, 
and returned to New York to escape the cholera that was raging 
there. He visited Lake City in the fall of 1856, and built several 
residences here during the following year. In 1858 he went to 
California, and returned to New York next year. July 13, 1861, he 
was married in New Jersey, to Miss MaryL. Morris, a native of that 
state. Her parents, Samuel and Rhoda A. (Van Marter) Morris, 
were born in Monmouth county. New Jersey, and New York city 
respectively. Robert Morris, of revolutionary fame, was an ancestor 
of this family. Mr. White permanently located in Lake City in 
1863, landing here May 6. Very many of the city's finest buildings 
are monuments ot his thoroughness and skill. As a citizen Mr. 
White stands well in the estimation of his neighbors, as is evidenced 
by his election for seven years as a member of the city council. For 
over thirty years he was a patron of Horace Greeley's paper, and 
when the great leader was a candidate for president he received Mr. 
White's vote, and the latter has since adhered in general elections to 
the party whose ticket bore Greeley's name. He was formerly a 
republican. In matters of religion he is a Freethinker. Four sons 
are included in his family, resident as below : Samuel Morris, pur- 
suing a business course at Minneapolis ; William Edgar, mechanic. 
Piano, Illinois ; Robert Melvin, clerk in store at latter point ; Horace 
Greeley, at home. 

James Munro, farmer, was born at Banfishire, Scotland, January 
14, 1845. His parents were Donald and Ann Noble-Munro, to 
whom were born eight children, the subject being the youngest. 
James left his native land at the age of eighteen, coming directly to 
West Albany, where he has since resided. He was soon followed to 
this country by his parents, who also located in this township. Here 
the elder Munro died in 1869. His widow is still living, and is a 



IIIG HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

resident of Sibley county, Minnesota. December 8, 1806, James 
was united in nuirriage to Mrs. Margaret Kirkman-Corry, a native 
of Lanark county, Ontario. They have one child, James N. His 
farm consists of one hundred and twenty acres of rich land, with 
good buildings. He and his wife are members of the Baptist church. 
He is a republican in politics. For eight years he has held the office 
of town clerk, and is one of the prominent citizens of the township. 

Jeremiah Baldwin, of New Haven, Connecticut, was born in the 
year 1827, and removed to Ohio with his parents at the age of six 
years, and at the age of thirteen to Wisconsin, where he attended 
school until of age, part being to public and part to select school, 
taught by Rev. Henry Heaton. He, after working on the farm for 
several summers, purchased eighty acres, and for a time was 
employed in the government survey. At twenty-eight he married 
Julia Emery, of Wisconsin, who, after bearing him two children, 
Amos E., now practicing medicine in Marshall, Minnesota, and a 
daughter, since deceased, died in the spring of 1857. Eighteen 
months after he married his second wife, Lucia A. Pierce, of West 
Townsend, Vermont, May 5, 1858. From this union sprang Willis 
P., Horace J., J. Arthur and Minnie A., all living. In the spring 
of .1863 Jeremiah left Wisconsin by ox-team, after selling out, and 
settled on his present farm, part of which, one hundre^^ acres, he 
purchased two years before of one William Thompson. Six years 
from this he bought out John Allon, twenty acres additional, and 
completed his present one hundred and sixty acres about four years 
after by purchase from George Cole. Mr. Baldwin has been an 
active trustee of the Congregational church of Plainview since its 
organization, September 19, 1863, and his present wife has for some 
thne officiated as president of the Women's Board of Mission . Albert 
R. Pierce, brother to Mrs. Baldwin, enlisted in 1861, was wounded 
near Arkansas ; was honorably discharged at Fort Snelling. 

Peter Gibson, retired riverman, has been a resident of this city 
since 1863. Mr. Gibson was born in Sweden ; came to America in 
1851, to Michigan, and was in a lumber-mill on the lake, a few miles 
above Port Huron, owned by Hubbard Bros, until coming to the 
Mississipjji lumber regions in 1855. From that year until 1863 he 
was engaged in rafting down the river from Stillwater to St. Louis. 
He married Margaret Dietrich November 24, 1867, whose family 
were early residents of this county. They have three children : 
Jerome, born March 11, 1870 ; William, born July 21, 1871 ; Peter 
J., born December 28, 1873. 



EAKLY SETTLP^ES. HIT 

Pepin Brewery, located in Morres addition to the village of 
Bead's Landing. This property comprises what is generally known 
as the Burkhardt breweries. The lower one, a frame structure, 
built by Charles Leslie in 1856 ; the upper one, a stone building, 
erected some twenty years since by Michael Ulnier, the whole prop- 
erty coming into possession of the Burkhardts about the time the 
war closed. Manufacture has been lately contined to the lower 
brewery, but the location proving too low for the high water of 1883, 
which flooded their cellars to tlie depth of eight feet. They are now, 
August, 1883, fitting up the upper brewery for business, by erecting 
new dry kilns, and engine and boiler house. This brewery is 40 X 
100 feet, three stories, solid stone, and provided with vaults, having 
a storage capacity of two thousand barrels. The product of their 
first year's brewage was six hundred barrels; last year, fifteen 
hundred barrels, an increase over previous year of thirty-three 
per cent. The product of the brewery is marketed at home, little 
or none being shipped. Their real estate comprises a tract of about 
twenty-seven acres, on which they have a brick yard of over twenty 
years' establishment, where they manufacture from two hundred and 
fifty thousand to three hundred thousand a year. The breweiy busi- 
ness employs five hands and two teams, and is steadily increasing. 
The proprietors are G. & G. Burkhardt. They are natives of Ger- 
many, emigrated to America in 1859, and to this county in 1863. 
Godfred Burkhardt married Sophia Bruner in 1866. They have 
four children living, three in school at Read's Landing : Louis, born 
October 14, 1868; Emma, born February 14, 18T0; Maria, born 
February 9, 187T; Paulina, born February 5, 1879. Gotleib Burk- 
hardt married Amelia Schlueter, February 2, 1881. They have one 
child, Albert, born November 25, 1881. 

Frederick B. Wahler, farmer, residing in Plainview village, 
was born in Saratoga, Germany, March 31, 1831. His father, John 
F. Wahler, was a farmer, and his mother's maiden name was Doro- 
thea Rohrbach. Mr. Wahler came to America in the year 1853. 
He spent the first three years after his arrival on a farm near Juno, 
Dodge county, Wisconsin. In 1856 he came to Minnesota, and 
located near Centerville, Winona county, on school lands. Seven 
years of his pioneer life were spent here, accompanied by many of 
the privations and trials that characterized frontier life in those days. 
The autumn of 1863 he disposed of his Winona county farm, and 
removed to Plainview township in Wabasha county, where he pur- 



1118 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

chased tlic Cliureliill place — a farm of one Imndred and sixty acres, 
on sections Id and 30. Four years later lie purchased the village 
property, and erected thereon the residence which he has since oc- 
cupied as his family residence. His landed possessions now aggre- 
gate three hundred acres of fine arable land. Mr. Wahler is a mem- 
ber of the Plainview Methodist Episcopal church, and the brother- 
hood of Masons. lie was married to Miss Neiheeser, a native of 
his own country, in Dodge county, Wisconsin, on July 6, 1856. 
Their matrimonial life has been blessed with four children, three of 
them now living, viz : Addie (Mrs. Stadon), of Big Stone county, 
and Susie -and Inez at home. 

Jacob Kopp was born in Wiedlisbach, Canton Bern, Switzerland, 
on April 8, 1830. The Swiss home of the Kopp family was a small 
farm, but a beautiful place known as Mosrien. Frederick and Barbra 
Kopp resided here, and raised a family of six children, Jacob being 
the fourth. Jacob received a good common school education, after 
which he served four years in the Swiss army. In June, 1851, he 
married Barbra Giesbuler, and three years later brought his family 
to America. He first worked on a farm near Milwaukee, Wiscon- 
sin, then removed to Watertown, Wisconsin, where he remained 
but a few weeks. His next move was to go to a place about thirty 
miles fi'om Portage, where he worked in the pineries and on a 
farm for three years; after which he spent four years clearing up a 
farm near Fredonia, in the same state. He came to Highland town- 
ship, and bought a claim of one hundred and forty acres near the 
Watkins mill, in 1863. After buying and selling a number of times, 
he finally purchased the place on which he now resides — eighty 
acres on section 26, Highland, in 1870. He has five children, viz : 
John, born in Switzerland, residing in Lake City, Minnesota; Louisa, 
born in Wisconsin, and Louis and Frederick, born in Minnesota, 
and a daughter Emma, also a native of Minnesota. Mr. Kopp was 
one of the oi'iginal members of the Lutheran church of Highland. 

George Hibner was born in Cattaraugus county, New York, 
September 18, 1825. His parents were David and Susanna (Parker) 
Hibner — his father a native of the city of New York, and his mother 
of Massachusetts. Flis youth was spent on a farm, until twenty 
years old, remaining at home. He worked on a farm in Allegany 
county for two years. Here he married Polly Pierce, who was born 
in Onondaga county, New York, September 14, 1824 — this occurred 
July 18, 1847. After his marriage he worked a farm for six 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1119 

years in Allegany county. In 1853 removed to Wyocena, Columbia 
county, Wisconsin, and rented a farm on which he remained until 
the fall of 1859, when he came to Olmsted county, Minnesota. The 
next year removed to Plainview, and tarried another year, when he 
came to reside on the farm where he now lives, one hundred and 
sixty acres on section 22, in Highland, which he located while still 
a resident of Wisconsin, He has one hundred and ten acres of land 
under cultivation, and lives in a fine farmhouse. Has also added 
eighty acres to his original quarter-section. He has but one child 
living: Electa A. (Mrs. Wm. Saiford), of Highland. A son, 
Ivan Arthur, died November 18, 1876, leaving one daughter, Ida 
May, 8 years old, residing with her mother, Mrs. Eflie (Freer), ot 
Plainview. 

John Schmidt, merchant tailor and dealer in clothing and fur- 
nishing goods, corner Main and Pembroke streets. This business 
Mr. Schmidt established in 1866, and has conducted it successfully 
for the past thirteen years. He owns the premises he occupies, one 
lot east of the corner of Main and Pembroke streets, 25 X 90, and 
upon this he has erected his shop, a one-story brick, 20 X 45, the 
salesroom and Tryon's jewelry-store occupying the front thirty feet 
of the building, with the tailor-shop in the rear. Mr. Schmidt is a 
nature of Bavaria, learned his trade there, and followed it until 
1852, when he came to America, settling in Milwaukee, which was 
his home until his removal to this city in 1861:. January 16, 1856, 
Mr. Schmidt married Catharine Schrick. They have three children: 
Julius, born in Milwaukee in 1857, and now the junior member of 
the firm of Jewell & Schmidt, of this city ; Emil, employed in his 
father's shop, born June 5, 1860, and John, born December 26, 
1S61, at present a conductor on the Midland railroad. 

Louis Young, hotelkeeper, Kellogg, is a native of Luxemburg, 
Germany, and was born March 10, 1843. In 1850 his parents, 
Peter and Barbara (Pausch) Jung, emigrated to America and settled 
on a farm near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Here, in the old log school- 
house, young Louis received a common English education. When 
seventeen years old he entered a grocery store at Grand ville station 
as a clerk, and soon after went to Chicago, where he was employed 
as a barkeeper. In 1862, being then but eighteen years old, he 
entered Bat. M, 1st 111. Light Art, and served over three years 
as United States soldier. Participated in thirteen battles and forty- 
two skirmishes, being twice slightly wounded, and was honorably 



1120 HISTORY OF WAUASIIA COUNTY. 

discluirged September 2, 1865. Tlie most important engagements 
wherein lie was an actor were those at Chickamauga, Chattanooga, 
Missionary Ridge, Eesaca and Allatoona. During his service he was 
confined in hospital eight months, his life being several times given 
up by liis surgeon. Only his determination saved his life. After 
the close of the war he came to Minnesota, and shortly opened a 
hotel in Winona. January 16, 1.S68, he married Margaret Apeld- 
ing, born in Luxemburg in September, 1848. Mrs. Young's father, 
Peter Apelding, is now one of the most substantial citizens of 
Rollingstone, Winona county. In 1872 Mr. Young came here and 
purchased the only building on the site of Kellogg. To this he has 
made additions, and is known to a large number of travelers for the 
excellence of his table. He was reared in the Catholic church, and 
adheres to the democratic party ; served as village trustee in 1882-3. 
Plis ofispring were christened John, Mary, Henry and Louis, 

Henry Davis Stocker was born in 1836, in Cabot, Caledonia 
county, Vermont, and inherited from his parents. Rev. Samuel and 
Jane D. Stocker, the determined S])ii'it and marked characteristics of 
his New England ancestors. The genealogical history contains also 
a vein of the rugged teutonic element, thus combining in the de- 
scendants those traits of character which so strongly developed in 
Capt. Stocker. Most of his education was received in Massachu- 
setts, from which he moved with his parents to McHenr}' county, 
Illinois, There in 1858 he commenced the reading of law in the 
office of Messrs. Joslyn & Hanchett, a prominent law firm of Wood- 
stock, Illinois. In 1861 he left the law for the army, and assisted 
in raising Co. M of the 16th 111. Cav., which company he com- 
manded until the battle of Jonesville, Virginia, January 3, 1864, 
where he and his whole company were made prisoners of war. In 
this battle Capt. Stocker was so severely wounded, having received 
two sabre cuts on the head, and two bullets in his bodj^, that he 
could not be removed with his comrades, and he was left at a house 
near by the scene of battle, where he renuiined for two months. As 
his wounds began to heal, he discovered the family under whose 
roof he was were in sympathy with the Union army, and although 
he was so ill that a rebel officer stri})ped him of his clothing,, saying 
as he dragged his overcoat from under his womided head, "Here, you 
won't need this much longer, and I shall," yet he longed to escape, 
that he might die, if indeed he must, under the shadow of the stars 
and stripes. With the aid of faithful negroes he was disguised and 



EAKLY SETTLEES. 1121 

placed upon a horse, where thej convej^ed him to the Cumberland 
mountains and bid him, "Godspeed, massa." Notwithstanding the 
reopening of his wounds, and the many difhculties he met with, he 
reached tlie Cumberland river in safety, where another negro, with 
no small difficulty, obtained a boat for him. Alone the wounded 
man floated down the stream, until he deemed it safe to cross the 
country and gain the federal army, where the welcome he received 
more than compensated for his past sufferings. After a few months 
furlough, he joined Gen. Sherman's army, in his march to the sea, 
where he was assigned a position in Gen. Schofield's staiF. He 
participated in the battles of Allatoona and Atlanta, and Kenesaw 
mountains. Owing to the severity of his wounds, which unfitted him 
for active field service, he was assigned the position of provost 
marshal at Nicholasville, Kentucky, which position he held until 
December, 1861:, when on account of the suffering which his 
unhealed wounds caused him, he was reluctantly compelled to ac- 
cept an honorable discharge. Directly after his resignation he came 
to Lake City, where he has not only enjoyed a large and lucrative 
law practice, but the respect and commendation of his bar associ- 
ates. Capt. Stocker is a member of all the Masonic orders. In 
politics is a stanch republican ; in religion attends and supports the 
Congregational church. In 1870 he was married to Mrs. Beulah 
Grant (also the daughter of a Methodist Episcopal clergyman), the 
result of this union being three children, Henry Davis, Frederic 
Henry and Mabel Gertrude, all living. 

AuGusTius Baset, restauranteur. Lake City, was born in the 
Province of Hamburg, now part of Prussia, January 10, 1824. His 
father, Frederick, was a merchant and overseer of a farm, and the 
youthful Augustus passed his early life in a rural region. When 
seventeen years old he began to learn the baker's trade. In tlie 
spring of 1854 he set out for the land of promise beyond the Atlantic, 
and landed at New York April 5. Proceeding to Canada, he found 
employment in a brass foundry, and set about acquainting himself 
with the strange language spoken all around him. Before the close 
of the year he found his way to Baltimore and secured emploj^ment 
at his trade. In 1855, in partnership with a brother, he established 
a bakery at Watertown, Wisconsin. In July of the following year 
he sold out to his brother and went to Sparta, in the same state, 
where he operated a bakery for three years, and afterward a farm for 
like period. In 1864 he became a resident of Lake City and beo-an 



1122 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

his ]:)resent business. Five years later lie built the handsome two- 
story brick-front which he now occupies. All sorts of fruits and 
confectionery are kept on sale, and a fine business is done in feeding 
the hungry. April 19, 1856, Mr. Basey was united in wedlock 
with Miss Laney Orinan, born in New York, of German parents. 
Three daughters have blessed this union, all at home, and christened 
Mary, Anna and Emma. The Lutheran church represents the 
religious faith of the family. In political matters Mr. Basey adheres 
to the democratic party. He is a member of the American Legion 
of Honor and the Equitable Aged Union, and insurance organiza- 
tion. 

A. H. Bright, farmer, is descended from Henry Bright, a Penn- 
sylvania Dutchman. Harmon, son of Henry, married Sarah Kean, 
both "to the numor born," and settled on a farm in Sadsbury, 
Crawford coimty. Here was born to them the subject of this sketch, 
May 12, 1S19. He received a farm training and common-school 
education. AVhen nineteen he went out to farm labor and saved 
enough from his wages so that he bought some land at twenty-two, 
and went on it. In 1840 he married Catharine, daughter of William 
and Dorothy Poole, all of New York. In 1844 he went to Illinois 
and built a sawmill on Rock river, fifteen miles below Rockford. 
He was afterward in a sawmill in Janes ville, Wisconsin ; farmed 
some years on Sugar river, west of Janes ville. He became a resi- 
dent of Minnesota in 1862, and resided two years on a farm in Bel- 
videre, Goodhue county. Then he traded that property for one 
hundred and forty-five acres on section 9, Mazeppa, where his home 
has been ever since. His domain now includes three hundred and 
forty acres in this township. He has dealt considerably in lands. 
He is a thorough republican, but meddles not with politics. On 
the unanimous vote of the town he once accepted the office of justice, 
but resigned before his term expired. Theologically he is a Free- 
thinker. Alanson Porter, his eldest child, died at fourteen years of 
age. Priscilla J. (Mrs. Harry Dakes), lives at Oakland, California ; 
Hiram Jui-ani Hydecooper, Roberts Station, Wisconsin ; the rest 
reside in Mazei)pa, viz : Rhoda Adell (Mrs. Orrin Boughton), 
Thaddeus Sobieski, William Henry Harmon, Sarah Catharine 
Elizabeth (Mrs. Jones Segar), Albert Rathboi-ne Frisby, and a son 
bearing the full name of Marquis de La Fayette. 

Rev. Nklson Moon was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, January 
19, 1818. His parents were of New England birtli. His mothers 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1123 

maiden name was Abigail Wallingford, and his father's Christian 
name was Barney. From nine to sixteen years of age he dwelt with 
William K. Porter, a Baptist deacon, in Macedon, New York, 
receiving all his schooling during that time in the common school. 
He then went to Canandaigua and was employed in chairmaking. 
His health being injured by this occupation, he went to Kirtland, 
Ohio, where he dwelt nearly two years. Here, at the age of nine- 
teen, he was converted and joined the Methodist Episcopal church 
by immersion. His mother was a faithful Presbyterian and had 
him baptized at the age of seven. The teachings of his foster-father 
led him to insist on immersion, but he has since become convinced 
that this is not essential. In 1838 he settled at Lyons, Wisconsin, 
and after dwelling there nine years, during which he was licensed 
as an exhorter, he removed to Vermillion county, Illinois, and was 
there licensed to preach. In 1855 he came to Olmsted county, this 
state, and was soon compelled to take up land in order to sustain his 
family. He organized the first class in Kochester in the fall of this 
year. For two years he labored at Oronoco, Pine Island, Mantor- 
ville. Greenwood Prairie, Center Grove, Wasioji, and numerous 
other points where there was hope of doing good. He was ordained, 
by Bishop Simpson, at the first organization of the state conference, 
and Center Grove was his first circuit point. After residing on a 
farm in New Haven for nine years he took up his residence in 
Chester, where he has a farm of one hundred and fifty acres. Here 
he dwelt till the fall of 1883, when he moved to Lake City. He has 
labored as a local preacher and has ofiiciated at a large number of 
funerals. He was married at East Troy, Wisconsin, May 11, 1841, 
by Rev. James McKean, a brother-in-law of the bride, to Mrs. 
Casandra Chenowith, nee Hunter. She was a faithful Christian wife 
and mother, enduring all the hardships of a pioneer minister's wife 
without a murmur, and went to her reward April 9, 1882. She 
became a member of the Methodist Episcopal church at a very early 
age. The second child of this union, Charles W., died August 9, 
1864, at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, four days before he was eighteen 
years old, having served nine months in the Union army. The 
others were christened and reside as here given : Mary A. (Mrs. D. K. 
J. Clark), Bigstone Center, Minnesota ; Emma (Mrs. W. A. Stevens), 
Lake City ; William P., Bigstone ; Frank W., Bigstone ; Owen H., 
Fargo, Dakota; Carrie I. (Mrs. C. A. Robinson), Chester. Mr. 
Moon and family saw some severe experiences in early years. Dur- 



1124 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ing the first winter they were surrounded by Sioux Indians, and he 
traded a watch that cost liim a cow for a watch-dog to protect his family 
in liis absence. Becoming short of provisions, he traded another 
watch that he had for a rifle, with which he shot seven deer. To 
secure potatoes and feed for his horse he was obliged to sell his buggy. 
Late in the fall of 1855, in trying to cross the Zumbro on the ice to 
reach an appointment at Rochester, he broke through and narrowly 
escaped with his life. One day in the following winter a couple set 
out from some distance away to find his cabin, in order to be mar- 
ried. Losing their way, they did not ariive till dead of night. The 
hut consisted of a single room. Mr. Moon got up and joined the 
twain in the presence of his family, who remained in bed, and they 
went their way rejoicing. 

Clements Konnig, blacksmith and farmer ; shop and six acres of 
land on Sec. 28, R. 11, T. Ill, and leases about eighty-five acres in 
vicinity. Mr. Konnig is a native of Hanover, learned his trade in 
his native place, and came to America in 1857, settling for some 
years in Illinois. In 1864 he came to this county, built his black- 
smith-shop, and for the past nineteen years has followed his trade 
where he is now located. In 1859 he married Theresa Logan. They 
have six children, all at home, the elder boys working the farm, on 
which there are twenty-five head of stock, sixty-five acres of wheat, 
twelve acres of oats, and twenty acres of corn. The children's 
names are : Joseph, born March 22, 1861 ; Bendict, born August 
21, 1867 ; Frank, born March 9, 1873 ; Emma, born April 1, 1875 ; 
Caroline, born June 17, 1877; Theresa, born November 12, 1879. 

Jacob Gengnagle, manufacturer and dealer in furniture. Second 
street, between Pembroke and Bailly ; business established where 
now conducted in 1864, and so continued. Mr. Gengnagle is a 
native of Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany ; came to America at seventeen 
years of age, learned his trade in Alban}-, New York, and after 
working there five years came west in 1S55, spending one year in 
Dubuque, Iowa, and from that city to Wabasha in 1856. There 
being no opening for his trade here, Mr. Gengnagle turned car- 
penter ; worked at that trade three years, then went to New Orleans, 
and was there at the time the war broke out. When Gen. Butler 
took possession of the city he enlisted, June 30, 1862, in Co. L, 3d 
Mass. Cav., and was in the service eighteen months, until disabled 
by a gunshot wound in the right elbow, and was discharged. Came 
to Wabasha, and the following year married Helena Afield, of 



EAKLT SETTLERS. 



1125 



this city ; date of marriage November 21, 1865. They have three 
children, all attending school in this city : Charles, born October IT, 
1866 ; Katie, born January 31, 1869 : Jacob J., September 8, 1875. 
Jewell & Schmidt, hardware, corner of Main and Alleghaney 
streets. This house is the successor of that established in 1858 by 
Egbert & Robinson, on the corner of Walnut and Second streets. 
Mr. Egbert soon afterward became sole proprietor, removed his 
business to the corner now occupied by Jewell & Schmidt ; took in 
H. M. Dugan as partner, and continued trade until 1867, when he 
sold out to H. H. Jewell, who, in the previous year, had opened a 
hardware store near the corner of Main and Pembroke streets. Mr. 
Jewell consolidated the stocks, at the corner of Main and Alle- 
ghaney streets, did business there for one year with Mr. Dugan as 
partner, then purchased his interest, and as sole proprietor continued 
trade until November 1, 1882, when he sold out to the present firm 
and retired from business. Mr. Jewell purchased the lots on which 
the present structure stands in 1868, but continued business in the 
old Egbert building until the spring of 1880, when the old frame was 
removed to the west side of the lot, where it now does duty as a 
warehouse, and the present hardware house was built. The lot fronts 
sixty feet on Main street and one hundred and three feet on Alle- 
ghaney ; the new building has a frontage of twenty-five feet on Main 
and sixty on Alleghaney, with entrances on both. It is a substantial, 
ornate, two-story brick, solid stone basement, sills and center-caps. 
The salesroom, 24x60, with an iron and glass front, is well arranged 
for business ; opening into the tinshop in the rear, 20x35 feet ; into 
the iron and nail room, 9x40 feet, and into a broad passageway 
from which the basement and upper storerooms are reached. The 
structure cost five thousand dollars, an'd was completed and occupied 
September 1, 1880. The basement is used for storage, and the 
upper story for offices and the rooms of the Ladies' Library Asso- 
ciation. The stock of the house embraces a full line of shelf and 
heavy hardware, iron,>" Uiel, nails, tinware, barbed wire and farmers' 
tools. The tinshop is under the direction of foreman Dieterle, who 
has been in charge of the manufacturing de])artment during all the 
firm changes, for the past twenty-one years. The present firm are 
H. B. Jewell and Julius Schmidt, and they were both in tlie employ 
of the old house of H. H. Jewell for several years before they suc- 
ceeded to its management. 



1126 HISTORY OF WAUASIIA COUNTY. 

11. B. Jewell, son of II. II. Jewell, is a native ot Massachusetts ; 
came to Wabasha with his father's 'family in 1864; learned his trade 
as a tinsmith in St. Paul, and came into the employ of the house in 
which he is now the senior partner, in 1S69, April 3, 1880, he 
married Miss Ida V. Bunn, of this city. 

Julius Schmidt is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Came to 
Wabasha with his father's family in 1865. In 1873 he entered the 
house of H. H. Jewell ; learned his trade as tinsmith there, and 
continued in its employ until November 1, 1882, when the present 
partnership was formed. 

Ira W. Belden, a son of Erastus Belden, a physician of Fillmore 
county, Minnesota, was born in 1837. He received a common 
school education, after which he learned his trade of blacksmithing. 
In the fall of 1862 he enlisted in the war against the Indians, and 
served fourteen months as farrier in his regiment. He then enlisted 
in the war of the rebellion and served one year, when, his health 
failing, he returned to make his home on the banks of the Zumbro. 
He is a resident of Zumbro Falls, living on the south side of the 
river, but his shop is situated on the north side. Mr. Belden was 
married in 1860, to Amanda Raymond. Their family consists of 
seven children. The eldest son, aged nineteen, holds a good position 
on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad. 

Hexey ScffivriDT, merchant, was born in Mecklenburg, December 
19, 1844, and came with his parents to West Albany township, this 
county, in 1864. He was one of six children born to Henry and 
Mary (Henning) Schmidt, deceased. The first few years of his 
residence here were spent at various employments, and in 1871 he 
moved to Lake City. His first business venture was the establish- 
ment of a bakery, in partne^ship with C. Kuhn. One year later 
Mr. Schmidt secured entire control, and continued the business 
until 1877, when he formed a partnership with Mr. Kemp, and 
opened a line of general merchandise, on the corner of Washington 
and Center streets. From this stand the}' were driven by the fire 
of 1882, but soon afterward established themselves in their present 
quarters on Center street. He was married April 21, 1874, to Mary 
Burfiend, of Hanover. Two children followed this union, one of 
whom, Albert, is now living. Mrs. Schmidt died February 5, 1879. 
May 30, 1881, he was married to Clara Phillips (Tabor), a native of 
New York. In 1883 they opened a neat and commodious eating- 
house for day-boarders, and in connection with this a choice stock 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1127 

of cigars and confectionery. Mr. Smith is a member of Lake City 
Lodge, No. 22, LO.O.F., also of Mount Zion Encampment, No. 7, 
and of Shiller Lodge, No. 7, Sons of Herman. In politics he is a 
republican. 

James H. Emery, practical liorseshoer. Lake City, was born in 
Plymouth, Windsor county, Vermont, in 1822. Lie is the son of 
Dr. John W. Emery, who is now a resident of Michigan, and eighty- 
four years old. Mr. Emery learned his trade in Boston, and took 
special veterinary lessons on shoeing from Dr. Yarey, a veterinary 
surgeon of Boston, Massachusetts, and came west to Chicago many 
years ago. He there conducted a prosperous business till the out- 
break of the late war, when he enlisted in the ISth 111. Cav., com- 
manded by Col. Farnsworth. The three and a half years following 
was spent in active warfare in behalf of his country, in the army of 
the Potomac. In 1865 he came to Lake City, opened up a horse- 
shoeing and blacksmith-shop, and still continues the business. His 
wife, whose society he has enjoyed for the last thirty years, was 
Charlotte Gould, a daughter of David Gould, of Yermont, and is 
the mother of his two children, Laura, the wife of J. R. Clark, of 
Chcago, and Winslow D. 

Jacob Haessig is a well-to-do farmer of Plainview township. 
He was born in Alsace, Europe, January 6, 1838, on a farm twelve 
miles west of Worth. John Haessig, his father, was a farmer and 
she]:)herd. Our subject received the customary education provided 
by the German common school system. In 1859 Alsace was French 
territory, and Napoleon III called upon her for her quota of soldiers 
for the Austrian war. A draft was ordered, but Mr. Haessig was 
lucky enough to escape it, and two years later he came to America, 
where he first found employment in the American House, at Cleve- 
land, Ohio. He remained here but a few months, and then went 
to Elkhart, Indiana, where he did farm work until the autumn of 
1863, when he came to Minnesota, and bought a farm of eighty 
acres in Whitewater township, Winona county, from Judge Mitchell. 
In 1865 he bought John W. Studebaker's place in Plainview town- 
ship, Wabasha county, and took up his residence thereon. He lias 
since disposed of his Winona county farm, and now owns two hun- 
dred and forty acres of rich farming land, all in the township of Plain- 
view. He was married March 26, 1869. to the widow of Franklyn 
Sylvester, a pioneer of 1856, by whom he has had three children : 
Helen E., Ida W. and Lafayette H. Mrs. Haessig had three chil- 



1128 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

clren bv her first husband, as foUows : • Jennie (Mrs. Skidmore), of 
Spink county, Dakota; Emma B. (Mrs. Cornelius Badger), of Wa- 
seca, Minnesota, and Arthur C. Sylvester, fireman on the Winona 
& St, Peter railroad. The Elgin cyclone of 1883 did some damage 
to Mr. liaessig's farm buildings. Politically and socially Mr. Haes- 
sig has been quite popular, being a worthy member of Plainview 
Lodge, I.O.O.F., and was elected by the democratic part}^ county 
commissioner in 1878, and served three years. 

KoBERT R. Gray, gardner. Lake City, is a native of Butler 
county, and was born November 8, 1821. In about 1828, his 
parents, Joseph and Elizabeth (Richey) Gray, removed to Mont- 
gomery county, Indiana, and settled near Crawfordsville, where the 
living members of the family still reside. Early in life our subject 
learned the trade of harness and saddle maker, and followed the 
business many years in the city of Crawfordsville. In 1865 he 
emigrated to Minnesota, making the entire trip with two teams 
and wagons in twenty-one days. On arriving in the borders of 
Lake City, he camped out a few days till he could secure a house 
into which to move his family. This done, he turned his attention 
to carrying out his plans — the purchase of a small piece of land — 
which he did, and began the business of market gardening. He 
was married in 1848, to Miss Charlotte Lupton, of Lafayette, Indi- 
ana, by whom he has reared a family of ten children, whose names 
are : Helen A. (now Mrs. R. Foss) ; Elizabeth A. (wife of P. A. 
Bartlett) ; Adda G. (married James G. Hammel) ; R. Verginia, 
Jose])h W., Robert A., Charles C, Thomas G., Margarett L, Cecile 
and A^ance I. Mr. Gray is a charter member of the I.O.O.F. of 
this city, and a quiet, unassuming citizen. His home is south of 
the railroad, on Lyon avenue, where he owns a neat little garden- 
farm, and has resided several years. 

Clarence A. Hubbard, cashier of Lake City Bank, Lake City, 
is a native of Ingham county, Michigan. He was born November 
4, 1844, and is the son of John I, and Lucy L. (Smith) Hubbard, 
natives of the State of New York, and descendants of New England 
stock. His ancestors on his father's side figured prominently in the 
revolutionary war. Young Clarence removed to Winona, Minnesota, 
in June, 1853, with his parents, who were among the pioneer settlers 
of that now prosperous city. In 1858 he returned to his native state, 
and entered upon an academic course of study in thecity of Lansing, 
whidi he vigorously pursued till 1860. He then entered the State 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1129 

Normal at Winona, from which he graduated into the army at 
the outbreak of the civil war, serving with his regiment, 8th Minn. 
Vol. Inf , on the frontier during the Sioux war, and later on the 
stafts of Gens. R. N. McLaren and H. H. Sibley. At the restora- 
tion of peace, and Mr. Hubbard had received an honorable dis- 
charge, he settled in Lake City, and embarked in the grain and com- 
mission business, from which he retired in 1869, and entered the 
banking house of C. W. Hackett & Co. (now the Lake City Bank), 
as cashier. This position he still holds, being also one of the board 
of directors. He is married and has one son, Will Adelbert, now 
sixteen years of age. Mr. Hubbard is a Mason and a Knight Tem- 
plar, and is also a prominent member ot the Congregational church, 
an active and conscientious business man, who is much appreciated 
by his fellow citizens. 

Chauncey C. Cornwell, senior member of the hardware firm of 
C. C. Cornwell & Son, Plainview, was born in Erie county, New 
York, April 13, 1812. His father, Elihu Cornwell, was a farmer. 
His youth was chiefly passed in Middletown, Connecticut, to which 
place his parents removed while he was but an infant. His educa- 
tion was received at the common school. He learned the trade of 
shoemaker, and soon after formed a copartnership with his brother, 
under the firm name of H. D. Cornwell & Co., and engaged in the 
manufacture of boots and shoes. Two years later they dissolved 
this copartnership, and C. C. went to Willoughby, Ohio, and opened 
a similar factory there. Here he continued in the business until 
1849, when, owing to ill health, which demanded a change of cli- 
mate, he disposed of his valuable property in Willoughby, and re- 
moved to Lovell township, Dodge county, Wisconsin, where he 
engaged in agricultural pursuits. Here his health improved, and he 
spent the next sixteen years of his life. He came to Plainview in 
1865, and engaged in the hardware business with E. B. Eddy, after- 
ward with E. Dodge, and finally with his son, E. R. Cornwell. 
Mr. Cornwell is living with his second wife {?iee Elizabeth Welch, 
of Ohio). His first wife was a Mrs. Young, of Haddam, Connecti- 
cut, by whom he had four children, all living, as follows : Harvey, 
of Pine Island, Minnesota; Elizabeth (Mrs. Poole), of Winnebago; 
Alfred, in Castleton, and E. R., his present partner. 

George H. Grannis, manufacturer of and dealer in lumber. Lake 
City, was born in Madison county, New York, March 10, 1827, and 
is the son of Sidney S. and Elizabetli (Strobridge) Grannis, natives 



1130 UISTOKY OF WAUASHA COUNTY. 

of Claremont, New Ilampsliire. Young Graniiis was reared as a 
woolen manufacturer till the age of twenty-one, after which he turned 
his attention to producing improved machinery for wool manufactur- 
ing. He followed this business exclusively till 1857, when he became 
interested as a partner in a sawmill at Red Wing, Minnesota, the 
firm being Grannis, Dani,els <fe Co. In ls65 he removed with his 
family to Minnesota, and permanently located at Lake City, where 
he is extensively engaged in the business of manufacturing lumber, 
lath and shingles. His yearly cut is on an average about one mill- 
ion feet, for which he finds a ready home market. December 28, 
1848, Mr. Grannis was united in marriage with Lucetta S. Blanchard, 
also a native of Madison county, New York. They subsequently 
became the parents of two children, George W. and Arthur B The 
former was married April 3, 1883, to Miss Grace Edwards, an esti- 
mable young lady of Stratford, Connecticut. He is now a partner in 
his father's business, and is an active and energetic 3"oung man. 
The family are members of the Congregational church, except Mrs. 
George W., who is an Episcopalian, and are co-workers in all enter- 
prises which have in view the advancement of their adopted city. 

Andrew Marshall, restauranteur, is a self-made man. His 
father, John'^Marshall, emigrated from England and settled in Bos- 
ton, Massachusetts. Here he married Mary Patton, a native of that 
city, and here was born to him the son whose name heads this sketch, 
on October 24, 1832. When Andrew was but ten years old, both 
his parents died, and from that time he cared for himself. He 
drifted to the south, and passed much time along the Mississippi 
river, earning his livelihood by any employment his hands could 
find. At one time he was tempted, by liberal wages, to work in a 
saloon, but he soon became disgusted with the company this forced 
him to keep, and he threw up his situation. Notwithstanding the 
snares that surround a life such as was his, Mr. Marshall contracted 
no bad habits, and suffers no regrets on that score. Since his arrival 
in Mazeppa his fortunes have somewhat advanced, and he is con- 
tented. On account of exposure while in the army, his eyesight was 
very materially injured, and entirely lost for over a year, but he con- 
trived to earn a livelihood and has always been independent. On 
account of the loss of educational opportunities he was unable to 
take up a profession, and when about twent^'-one years of age took 
u]) the'cooper's trade, which he followed nearly all the time till quite 
recently. For five successive summers he sailed on Lake Michigan, 



EAELY SEITLERS. 1131 

working at his trade during the intervening winters. In 1860 he 
was wrecked with a "hooker," which he owned, and intended to 
take through by way of the Fox, Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers 
to New Orleans. In the fall of 1861 he enlisted in the 11th Wis. 
Yol. Inf., and was assigned to Co. K. This regiment served as 
skirmishers for the western army, most of the time in Missouri and 
Arkansas. In 1863 he was dischai-ged on account of disability, and 
was laid up nearly a year at Neenah, Wisconsin, by blindness. 
When the inflammation of his eyes was partially relieved, his wife 
was accustomed to lead him to a cooper-shop, where he managed to 
earn enough to keep the wolf from their door. In 1865 he became a 
resident of Mazeppa, working at first for Ambrose Ambler, propri. 
etor of the Mazeppa mill. For three years he worked at Forrest 
Mills, and entered the employ of the Mazeppa Mill Company on its 
accession to the mill property here. In 1883 he opened a restaurant 
on First street, and is doing a fair business. He has been the owner of 
a residence here nearly ever since his arrival. As a just reward for 
the sacrifices made in its service, the United States government has 
granted him a pension. Mr. Marshall is a member of the Mazeppa 
Masonic lodge. He is a thorough republican, and orthodox in reli- 
gion. He was married in February, 1857, to Emaretta Francisco, of 
Spanish and French parentage, born in Indiana. Their two children 
are at home, and were born as noted opposite their names : Warren, 
December 14, 1864 ; Mary, January 1, 1868. 

James G. Eichaedson, hardware dealer. Lake City, is a son of 
John and SelinaKichardson, of Connecticut. The family dwelt for some 
generations in that commonwealth, and the subject of this paragraph 
was born in Berlin, in 1837. The family soon after removed to New 
Haven, where he was reared. At sixteen he began to learn carriage- 
making, which he followed several years. In 1861 he went to Hil- 
ton Head, South Carolina, and carried on a mercantile trade there 
three years. He returned to Connecticut, and was married there in 
1864, to Miss Adeline Judd, a native of that state. This couple set 
out for Minnesota on a wedding trip. While visiting friends in Lake 
City, Mr. Richardson met a Mr. Perrigo, who made him an advan- 
tageous business proposition. The hardware and machinery firm of 
J*errigo & Richardson was then organized, and the wedding trip of 
the junior partner was prolonged to a period of five years. He was 
afterward associated with a brother in the same line of trade, which 
has been continued to the present. Mr. Richardson has been active 



1132 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in fostering the schools of Lake City, and served some time on its 
school board ; was also mayor of the city three terms. He was 
baptized in the Episcopal church when six years old, but is now an 
unbeliever ; was many years treasurer of the Episcopal Sunday 
school here. In political contests was always a supporter of re})ubli- 
can principles. 

William D. Angell, druggist, was born in Edmiston, Otsego 
county. New York, May 23, 1835. He is the youngest son of David 
and Huldah Angell, and grandson of Jonathan Angell, who was 
born in Exeter, New York. David Angell was born on his father's 
homestead in Exeter in 1798, and is still living in Burlington, same 
county. The mother of William D. Angell died when he was but 
three months old, and his father afterwai-d married Abigail, daughter 
of Benedict Oatley, a soldier of the war of 1812. Mr. Angell helped 
his father to clear a farm in New York, and received a fair common- 
school education. He remained on the same farm till 1862, when he 
paid a visit to the west. After spending nine months in Mazeppa, 
he returned to New York. In the fall of 1866 he again came to 
Mazeppa, and the next year opened a boot and shoe store. Here 
he was married to Miss Alice, daughter of Benjamin Southwick, of 
New York. Mrs. Angell was born in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania. 
Early in 1870, immediately after his marriage, he again took up his 
abode in New York, and remained six years. Since the spring of 
1876 he has been a resident of Mazeppa, and engaged in the sale of 
drugs. In 1877 he built the store which he now occupies. From a 
small beginning, he has built up a successful business, and is a lead- 
ing citizen of the village. He is a republican and a Freethinker. 

Ira Crane, Lake City, is one of the sixth generation of that name 
born in New Jersey, and first saw light at New Providence, in 1808, 
being a son of Joseph Crane. The family is of English origin, and 
dwelt for several generations at West Haven, Connecticut. The 
subject of this brief sketch was reared on a farm, and went to New 
York city to learn the tailor's trade when sixteen years old. Some- 
where about 1830 he went to Crawfordsville, Indiana, where he 
pursued his occupation till his removal to Lake City in the spring of 
1865. Here he kept a merchant tailor's shop eleven years, retiring 
from active life in 1876. His religion has always been the golden 
rule. Politically, has ever been a straightforward republican. At 
Crawfordsville he married Frances Matilda A. Wilhite, who was 
born in Kentucky, July 19, 181 4, and died in 1861. There were 



EAKLY SETTLEES. 1133 

eight children, of whom six are now living. The youngest son, 
Edward, is at Granite Falls, Minnesota, in jewelry business. Ann 
Elizabeth (Mrs. A. P. Watson) lives at Crawfordsville. Salena H. 
died here, aged thirty. Mary Isabel (Crawford), Crawfordsville. Sarah 
C. (Mrs. M. E. Merrill), home here. Julia (Mrs. F. H. Kellogg), 
San Francisco. The firstborn, a son, died in infancy. 

Charles Elwood Crane was born February 22, 1850, and was, 
therefore, but fifteen years old when he came to Lake City. At 
eighteen he was apprenticed to George K. Saylor, jeweler, and 
served three years. In the spring of 1873 he opened a jewelry 
establishment, and soon found business growing so fast that he could 
not attend to it alone. Before the close of the year he took in his 
elder brother as a partner, and the business has steadily increased on 
their hands. In the fire of 1882 their store was destroyed by fire, 
but most of the stock was saved. They immediately proceeded to 
build the store now occupied by them, on the west side of Center 
street. It is a handsome brick structure, and contains a capacious 
fire-proof vault. The store and stock represent a capital of about 
fifteen thousand dollars. Mr. Crane is a member of the Jewelers' 
League, of ISTew York city. Politically, he agrees with his father. 
December 26, 1878, he married Miss Cora, daughter of II. D. Wick- 
ham, one of the earliest business men of Lake City, and now a 
prominent resident. 

James C. Hassinger, merchant, Lake City, is a grandson of 
Jacob Hassinger, who served in the United States army during the 
war of 1812. The latter was a native of Germany. W. H. and 
Catharine Hassinger, parents of James C, were natives of Penn- 
sylvania, and the latter was born to them in Mifflin county in March, 
1841. His education was completed at a high school in Kishqui- 
quillis Yalley and the academy at Locke's Mills. On August 16, 
1861, he entered the Union arm}^, enlisting in the 49th Penn. regt., 
which served in the army of the Potomac. Mr. Hassinger was an 
actor in many serious engagements, among the most important of 
which may be mentioned those of Second Bull Run, Yorktown, 
the seven days before Richmond, Antietam, Gettysburg, battles of 
the Wilderness and Winchester. In the seven days' fight in front 
of Richmond he was made prisoner, and lay in confinement at 
Libb}^ prison and Belle Isle four months. He was then exchanged 
and resumed active service. In October, 1864, he was honorably 
discharged, having served a term of three years and earned a i-etire- 



1134 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ment from the hardships of war. In the spring of 1865 he came to 
Minnesota and rented and tilled a farm near Lake City for a year. 
He then entered the store of Patton & Sons, whom he served eight 
years as clerk. In 1874 he went into the grocery trade, and con- 
tinned till May 1, 1883. On January 1, 1884, he became a partner 
with Stout & Dwelle, dealers in clothing, and the firm is now Stout, 
Dwelle &.Hassinger. This liouse has an advantageous location on 
the corner of Center and Washington streets, and is doing a fine 
business. Mr. Hassinger was married October, 1867, to Mary E. 
Wills, daughter of W. R. Wills, of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Hassinger 
was born in Ohio. Of five children given to this couple but two 
are living, namely, Atillia and Florence, aged fourteen and two 
years, respectively. Mr. Hassinger is one of the present city coun- 
cillors, and a director of the First National Bank. He is a member 
of the Knights Templar, and attended the grand conclave in San 
Francisco in the summer of 1883 as a delegate. In politics he is a 
republican, and is a communicant in the Presbyterian church. He 
is prompt in action, and enjoys the respect due to men of cordial 
and sterling character. 

David L. Philley, farmer and real-estate dealer, is a grandson 
of Remembrance Philley, who served through the revolution under 
Washington, and son of Isaac and Eliza Philley, of jSTew York 
birth. The family name is of Irish origin, but the mother of Re- 
membrance was Scotch. David Philley was born September 8, 
1823, in McDonough, Chenango county, New York. He was reared 
on a farm and received a meagre common-school education. At 
twenty-one he began to teach and educate himself. He taught 
eighteen winters in all. He engaged there, as here, buying and 
improving farms and then selling them. He was married March 5, 
1849, to Clarissa L. Eaton, who was born in Willet, Cortland county ; 
her father, Jolm Eaton, was born in TJtica. In 1856 Mr. Philley 
visited Maze])pa on a prospecting tour, and bought two hundred 
and forty acres of land. Some years later he took up permanent 
residence in this county, living some years on a farm in Chester. In 
the fall of 1874 he moved to Lake City. During the next season he 
built his present fine residence in Mazeppa, and occupied it as soon 
as completed. He is now the possessor of twenty-one hundred 
acres, of which thirteen hundred are in Lac Qui Parle county. Mr. 
Philley is a member of Mazeppa lodge, I.O.G.T., and is a Free- 
thinker. His five children reside as follows : Melinda (Mrs. A. D. 



EARLY SETTLERS. 1135 

Stowell), Chester; Isaac L., Lake Benton ; John E., Chester ; Mur- 
ray, near elder brother ; Yioki (Mrs. Ed. Noonan), here. 

Elam Black is a grandson of John B. Black, who served in the 
colonial army during the revolution. John B., son of the latter, 
was a native of Bradford, Connecticut, as was his wife, Lydia. 
This couple settled on a farm in Smithfield, Madison county, New 
York, where the subject of this sketch was given to them on Decem- 
ber 15, 1814. In 1832 he went to Huron county, Ohio, and was 
there married, November 1, 1838, to Amanda Harrington, a native 
of New York. In 1856 he removed to Washington county, Wis- 
consin, and soon after settled on a farm near Warren, Illinois. In 
1863 he enlisted in the United States service, in Co. K, 31st Wis. 
Vols., and was discharged on account of ill health before the close 
of that year. In the spring of 1865 he again entered the service, in 
the 23d 111. regt, and was stationed at Richmond, Virginia. In the 
fall of 1865 he settled in Mazeppa, and since 1873 has been in the 
employ of the Mazeppa Mill Co. Mr. Black is a Baptist in religious 
preferences, and a republican in politics. He is a member of the 
I.O.O.F. here. George, his eldest son, resides at Warren. All the 
rest are in Mmnesota; W. W., here; James E., Luverne; the 
others in Mazeppa. Helena (Mrs. Charles J. Arnold), R. W., 
Alice (Mrs. G. B. Franklin), Eva (Mrs. Charles Pehl). 

William Wallace Black, son of the above, was born Novem- 
ber 29, 1811, at Monroeville, Huron county, Ohio. He received a 
good common-school education, meantime giving assistance to his 
father's farming operations. At nineteen he took up harnessmak- 
ing, which was his occupation for many years. On August 2, 1861, 
he enlisted in an independent battalion then forming at Galena, and 
subsequently consolidated with the 3d Mo. Cav. This regiment 
was employed in scouting in Missouri and Arkansas. In the sum- 
mer of 1863 Mr. Black was discharged, and re-enlisted in the follow- 
ing December, in the ITth 111. Cav., and was elected first lieutenant 
of Co. F. This regiment was commanded by the subsequent Gov. 
Beveredge, of Illinois, and saw hard service in Missouri. During 
most of the time the captain was absent on detached service, and 
the companj^ was under command of Mr. Black. The history of 
the company states that it traveled by rail, steamboat and in the 
saddle, over fifteen thousand miles. At one time twelve hundred 
miles were made during fifty-nine days spent in the saddle. This 
was during the famous pursuit of the rebel, Gen. Price, during which 
69 



1136 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

this company led a charge of four miles, in which twenty-two thou- 
sand rebels were driven back. The principal engagements were 
those of Allen Station, Kocalope, Booneville, California, Sedalia, 
Syracuse, Lexington and Utonia. When the company was mustered 
out, December 18, 18G5, less than one-half of its original men were 
left. On April 19, 1866, Mr. Black became a resident of Mazeppa, 
and in the following fall bought an interest in a harness-shop. This 
he soon sold, and in the fall of 1867 established the first harness- 
shop in Zumbrota. After two years of business there, he sold out 
and returned to Mazeppa, where has ever since been his home. He 
again opened a shop here, and conducted the business some years. 
In August, 1880, he was appointed a postal clerk on the route be- 
tween St. Paul and Breckenridge ; was soon transferred to the 
Midland railroad ; then ran between St. Paul and La Crosse, and 
now between the former city and Chicago. Mr. Black has always 
been an active republican ; has served often on local committees ; 
was several years town clerk and supervisor here ; has taken great 
interest in schools, and been most of the time an officer of the village 
district. He was four years master of the Masonic lodge here, and 
is also a member of the chapter at Zumbrota. On December 22, 
1864, Mr. Black was united in marriage to Miss Dora Dudley, a 
native of Galena, Illinois. Her father, John Dudley, came from 
England. George W., the eldest child of this couple, was killed by 
the cars here on October 23, 1881. The other children were born 
as follows: Dora B., May 3,1868; Alice Eva, January 8, 1871; 
Koy W., April 10, 1873; William W., September 11, 1875; Edgar 
D., January 23, 1878; Georgiana M., November 4, 1882. 

Ralph W. Black, brother of last above subject, was born at the 
same place August 26, 1849. He was therefore in his sixteenth year 
when he came here with his father. At the time of his father's 
enlistment he also engaged in the service as a drummer. As soon 
as he was fairly located at the seat of war he became anxious to carry 
a gun. In order to gain this end he kicked in the heads of the drum, 
for which he was incarcerated in the guardhouse. On his release, 
however, he was given a gun and carried it till his discharge. 
Shortly after arriving here he went to Red Wing and learned the 
trade of harnessmaker, which he has ever since followed, — here in 
Mazeppa since 1874. He is now manager of N. B. Smith's shop 
here. In 1875 Mr. Black was married to Miss Mary, daughter of 
Albert Braman, both of Connecticut. He has one daughter, 



EAELY SETTLEKS. 1137 

Georgiana B., bora August 28, 1881. Mr. Black agrees with bis 
father and brother in politics. He is a member of the Mazeppa 
lodge, LO.O.F. 

Charles A. Arnold, farmer, was born in 18-10, in the town of 
Kush, Jo Daviess county, Illinois. His parents were Adam and 
Anna M. Arnold, of Pennsylvania, and were among the pioneer 
settlers of that state. He was reared on a farm there, and married 
Helena Black, daughter of Elam, elsewhere sketched, January 25, 
1862. On the 5th of August, same year, he enlisted in the 96th 
111. regt., and joined the army of the Tennessee, serving till June 
28, 1865. "Was in the following battles: Chickamauga, Buzzard's 
Koost, Rocky Ford Bridge, Resaca, New Oak Church, Pine Moun- 
tain, Kenesaw Mountain, Pearl Tree Creek, Atlanta, Jonesboro, 
Franklin, Nashville. Although he received no wounds, his health 
was permanently injured, the effects being more apparent as time 
goes by. In the winter of 1860-1 he was here and bought landy 
which he afterward sold. After the war closed he took up his resi- 
dence in Mazeppa, where he owns a house and two lots. He is an 
enthusiastic republican. Orthodox in faith. Has seven children, 
christened thus : Julia A. (Mrs. James Stull), lives in town of 
Mazeppa; Charles E., Edith M., Freddie H., Bertie Freeman, 
Wayne and Glenn. 

John Megers, farmer, was born in 1812, eighteen miles west of 
the city of Luxemburg. He was married in 1837, to Anna Leid, 
and left his native land ten years later, settling in Sheldon, 
Wyoming county, New York. In 1865 he became a resident of 
Chester, where his wife died in April, 1881. His first purchase of 
land here included eighty acres on section 5, which is now in the 
hands of his youngest son. He afterward bought forty acres, that 
he now owns. At present he resides with his younger son. Him- 
self and family are members of the Roman Catholic church. There 
are three children : Nicholas J.', Mazeppa ; John N. (see below) ; 
Anna (Mrs. William Janti), section 6, Chester. 

John N. Megers, son of above, was born March 26, 1841. Has 
always been a farmer. Was twenty-four years old when he came 
with his father to Chester. He now resides on section 8, where he 
has eighty acres, besides that received from his father as above 
noted. In 1872 he married Justina Schroeder and is the father of 
six children, christened as below : Lena, Peter, Lucy, Mary, Louise 
and George. 



1138 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Nicholas J. Majerus lias made liis home in Minnesota since 
1860, three years being spent in the service of his adopted country. 
He was born near the city of Luxemburg, September 29, 1839, 
On the day that he was eight years old, his parents landed in New 
York, and he was reared on a farm in Wyoming county, that state. 
In 1860 he went to Michigan, and after staying there a short time, 
came to Red Wing, where he made his home till he entered the 
army. On August 16, 1862, he enlisted in Co. G., 7th Minn. Inf., 
under Capt. Williston, and served three years and one day. For 
fourteen months the regiment was employed in fighting the Indians, 
and saw some lively skirmishing. In October, 1863, it joined the 
army of the Tennessee, and was active in several hard-fought battles. 
Among the principal ones were those of Tupelo, Tallehatchie, Nash- 
ville, and the Mobile forts. While in the army, he bought eighty 
acres of land in Belvidere, Goodhue county, but sold this on his dis- 
charge, and bought a quarter-section in Chester, on which he lived 
two years. After a residence of one and one-half years in Lake 
'City, he became a resident of Mazeppa, in 1873. He bought the 
l)uilding on the corner of First and Walnut streets, where he is now 
in business, on July 28, that year, and moved here witli his family 
next day. He is now the owner of two residences beside. He was 
married November 3, 1869, to Annie K. Grofi, a native of the same 
locality as himself. They have four children, whose names are : 
Clara G., Mary A., Justina and Ellora. Mr. Majerus was reared in 
the Roman Catholic church. Has always voted the republican 
ticket. He is a member of the Masonic and Odd-Fellows' lodges in 
Mazeppa. 

Ira W. Belden, blacksmith, is a grandson of Emanuel Belden, 
of English descent. Erastus, son of Emanuel Belden, was born in 
New York, and became a successful medical practitioner. He mar- 
ried Julia A. Lines, a native of the same state. On June 11, 1837, 
they dwelt at Elyria, Ohio, at which time and place was ushered 
into existence the subject of this sketch. They soon returned to 
Steuben county. New York, where Ira Belden was reared, attending 
the common schools till sixteen years of age. He then began a 
three years' apprenticeship at his trade, and after it was finished sgt 
off for the west. After a short time si)ent in Iowa, he settled at 
Frankford, Fillmore county, this state, and brought his parents there. 
His father died there in 1866, and his mother a year later, at 
Rochester. He was eight years constable at Frankford, and one 



EARLY SETTLEES. 1139 

term deputy-sheriif. On the outbreak of the Sioux war in 1862, he 
enlisted in the Minnesota Eangers, and served fourteen months on 
the frontier, taking part in several encounters. He then joined the 
6th Minn. Inf , at Lake Ponchatrain, and was with s regiment 
till its discharge, in November, 1865. The only severe engage- 
ments were those required in reducing the forts about Mobile harbor. 
Immediately after the close of the war he settled in Wabasha 
county, and has been in this neighborhood ever since. For one 
year he tilled a farm in Bear valley. He is now in the employ of 
A. J. Taft, at Mazeppa. He has always been a democrat, but has not 
voted for ten years. In regard to theology, is a Universalist. He 
was married in 1857, to Amanda Raymond, a native of Green 
county, Wisconsin, and is the father of seven children, all of whom 
are at home. Their names are: Scott E., Ralph O., Otho, Iris and 
Ira (twins), Clyde and Lois. 

Augustus W. Mathews, farmer, was born in Sumner, Oxford 
county, Maine, March 29, 1837. Both his grandfathers were revo- 
lutionary soldiers. His father, Winthrop Mathews, was a native of 
Maine, as was his bride, Miss Mary Barber. Augustus Mathews was 
reared on a farm, and made good use of the educational facilities 
afforded by the common schools of the Pine Tree State. At eighteen 
years of age he took up carpenter-work in Massachusetts, leaving 
home to do so. This trade he followed several years. In April, 
1861, at the first call for troops, he responded by enlistment, but his 
regiment (the '10th Me.) was not mustered in until the following 
September. He participated in the battles at Winchester, Cedar 
Mountain, South Mountain and Antietam, beside many less serious 
engagements. Nearly one-fourth of the regiment was lost at Cedar 
Mountain, and nineteen of his company of forty-six was lost. In 
the spring of 1865 Mr. Mathews became a resident of Mazeppa, 
where he continued to follow his trade, and for three years was 
engaged in the sale of machinery. He is now a member of the town 
board of suj^ervisors ; is a democrat, and a Universalist. For ten 
years he resided on a farm of two hundred and forty acres, which he 
still owns, one mile from Mazeppa village in Zumbrota. In July, 
1868, Mr. Mathews was married to Mirnette Woodbury, who died 
February 25, 1880, leaving two daughters. Here are their names 
and dates of birth : Cora E., November 8, 1875 ; Susie M., May 
14, 1878. On August 26, 1881, these children were provided with 
a foster-mother in the person of Rhoda B., widow of Anson L. 



1140 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Carrier. (Mr. Carrier was one of the pioneer settlers of Mazeppa, 
taking a claim in 1855 on section 9, where Mr. and Mrs. Mathews' 
home is now. He was a native of New York, and married Khoda 
B. Segar in 1868, having previously married Maria Tibbetts, who 
died in 1864. Mr. Carrier died June 17, 1878, leaving no offspring. 
He was a town supervisor at the time of his death, and had held the 
office several years ; was a stanch democrat, and was the candidate 
of that party for the legislature in 1877. He was defeated by a very 
few votes, notwithstanding the district is strongly republican. During 
the last six months of the civil war he served in the army.) 

Lewis B. Mathews, farmer, is an elder brother of the above, and 
was born October 8, 1832, in the same place, receiving the same 
training on farm and at school. From seventeen to twenty years of 
age he followed the sea, the first two years on a Newfoundland 
fishing craft, and subsequently on a West India coaster. He then 
spent four years in teaming and express business in Boston. In the 
spring of 1857 he came to Minnesota, and spent the summer on the 
government survey in the northern part of the state. The following 
winter was s])ent in Mazeppa, and next spring he engaged with the 
Dakota Land Co., of St. Paul, in locating and platting town-sites. 
For two winters following he taught the Mazeppa school. The year 
1860 was spent in the market at Galena, Illinois. In 1861 he bought 
forty acres ot land in Goodhue county, near Mazeppa, and has ever 
since followed farming, residing a large part of the time in the 
village. In 1868 he bought a farm just east of the village, and 
now has three hundred and sixty acres, all on section 5. He 
has erected a handsome residence near Trout Brook, with barns and 
other farm buildings, and is prepared to enjoy life. He was twelve 
years justice of the peace in this township ; was elected assessor in 
1864, again in 1868, and continuously ever since. In principle he 
has always been a democrat. Mr. Mathews was married on Christ- 
mas day, 1861, to Miss Adelia M., daughter of Joseph Ford. 
Their eldest child, Mina, is now the wife of Charles Walker, and 
resides at Rockford, Iowa. The rest are at home, christened as 
below : Addie, Lindsey L., Ettie M., Grace, Acsie and Max. 

Jacob Yotta, farmer, has been a resident of Mazeppa since 
1874, at which time he traded a farm in Iowa for two hundred and 
forty acres on section 5. Mr. Yotta has been somewhat unfortunate 
since residing here, having lost four crops. That of 1882 caught 
fire from the engine of a steam thresher, and was consumed. Mr. 



OTHEE IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1141 

Yotta is a native of Germany, being born in Ipstein, Bavaria, 
January 21, 1832. His wife Elizabeth (born Lutz) is a native of 
the same village, and was married to him in Iowa (whither he was 
brought by his parents at fourteen) on July 22, 1855. Mr. Yotta 
has always been a farmer, and never attended an English school a 
day. His natural intelligence, however, drove him to a cultivation 
of the language of his adopted country, and he is better informed 
toda}'^ than many native-born citizens. He has always been a 
republican. While within reach of the German Evangelical church, 
the family was united with it, and now attends the Congregational 
church at Mazeppa. The eldest child, Elizabeth, born August 10, 
1858, married L. B. Stull, and lives withni half a mile of her 
parents. The rest are all at home, and were born and christened 
as follows : Peter, November 17, 1860 ; William, January 19, 1863 ; 
John, August 20, 1865; Emma C., June 7, 1867 ; Jacob, Novem- 
ber 28, 1870; Henry, January 28, 1873; Frederick .C, July 1, 
1877. 



CHAPTEK XCV. 

OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONACffes. 

Hon. Henry D, Wedge was born in Warren, Litchfield county, 
Connecticut, June 21, 1840. His father is Horatio Wedge, of 
Waupun, Wisconsin. The family removed from Connecticut to 
Wisconsin when Henry was in his fifth year, locating in the town 
of Chester, Dodge county. His education was obtained at a country 
school and at the Waupun high school. He has taught school four 
terms, three of them in Minnesota. Soon after reaching his 
majority he went to Missouri, where he spent two years, but being 
still anxious to roam, he returned home and took a fresh start, this 
second time coming to Minnesota, where his father owned con- 
siderable real estate, situate on the rich and fertile Greenwood 
prairie. It was in the spring of 1866 that he took up his perma- 
nent residence on a portion of these paternal acres, on section 19, 
in the township of Plainview. He has been prospered in his 
chosen calling, and is now one of the wealthiest farmers in Wabasha 
county, owning about seven hundred acres of land, besides village 
property. Mr. Wedge resides on his farm in a fine brick house, 



1142 IIISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

erected in 1870, at a cost of three thousaiul dollars. Near liim are 
located two brothers, George and James, and a sister, wife of Mr. 
Mallory. Mr. Wedge is at present chairman of the township board 
of supervisors, is a republican in politics, and rej^resented the ])eople 
of the southern part of his county in the state legislature, in the 
session of 1879. He was married to Miss Helen L. Loveland, 
daughter of C. L. Loveland, of Dodge county, Wisconsin, January 
23, 1863. Five children have been born to them : Eugene, Eddy, 
Herbert, Winnie and Minnie. 

L. H. Whitmorp:, grocer, corner of Second and Pembroke streets. 
This business was established by the iirm of F. Stuelzel & Co., a 
little over three years since, and was only purchased by Mr. AVhit- 
more last spring (1883). The stock is quite complete, and includes 
staple and fancy groceries, fruits, vegetables, Hour and feed. Busi- 
ness employs two clerks, and one delivery-wagon. Sales of flour are 
one hundred and flfty sacks per month, and fifteen tons of feed ; 
grocery sales lead all others in city. L. II. Whitmore is a native of 
New York ; came to Wabasha in September, 1865, and in the fol- 
lowing year, in connection with his brother, H. J. AVhitmore, opened 
a flour, feed and grocery store on the corner of Second and Pembroke, 
now occupied by Drury. Business was continued until 1878, when 
H. J. Whitmore retired (to become postmaster of the city), and L. 
H. continued business one year and sold out ; was then engaged 
clerking in the postoffice and in the county offices until .he resumed 
business at the present stand, which he subsequently bought. He 
tronts thirty-flve feet on Second street, and has his storeroom in the 
rear on Pembroke. Mr. Whitmore was married in 18C1, in Chenango 
county. New Tork, to Miss E. A. Holt. They have four children : 
Linn Whitmore, born July 15, 1863, at present assistant cashier in 
the Wabasha Bank; C. H., clerking in his father's store; Gertie 
E., born July 15, 1874 ; Harry, born October 17, 1876. 

Hugh Hall, brother of Samuel, was born in Ireland, in 1828. 
At the age of twenty-four he was married, and his prospects for a 
happy and prosperous life were flattering. In a few months, how- 
ever, he was called to mourn the loss of his beloved wife. He 
removed to this country, and after residing in New York for several 
years, he came to AVabasha county, and in 1865 settled in this town- 
ship. He married a second wife, whom he has also survived. Mr. 
Hall has a fomily of three sons. Mr, Hall is a member of a Presby- 
terian church, and is an honest, hospitable man. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 



1143 



Rev. James Trobec, pastor of St. Felix Catliolic cliuvch, is a 
native of Austria. His studies were pursued at his native university, 
where he completed his classical and part of his theological course. 




and in 1864 removed to America. He completed his theological 
course at St. Vincent's, "Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, and 



1144: HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

was ordained the following year at St. Paul, in this state. His 
first parish was Belle Plaine, Morrison county, the services being 
held in French, and the congregation a mixture of Canadians, In- 
dians and half-breeds. In October, 1866, Father Trobec was as- 
signed to the parish here, and has now been seventeen years in charge, 
during which time, as appears from the records of the church, his 
work has been eminently successful. 

F. W. Winters, ftxrmer, was born in Hanover, June 11, 1840. 
He was one of eight children born to Frederick W. and Christina 
(Hupp) Winters, the latter of whom is still living in this state. In 
1852 the family emigrated to America, locating at Wheeling, West 
Virginia. Two years later they moved to Pike county, Illinois, and 
afterward to McDonald county. In 1865 they again sought a new 
home, this time locating in Chester township, on the farm our sub- 
ject now occupies. Here the elder Winters died in 1873. Mr. Win- 
ters was married December 16, 1873, to Fredrika Isensee, a native 
of Goodhue county. They have three children : Christina H., 
Henry C, Caroline E. He is a member of Lake City Chapter, No. 
12, F.A.M. In politics, he is a republican. He now owns four 
hundred and. forty acres of fine land, four hundred of which is im- 
proved. He also owns a business room in Winona. 

Welcome Wallace Anderson, farmer, Zumbi'o, is a son of Levi 
and Harriet (Carpenter) Anderson, of New York, and was born at 
Rome, that state, June 3, 1851. His youth was passed on a farm 
there, with little opportunity for education. He is a man of natural 
endowments, and is a good citizen ; politically, a democrat. For six 
years he has served as town constable, making an eflicient ofiicer, 
and has several times captured ofi^enders where others had failed. 
He came to this town in 1866, and was several years employed as a 
farm laborer. In 1875 he bought forty acres on section 18, where 
his home is, and four years later bought eighty more. He is now 
comfortably situated on a fine farm. October 12, 1873, he married 
Ellen C. Pryor, whose parentage is elsewliere shown. The births 
of their children is here given : Lessie May, November 21, 1871 ; 
Wallace Welcome, May 7, 1877; Edith E., January 25, 1879; 
Harriet C, January 29, 1881. 

William H. Anderson, is a brother of the aJaove, born in the 
same place March 12, 1816. He received a limited common-school 
education. All his life has been occupied in farming. When twenty 
years old he came to Zumbro, and was some time occupied in farm 



OTHEK IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1145 

labor for others, and in renting land. In 1867 he bought eighty 
acres of land on section 19, and has lived thereon since 1869. This 
land he has cleared of the undergrowth which covered it, and has 
erected comfortable buildings. He is an independent democrat, and 
served the town two years as town constable. All his possessions 
have been accumulated by labor since his arrival here. December 
23, 1867, he married Mary Etta Lyman, who was born in North 
Ferrisburg, Addison county, Yermont. 

Abram J. Anderson, eldest son of this family, was born atKome 
October 9, 1838. He had but brief opportunities for education, and 
left home at twenty to secure a home in the west. In August, 1858, 
he arrived in Zumbro and at once purchased one hundred and twenty 
acres on section 18. Four years later he sold this and settled where 
he now dwells, on section 19. Here he has one hundred and twenty 
acres, besides twenty acres timber in Mazeppa, a quarter-section in 
Lac Qui Parle county, and two lots in the village of Appleton. He 
was member of the board of supervisors in 1865, 1868-9, and chair- 
man of that body in 1870-1-2-3-4-5-6-7. Politically he is a demo- 
crat. September 23, 1873, he was united in matrimony to Miss 
Melvina Mitchell, who was born in Sangerville, Maine ; her parents 
—Joseph S. and Lovina Mitchell— were of Irish and English origin. 
Mrs. Anderson is a Universalist, but her husband has no particular 
religious views— although not an atheist. Their children were born 
as follows : Mott M., July 20, 1874 ; Blanche E., March 24, 1876 ; 
Lynn P., July 12, 1880 ; Jesse S., August 6, 1882. 

Ja^ies M. McMillin (deceased), Lake City, was born in Gallia 
county, Ohio, June 10, 1S12. His great-grandfather, while on the 
way from Scotland to America, was shipwrecked and picked up by a 
vessel bound to Philadelphia. Two brothers of this ancestor, who 
were in company with him, were set down in the same way, one in 
New York and the other in Canada ; and not until after the revolution 
were mutual discoveries of one another's whereabouts made. The 
Canadian resident entered the British army, and was made prisoner 
by the continental soldiers, and placed under guard of his brother ; 
and by conversation they discovered each the other's identity. The 
first mentioned of these brothers settled in Virginia, and was not 
discovered by the others till later. Samuel McMillin, son of the 
Virginian Scotchman, served as a soldier in the continental army. 
Edward, son of the latter, married Sarah Reed, and removed to Ohio 
in the earliest days 6f that territory, where was born to him th 



.1146 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

subject of this ])ai-agra|>li. James M. McMilliii was reared on a farm 
in Huntingdon township, Gallia county, and pursued his father's 
vocation till 1S42. Macinda A., his wife, is a daughter of George 
and Nancy (Jackson) Stickleman, all of Yirginian birth. Mrs. 
McMillan was born eight months after her husband, in Hottentot, 
Virginia, and they were united for life December 17, 1833. 
For six years Mr. McMillin was deputy-sheriff of Whiteside 
county, Illinois, and was kept constantly traveling in the 
discharge of his duty. He became a resident of Minnesota in 
1862, and was engaged in farming four years in the town of 
Chester, this county, being ])ostmaster at Bear Valley some 
time. He also served as justice of the peace during his residence 
there. The republican party is entitled to the credit of all his public 
acts. Since 1866 Lake City claimed him as a citizen. On the 
fiftieth anniversary of their wedding Mr. and Mrs. McMillin cele- 
brated the occasion in a fitting manner, surrounded by their descen- 
dants and many old-time friends. They were presented with a 
handsome sum in gold coin. In religious faith this couple are 
Universalists. All save two of their children live in the city — the 
absent one's residence being noted below, the names appearing in 
order of birth : Alonzo C. ; John L. ; William Harvey ; Samantha J. 
(Judd); EmmaR. (Mrs. Alonzo Mathews), Red Wing ; Nancy Celestina 
(Mrs. W. E. Stringham), Fergus Falls, Minnesota. While splitting 
wood one evening in January, 1884, Mr. McMillin received a 
wound in the left eye from a flying stick, and the sight and sub- 
stance of the optic were entirely destroyed. He appeared to recover 
steadily from tlie shock, although in great pain, but suddenly sank 
and passed away on the morning of February 17. He had partaken 
of breakfast with the family, but his system is supposed to have 
suddenly given away under the strain upon it. 

William Harvey McMillin, barber. Lake City, is the third son 
of James M., and was born September 30, 1839, at Wilkes ville, 
Ohio, and was but three years of age when the family removed to 
Illinois. After he was eighteen years old he cared for himself and 
worked at butchering three years. He came to Minnesota in 1859, 
and assisted his brother in farming at Bear valley, attending school 
there one winter terra. Returning to Illinois he was among the 
first to respond to the call of his country in its hour of danger. 
Entering Co. B, of the 13th 111. Vols., he saw a great deal of hard 
service in the western army. The following endorsement, which is 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1147 

found in red ink upon his discharge, explains itself: "Said W. H. 
McMillin was with the command in the actions at Chickasaw Bayou, 
Arkansas Post, Jackson, May 14 and July 10-16, 1863, siege of 
Yicksburg and assault May 22, 1S63, Tuscumbia, Lookout Moun- 
tain, Mission Ridge and Ringgold ; has marched over thirty-five 
hundred miles and faithfully performed the duties of a soldier." 
Among other notable engagements in which he participated may be 
named Wilson's Creek, Pea Ridge, Buzzard's Roost, Snake's Gap 
and Milligan's Bend. He was detailed in the Mississippi scouts, 
and for five months commanded a squad of seventy-five mounted 
men, doing excellent service, losing only three men while passing 
through many hot skirmishes. At one time, after being driven 
seven miles under the spur, his party of ten men was driven over a 
steep blufl", where the horses slid down on their haunches, killing one 
man and a horse. After thus escaping, Mr. McMillin laid an 
ambuscade, and killed or captured nearly the entire force of rebel 
pursuers, eighty in number, being reinforced by two companies of 
infantry. After this he was detailed with nineteen comrades as 
bod}^ guard to Gen. P. J. Osterhaus, where he served till the close 
of the war. At Chickasaw Bayou his colonel, John B. Wyman, was 
killed by a sharpshooter, and " Sandy Bill," as our subject was best 
known to his comrades, crept through the bushes for fifteen rods 
and picked off the sharpshooter. Mr. McMillin was never wounded 
by a bullet, but was knocked down by the bursting of a shell in front 
of Yicksburg, and his head and neck partially paralyzed so that he 
was not fit for duty for some time. He was laid up with dropsy in 
the old marine hospital at St. Louis for three months at another 
time. Was never in the guardhouse or under arrest. While serv- 
ing as body guard to Gen. Osterhaus he acted most of the time as 
dispatch-carrier. While on this duty on one occasion, he rode half 
a mile under galling fire, and thus saved two thousand comrades 
from captivity and the pangs of hell in Libby prison. Another 
time, with three companions, he charged over the rebel pickets, 
gained the bluff across Chickamauga creek, and after running a 
half-mile gauntlet, gained a covered bridge ; here they placed their 
horses across the entrance of the bridge, and by firing beneath their 
bodies kept the the rebel cavalry at bay until artillery and reinforce- 
ments were brought to bear. In this movement the Union forces did 
not lose a man. Returning to Minnesota at the close of the war, Mr. 
McMillin engaged in farming a short time ; removed to Lake City 



1148 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

and worked in a butcher-shop tliree years ; for past nine years 
lias kept a barber-shop — last two with a partner. February 22, 

1865, he was united in marriage with Miss Caroline Culver, who 
was born in Walnut, Illinois. They have one adopted daughter, 
Bertie, born July 16, 1880. Mr. McMillin is district G.D.M.AV. in 
the A.O.U.W. He is chief of the Lake City Hook and Ladder 
Company, and has had many narrow escapes in the pursuit of his 
duty. 

Louis Fkeiiieit, farmer, was born in Worsetz, Prussia, Decem- 
ber 1, 1835. He remained there on a farm till twenty-five years old, 
when he came to America, and engaged in farm labor in Green 
Lake county, Wisconsin. He came to Chester in 1866, and bought 
one-fourth of section 11, which he has handsomely improved. It 
was unbroken when it fell into his hands, but is now under the plow, 
and graced with large and handsome buildings. At one time Mr. 
Freiheit was three thousand dollars in debt, but is now independent. 
He was a charter member of St. John's Lutheran church, and^s now 
treasurer of that body. Politically, has always been a republican. 
He was married in June, 1871, to Angell Stemmenn, who was born 
in Hanover, Germany. Their children were born and christened as 
follows: June 16, 1874, Henry; May 9, 1876, Emma; June 5, 1883, 
Lena. 

Ferdinand Freiheit, farmer, is a brother of the last subject, and 
was born in the same place in April, 1845. In 1865 he emigrated to 
Wisconsin, and came thence to Chester four years later. He was 
engaged in farm labor till 1873, when he bought one-fourth of section 
2. This was wild at that time, and he proceeded to subdue it. He 
has built a comfortable house and large barn at a cost of fourteen 
hundred dollars, and a granary that cost three hundred dol- 
lars more. January 1, 1877, he married Minnie Knaap, whose 
birthplace is within two miles of his own. He is a republican, and 
all his family has been baptized in the Lutheran church. There are 
i'oxu' children, given as below : Clara, May 14, 1879 ; William, 
August 5, 1880; Theodore, July 5, 1881; Emily, April 12, 1883. 

Capt. J. H. Mullen, attorney-at law, admitted to practice at 
the spring term of the district court, held in Wabasha, in 1883. 
Capt, Mullen, as he is universally called, came to this county in 

1866, the year after the war closed, and in which he had seen over 
four years of active service, having enlisted June 5, 1861, and being 
mustered out in August, 1865, as captain of Co. C, 12th regt. Conn. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1149 

Yol. Inf. The captain saw service with Gen. McClellan on the 
peninsula; was with Butler's forces at New Orleans, with Bank's 
command at Port Hudson, and on the Red River campaign; with 
Grant at Petersburg, and the battles around Richmond; then with 
Sheridan in the Shenandoah valle}^ returning with him to Peters- 
burg, and participating in the closing struggle of the war at Five 
Forks ; was with the army in the grand review at Washington, and 
being ordered to Savannah, Georgia, did not go immediately north, 
but was in the service until August, when they returned home and 
were mustered out at Hartford, August, 1865. The following year, 
1866, located in Wabasha, and has since been engaged in trade, 
merchandising and farming. His farming operations are carried on 
along the line of the Hastings & Dakota railway, where he has 
a tract of about thirteen hundred acres seventy miles west of 
St. Paul. April 15, 1874, Capt. Mullen married Miss M. B. 
Downer, daughter of John B. Downer, one of the old pioneers of 
Wabasha county. Mrs. Mullen has a decided talent for painting, 
which has been to some extent cultivated, and work on canvass and 
silk is really artistic, and would do no discredit to a collection of 
genuine merit. Some of her decorative work on panels, in water 
colors, is exquisite in color and naturalness. Two childi'en have been 
■born to the captain and his wife : Carrie, born October 10, 1875; 
Downer, born May 20, 1880. 

John Springer was the son of a German farmer and butcher, 
and was born in Cassel, Germany, May 11, 1844. He spent the 
usual time acquiring a rudimentary education in the common school 
of the Fatherland, and then learned the trade of blacksmithing, after 
which he entered the army to serve the allotted time, but at the close 
of the second year of his military life, he deserted, and took passage 
at Bremen for America. In the month of December, 1866, he 
landed at Castle Garden, and at once hastened west to Oakwood 
township, Wabasha county, Minnesota, where a brother was engaged 
in agricultural pursuits. He proceeded to erect a shop in Bremen, 
and worked at the forge here for four years, then worked in Winona 
for a few years, after which he again resumed his trade in the little 
shop at Bremen for another period of four years. The spring of 
1876 he disposed of his Bremen property, and came to Plainview, 
where he opened a shop. Five years later he opened warerooms, 
and began to handle farming implements. He was married in 1870, 
to Augusta Beyer, daughter of Frederick Beyer, a pioneer farmer of 



1150 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Zumbro township. Five children are the fruit of this union, viz 
Frank, Willie, Mary, Joliny, Bertha. Mr. Springer was ])os 
master at Bremen under President Grant's administration. Is a re- 
publican ill politics, a member of the Plaiiiview Lodge of Odd- 
Fellows. 

Emric Polson, farmer, was born in 1835, in Sweden. He is the 
eldest son of Paul and Julia Poison, of Sweden. He lived in 
Sweden, at home until twenty-two, when he came to America, and 
settled in Illinois. After three years he enlisted in the 8th 111. Cav., 
and served one and one-half years under McClellan and Burnside. 
He was discharged and came to Minnesota and enlisted in the 2d 
Minn. Cav., and served in Gen. Sulla's expedition to the Yellow- 
stone and Bad Lands. After this remarkably long saddle service, 
he returned to Minnesota in 1866, and settled on his present farm, a 
quarter-section of fine land, nearly all cultivated. He is working 
into stock-raising as fast as possible. He was a member of the 
Grange. He is a member of the Norwegian Methodist Episcopal 
church. He is justice of peace and supervisor at present. In 
politics he has always been republican, and is one of our influential 
and enterprising citizens. He was married in 1879, to Sophia John- 
son, a native of Sweden. They have eight children. 

Lawrence William Appel, a Highland farmer, resides on a fine 
farm of two hundred and forty acres in West Indian Creek valley. 
He was born in Baden, Germany, September 17, 1842, his parents 
being Adam and Catherine (Eckert) Appel. In 1845 Mr. Appel, 
Sr., died of j'ellow fever in Texas, and two years later the widowed 
mother emigrated with her family to Mercer county, Pennsylvania, 
where she engaged in agricultural ])ursuits. Lawrence working on 
her farm summers, and attending winter schools until he reached 
his twentieth year, when he went to Franklin county, Pennsylvania, 
and learned the blacksmith trade, which he followed in the oil 
regions and railroad shops for several years in Meadville, Pittsburgh, 
Sharon and Middlesex. He was in Pittsburgh at the time the raider 
Morgan menaced the peace of that city. While on a visit to his 
brother Stephen, in Highland, in August, 1866, he was induced to 
open a blacksmith-shop, near what was then known as Hampe's 
Mill. In 1869 he bought the farm where he now resides, from E. 
Lathrop. November 11 of the same 3'ear he was married to Mar- 
garet Arvilla, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Brawley) Ilarncame, 
natives of Pennsylvania, and Wabasha county pioneers. M. Appel 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1151 

is a member of the Catholic church. He was a member of the board 
of supervisors in 1880. 

EvANDER Skillman, miller, has been a resident of Wabasha 
county since the spring of 1856, at which time he came here with 
his parents. The latter were natives of Sufiblk, Suffolk county, 
New York. The family is of Dutch descent. The great-grandfather 
of this subject, Thomas Skillman, had a son, Thomas, whose son, 
Francis M., married Jerusha Rogers, and dwelt thirty-two in the 
in the town of German, Chenango county, New York, where lie 
tilled a farm and taught school during the winter. Here was born 
Evander Skillman, on May 12, 183S. He was given a common- 
school education, and a farmer's training. In October, 1861, he 
enlisted in the 3d Minn. Inf., and was made first lieutenant of Co. 
G. He was soon commissioned regimental quartermaster. At the 
battle of Murfreesboro, in July, 1862, he was made prisoner with 
the regiment, but soon paroled. Returning to this state, he went 
on an expedition against the Sioux, on Red river, and was in several 
skirmishes with them at Fort Abercrombie. After being exchanged, 
he returned to the south, and was detailed in the early spring of 
1864, as quartermaster of the 113th U. S. regt. of colored soldiers. 
He participated in the capture of Yicksburg and Little Rock, and 
in the battle of Fitzhugh's woods, on the White river. After the 
close of the war of the rebellion, Mr. Skillman served on the Texas 
frontier, and was discharged on April 6, 1866. In the fall of that 
year he o])ened a general store at Mazeppa, which he sold out six 
years later. In 1873, in partnership with a brother, he built Trout 
Brook mill, on section 19, Chester, and has operated it ever since. 
He has thirty-four acres of land where the mill stands, and eighty 
acres near by, which he tills with the assistance of his sons. When 
only twenty-one years old, he was elected town superintendent of 
schools; while in Mazeppa, he was two years village justice; has 
also been elected justice and town clerk in Chester several terms. 
His political preferences are republican, and religious ideas liberal. 
He is a member of the Masonic order. In 1865 Mr. Skillman was 
united in marriage to Edith, daughter of Elijah Lout, of Mazeppa. 
They have five sons, born as follows : Francis E., April 28, 1867 ; 
Murray E., February 10, 1871 ; Stephen P., June 22, 1873 ; Foster, 
May 10, 1879 ; Dwight, December 23, 1881. 

Lawrence Powers, farmer, was born in County Waterford, Ire- 
land, in 1818. In 1846 he espoused Johanna Nash, and soon after 
70 



1152 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

emigrated to America. He first went to Michigan, where he resided 
for several years. In 1868 rehatives in Highland townsliip, in 
Wabasha county, induced Mr. Powers and his family to come to 
Minnesota. The same year he purchased from Edward Nash the 
farm on section 7, Highland, on which he now resides, and whick 
by hard labor and with the assistance of his sons, John and Patrick, 
he has greatly improved, one hundred and thirty-four acres of the 
quarter-section which comprises it being now in a high state of cul- 
tivation. The death of Mrs. Powers occurred here February 16, 
1879. There were seven children born to this couple, three of 
whom, namely, John, Patrick and Margaret, reside with their 
father at home. Mr. Powers and his family are members of the 
Oakwood Catholic church. In politics father and sons are alike 
independent. 

Oliver Gihbs, Jr., horticulturist. Lake City, whose name is 
familiar throughout southern Minnesota, and as well known in the 
office of the executive of State as in the humble cottage of his near- 
est neighbor, was born in the State of Vermont in 1832. He is a 
son of Oliver and Zilpha (Thomas) Gibbs, and on the paternal side 
a lineal descendant of Israel Putnam. Like his father, he was 
reared on a farm, where his time was divided between agricultural 
labor and attending the common country schools of the Green 
Mountain State. He learned the printer's trade in the office of the 
Rutland (Vermont) "Herald," and first started in business for him- 
self at Prescott, Wisconsin, in the publication of the "Transcript" 
in 1855, in company with Charles Young, now of Minneapolis. He 
also served Pierce as clerk for five years previous to the outbreak of 
the war, and in 1861 enlisted as battalion adjutant, 2d Wis. Cav., 
under Col. C. C. Washburn. After about one year's field service 
he was transferred to a confidential clerkship under Sec. Stanton, 
which he resigned in 1869 on account of failing health, contracted 
while in military service. The same year he removed to Minnesota 
and permanently located in Lake City, where he at once engaged in 
horticultural pursuits. He is now in his third year's service as sec- 
retary of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, being elected at 
their last meeting, in January, 1884, by acclamation. He was the 
representative of this state at the nineteenth biennial session of the 
American Pomological Society at Philadelphia, in September, 1883, 
where he was awarded and returned to Minnesota the Wilder silver 
medal for the best collection of apples and grapes from any part of 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1153 

North America. In 1884 he was appointed United States commis- 
sioner to re])resent the State of Minnesota at the cotton centennial 
and world's exposition at New Orleans, Louisiana, The most im- 
portant part of Mr. Gibbs' official duty as secretary of the State 
Horticultural Society is the compiling and editing of their annual 
report, a bound volume of five hundred pages. This is at present 
the only society connected with agriculture in Minnesota which, 
under the auspices of the state, publishes an annual report. Mr, 
Gibbs was married June 2, 1856, to Miss Rose Martin, a native of 
Vermont. Their children's names, in the order of their birth, are : 
Zilphia M., wife of Ed. R. Converse, of Palatine, Illinois ; Lottie, 
now a clerk in the pension office at Washington ; Nettie May, now 
Mrs. Frank Jackson, of Lyon county, Minnesota, and Maggie and 
Oliver, Jr., at home. 

Hon. Henry Baumgarten is descended from German parents^ 
and was born in Germany November 16, 1818. His education was 
obtained in the common schools of his native country, and the bal- 
ance of his youth was spent in the usual duties of farming. When 
about twenty years of age he came to this country and settled at 
first at Reedsburg, Wisconsin, in the summer of 1868. At this 
place he was engaged in farming. In 1871 he removed to Wabasha 
and worked one year for Lucas Kuehn, and started in the hotel 
business in 1878, having carried on the same until the present with 
good success. In 1883 he was elected representative from this dis- 
trict to the general assembly of the State of Minnesota by the 
democracy of Wabasha county, and was a member of the engross- 
ing committee. In 1871 he was married to Emma Scholtz. He is 
a member of the I.O.O.F. and Turn Verein. 

Myron Augustine Baldwin (deceased). The demise of this 
highly-esteemed citizen was to Lake City what the death of President 
Garfield was to the nation. He was born in Sheldon, Wyoming 
county, New York, May 21, 1832, and died of cerebro-spinal fever 
in Lake City, February 23, 1881. His parents, Eleazer and Rachel 
(Martindale) Baldwin, removed with their family from Sheldon to 
Yarysburg in 1843. The next year the father died and the family 
returned to their farm in Sheldon, and kept together till 1851. Mr. 
Baldwin, then in his nineteenth year, engaged as a clerk in the store 
of Hon. Wolcott J. Huraphre}', and in 1854 went to Wallingford, 
Vermont, to serve in the employ of his uncles, Edwin and William 
Martindale, the former of whom he in time bought out, and thus 



1154 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

commenced business for himself. His mercantile ])ursuits were con- 
tinued in Wallingford till 18G8, when he sold out, and with a view 
to recu])erating his failing health, removed to Minnesota, perma- 
nently locating in Lake City. Here he soon regained his health 
sufficiently to embark in active business pursuits, and from that time 
till overtaken by his last illness he was one of Lake .City's most active 
and esteemed citizens, November 1, 1873, he was made a director 
in the Lake City Bank, and in 1876 transferred his interests to the 
First National. He was then made one of its directors, and before 
the close of the same year was made its president. In April, 1880, he 
was elected mayor of the city as the people's candidate. During his 
residence in this cit}^ his principal vocation was dealing in live- 
stock, and only those who were his intimate friends could form an 
adequate conception of the magnitude of the business transacted 
under his personal supervision. With this great strain of mind and 
body, and with a physical constitution insufficient to endure the labor 
which his extraordinary brain devised, it was evident to those who 
best knew him that his work was too great for him. Nevertheless 
lie remained in the business harness till but a few hours before his 
death. Upon the announcement of his death the flag on the council 
chamber was placed at half-mast, and as a further mark of respect 
the business-men throughout the city closed their doors on the day 
of his burial, and formed one of the largest funeral processions ever 
witnessed in this city. The directors of the First National Bank met 
and passed the following resolutions: 

Whereas, our immediate associate and friend, M. A. Baldwin, the president 
of this bank, was removed by death on the twenty-third of this month from 
om' number; therefore, 

Resolved, that we recognize in this an agreeable companion and a valued 
and honored friend, and that we desire in this manner to testify to our high 
appreciation of his character and worth as a man, and to his ability and 
integrity in his official trust: 

Resolved, that while deeply impressed in contemplating the shadow of gloom 
his absence must bring to the home late so securely happy in his presence, that 
we hereby extend to the widow and son our most heartfelt sympathy and con- 
dolence in this their hour of sorrow. 

The Ancient Order of United Workmen, and the Temple of Honor 
and Social Temi)le passed similar resolutions of respect and con- 
dolence, making them a matter of record, and at the same time pre- 
senting the widow with certified copies. Mr. Baldwin had been 
twice married ; first, in 1863, at Wallingford, Vermont, to Miss 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1155 

Marella Townsend, whom lie lost by death about a year thereafter. 
His second marriage was in 1866 to Mrs. Anna E. Sweet, a daughter 
of Smith Emery, Esq., of Newport, Vermont, who with their only 
child, Myron Alpheus, still resides in Lake City. 

JajVIes p. Martin, Lake City, is a native of St. Lawrence county, 
New York, and was born October 31, 1845. Lie is a son of James 
and Catharine (Gorman) Martin, who were also born in the State of 
New York, of Irish ancestry. Mr. Martin was reared on a farm, 
where his early youth was spent at school and agricultural pursuits. 
A few years of his early manhood was employed in driving stage. 
He was married, to Miss Julia F. Hart, a native of St. Lawrence 
county. New York, in 1868, and in the spring of the same year came 
to Lake City, and the same year took a position as foreman in the 
large livery and sale stable of Mr. W. E. Perkins. He is still with 
Mr. Perkins, and is interested with him in introducing some very 
fine and valuable fast horse stock in this county, among them some 
of the best blood for trotting in the United States. In 1878 he pur- 
chased one hundred and sixty acres of land in Chester, which he 
rents. Mr. Martin has three children, Lizzie May and Willie J. 
(twins) and Frank, in attendance at the city schools. 

John C. Adams, M.D., Lake City, is a native of Ireland, and 
was born in Iniskillen, in 1831, and is a son of John Adams, who 
for many years was a prominent merchant of that city. Early in 
the spring of 1841, Mr. Adams with his family emigrated. t« the 
United States, and settled on a farm in Kentucky, and for a time 
engaged in agricultural pursuits. Being unacquainted with, and 
having a dislike for, the principles of slave labor, he failed to make 
it a success, sold his farm and removed to Clarksville, Tennessee, 
where he again embarked in mercantile pursuits. He died in 1850, 
and his wife, whose maiden name was Alice McCalon, is still living 
in Russellville, Kentucky. Dr. Adams received an academic edu- 
cation at Clarksville, Tennessee, pursued and completed the classics 
under a private tutor, and began his professional course with Dr. 
Williams, of Todd county, Kentucky. He attended lectures at the 
medical department of the university at Louisville, Kentucky, in its 
palmy days, when the eminent S. D. Gross and Austin Flint were 
its professors. After practicing in Kentucky, Texas and Louisiana, 
he finally graduated from the medical department of the Louisiana 
University. He then resumed the practice of medicine in Cado 
Parish, near Shrevesport, Louisiana, and continued the practice, 



1156 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

tliougli somewhat obstructed by failing health, till the outbreak of 
the late war, when he was appointed assistant surgeon of the 30th 
Miss. regt. This position he filled with credit and ability, and was 
finally transferred to the position of hospital surgeon, at Newnan, 
Georgia, and was on duty at Macon, Georgia, at the time of Gen. 
Lee's surrender. Overwork and ill health had so prostrated him, that 
in 1868 he determined to seek recuperation in the north, and that 
year came to Lake City, as rector of the Episcopal church. His 
theological studies had been pursued under Bishop Greene, in 
Jackson, Mississippi, during his physical inability to practice medi- 
cine, and had taken deacons' orders prior to 1861, and priests' orders 
in 1867. He remained in charge of the Episcopal church till 1872, 
when his health being unequal to the work, he resigned, and re- 
sumed the practice of medicine and surgery, in Lake City and sur- 
rounding country. As a surgeon. Dr. Adams has been eminently 
successful, having performed some very complicated, and, in fact, 
some of most noted operations known to the profession. He is a 
member of the Masonic fraternities of Lake City. His first mar- 
riage was in 1861, to Miss Hellen Doty, of eastern New York. She 
died in 1874. His second marriage was on July 1, 1875, to Mrs. 
Elizabeth O. MclS'airy, a native of Philadelphia. They have a 
famil}^ of four sons and four daughters. 

Elisha Perkins, farmer, Zumbro, came to this county without 
capitml in 1868, and secured sixty acres of land where he now 
resides, section 36 — originally Mazeppa township. Besides this he 
now has forty acres in the adjoining town of Farm Hill, half as 
much in the Mazeppa timber and a quarter-section in Bigstone 
county. The same energy and business ability that carried him 
through several struggles in the past are still leading elements in his 
character, and he is known as an active and useful citizen. He is an 
earnest exponent of the principles of the republican party, and a 
leading member of the Wesleyan Methodist church at South Tro}'. 
Joel Perkins, the father of Elisha, w^xs born in Luzerne, Warren 
county, New York, in 1813. His parents, Elkanah and Phoebe 
Perkins, were natives of the same state. Joel Perkins married 
Sarah Van Wormer, who gave birth to this subject at Stony Creek, 
Warren county, in 1835. The latter was reared on his father's farm, 
and received his education in the common schools. That he 
improved his opportunities is evident to all who meet him, and he is 
well-known as a contributor to the press of the day. October 10, 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1157 

185T, he married Eliza A. Gallup, born in the same county as him- 
self. This union was disrupted by the cruel hand of death in 
January, 1866, and Mr. Perkins was left with four small children to 
care for. Shortly after he suffered heavy losses in a lumbering con- 
tract, and resolved to try his fortunes in the west. On March 29, 
1869, he espoused Frances J. Koberts, a native of Hamilton county, 
Ohio, who is the mother of six living children, viz: Amanda E., 
Florence A., Alma A., Ernest H., Maud A., and an infant daughter. 
Of the elder children : Ward B. dwells at Waneta, Dakota ; Ells- 
worth L. died when eight years old ; Eliza J. and Fanny M., twins, 
at home. 

Henry R. Gearey, son of Hamilton B. and Harriet (Macy) 
Gearey, was born in the city of Hudson, State of New York, on 
March 18, 184:5. When six years old his parents removed to 
Pompey, in the same state. Here the subject of this sketch spent his 
youth and received a common-school education, which was supple- 
mented by a term or two in the Manlius Academy. He was married 
July 3, 1861, to Achsah J., daughter of Ephriam E. and Jerusha 
(Weston) Brown, a native of Pompey, then in her twentieth year. 
Four years later Mr. Gearey disposed of his property in Pompey, 
came to Highland, and bought the place which he still owns, one 
hundred and sixty acres of section 17. He has been prominent in 
township and county affairs from the first. At present is one of the 
county commissioners for Wabasha county, being elected on the 
democratic ticket ; has been township clerk four terms, assessor two 
years, and a supervisor one year. In state and national politics is a 
democrat, in local affairs, independent; is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity. Mr. Gearey is the father of four children, viz : George 
H., born July 4, 1866 ; James E., October 28, 1868 ; Susa A., 
Decembers, 1870 ; Arthur B., November 12, 1872. Mr. Gearey is 
one of the most enterprising and prosperous farmers of Highland. 

Charles H. Sibley, farmer, set his claim stakes on section 7, 
Mazeppa, in July, 1856. After a short time he sold his claim, 
and changed his location several times. He settled on section 8, 
where he still resides, in 1867. His mother, Lovina Churchill, was 
one of the first children born in Albany, New York. His father, 
Caleb Sibley, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, and served through 
the war of 1812, after which he settled at Albany and married. The 
subject of this sketch was born here in 1818. His father died when 
he was nine years old, and he was forced to earn his living from this 



1158 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

time. At twentj'-three he began raasonwork in Livingston county. 
Here he met, wooed and won Miss Anna, daughter of Jesse 
Youngs, elsewhere mentioned. Mr. Sibley built the first stone 
foundation in Mazeppa, and that of the first steam mill in the county 
at Read's Landing. He is an ardent republican. On February 3, 
1862, he enlisted in the 5th Minn, regt., Co. H, under Capt. More- 
house. This regiment served in the western army, and Mr. Siblej^ 
was an actor in the battle scenes at First Corinth, where his hip was 
■dislocated by a fall from a bridge, and he was rendered unfit for 
service. He was accordingly discharged. On August 15, 1864, he 
joined the 1st Minn. Heavy Art. as cook, and continued with this 
regiment till the close of the war. Mr. and Mrs. Sibley joined the 
Baptist church in New York. They have four children living, 
having lost two, all residing in Mazeppa. Their names are : Lovina 
(Mrs: John Stull), William, Eliza and Charles. Lucy, the second- 
born, married Edward Stanton, and died, leaving two children. 

William Befort, farmer, has lived on section 30, Chester, since 
1867, at which time he became possessed of one hundred and twenty 
acres. His was a hard struggle to secure a home. At the time of this 
purchase his capital consisted mostly of hope for the future. He paid 
down one hundred dollars of the one thousand dollars which was the 
price of his land. With a yoke of oxen and a wagon he went on 
and raised a crop, and by industry and prudence himself and wife 
have secured a good home. He has pui'chased eighty acres more of 
land, and has erected comfortable and handsome buildings. Mr. 
Befort is a native of Luxemburg, born in the village of Graven- 
macher, in August, 1827. At twenty-five he crossed the Atlantic 
and engaged in farm labor in Sheldon, New York. After spending 
three yeqrs in opening up a farm in Manitowoc county, Wisconsin, 
he returned to New York. In 1865 he came to Minnesota and 
worked two years for a farmer in Hay Creek, removing hither as 
above related. He paid as high as twenty-four per cent interest for 
money to tide him along. AVith his own hands he cut logs for his 
first house. He is a member of the Mazeppa Catholic church, with 
all his family, and has always been a democrat. He was married 
February 5, 1860, to Anna Develli, a native of Belgium. Eight 
children have been born to them, as follows : William, January 2, 
1862 ; Mary C, November 16, 1863 ; Anna M., May 15, 1867; John 
P., March 30, 1869; Catharina, February 13, 1871; Elizabeth C, May 
21, 1873 ; Francis N., August 12, 1875 ; Agnes M., January 9, 1878. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1159 

Elijah Koscoe Cornwell, junior member of the Plainview hard- 
ware firm ot C. C. Cornwell & Son, was born in Willoughbj, Lake 
county, Ohio, September IT, 1847. His youth was chiefly spent on 
a farm in Lowell, Dodge county, Wisconsin, whither his father 
removed when E. R. was about six years old. He acquired the 
rudiments of an education in a district school, and in his seven- 
teenth year, spring of 186-4, he enlisted as a volunteer in the 39th 
Wis., and served about six mouths under Gen. C. C. Washburn at 
Memphis, being there at the time Forrest made his raid. From the 
spring of 1865 to the spring of 1867 he worked as a mill-hand in the 
Winnebago City Mills. He then came to Plainview, where his 
father was living, and the next year became a partner with Henry 
Horton in a wagon-shop. This copartnership was dissolved in 1S73, 
when he found employment as a clerk in his fathers hardware store, 
where he became a partner in 1876. In 1869, November 29, he 
married Emily Adell Burchard, daughter of the late R. Burchard, a 
prominent business man and ]3ioneer of Plainview. To this worthy 
couple the following children have been born, namely : Florine, 
April 13, 1871 ; Charlie, December 25, 1872 ; Nellie (deceased), 
October 16, 1876 ; Florence, July 17, 1878 ; Frankie, August 18, 
1880 ; and Baby, April 27, 1883. Mr. Cornwell is a worthy mem- 
ber of Illustrious Lodge, No. 63, A.F.A.M., and Chapter, No. 36 ; 
also a Sir Knight, and bears a sword in Home Commandery, No. 5, 
of Rochester. 

Stephen Struble, one of the wealthiest farmers of Plainview 
township, is a native of Ohio, and was born about twelve miles 
northwest from Cincinnati, on August 24, 1828. His father, 
Joseph Struble, was a son of one of the first settlers in that part of 
Ohio, and was also born in the same county. His mother was the 
daughter of a Hamilton county farmer by the name of Street, and 
was one of a family of ten children, all living. Mr. Struble 
received a common-school education, and engaged in farming, 
removing with his parents in 1846, to Columbus, Indiana. At the 
age of twenty-one, he and a brother received the title to three 
hundred acres of land in Indiana. He continued to occupy this 
farm until 1867, when ill health induced him to dispose of this place, 
and seek a more salubrious climate. This he found on Greenwood 
prairie, where he bought three hundred and twenty acres of land 
on section 16, in Plainview, from C. O. Landon, and has ever since 
continued to make it his home. His residence, which cost him 



1160 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

over four thousand dollars, and is one of the finest farmhouses in 
Wabasha county, is surrounded by a beautiful grove of young ever- 
greens and fruit-trees, and is situated one mile and a quarter east 
of Plainview. He makes a specialty of stock-raising — horses and 
hogs — and has ample barn accommodations for his extensive busi- 
ness in this line. His farm buildings, including his house, have 
cost him more than nine thousand dollars. He was married to 
Emily J. Graves, daughter of Lyman Graves, of New York State, 
March IT, 1853. The following children have been born to them : 
Elva (Mrs. J. C. Pope, of Lac qui Parle county) ; Alice (Mrs. Hay- 
den French, of Big Stone county); Edward L., farmer, of Plain- 
view township ; George, Delia, Orlando, Grace, Xenia and Stephen 
Wayne, at home. Mr. Struble is a democrat in politics, has been 
a supervisor, and is at present a member of the Plainview school- 
board. His religious views are expressed by the creed of the 
Universalists. 

Laconius M. Howard, farmer, Zumbro, is the twelfth of a 
family of thirteen children, and was born in Ellisburg, Jefferson 
county. New York, August 28, 1836. His father, Joseph Howard, 
was a soldier in the war of 1812. His mothers maiden name was 
Purley Franklin, and both parents were born in Vermont. All his 
life has been passed on a farm, and he had very limited schooling 
advantages. He remained on the old homestead after reaching 
maturity. January 13, 1857, he was married to Harriet, daughter 
of James and Polly Love, all born in Converse, Vermont. In 
August, 1824, Mr. Howard entered the 186th N. Y. regt., and 
served in the army of the Potomac till the close of the civil war. 
The battle of Petersburg was the only serious engagement in which 
he participated. In the fall of 1865 he came to Minnesota, and 
remained two years in Dodge county. In 1867 he bought eighty 
acres of land on section 17, this town, where he lived eleven years. 
He now owns one-fourth of that section, and a similar portion of sec- 
tion 18, where his home has been for the last five years. In 1871 he 
was worth nothing, but has struggled out of his difficulties, and is 
prosperous. In religious faith he agrees with the Methodists. Has 
always voted the democratic ticket. His children are all in this town. 
They were born as follows: James A., Januarys, 1858; Wilbur 
F., March 13, 1859 ; lona, June 22, 1862 (now Mrs. Jerome Hall); 
Franklin D., September 11, 1869. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1161 

Nicholas Bartholome, farmer, Chester, is a native of Luxem- 
burg, born in Colbach, in March, 1834. All his life has been 
passed on a farm. When eleven years old he went to France, and 
stayed there two and one-half years, and became master of the 
French tongue as well as his native one. In 1854 he came to Utica, 
New York, and was employed as a farm and railroad laborer. In 
1866 he went back to Europe, and came to Minnesota next year. He 
now has one hundred acres of land on section 5, where he has dwelt 
for eleven years. He was married, February 10, 1873, to Catharine 
Jacobs, who was born in Befort, Luxemburg. Mr. Bartholome 
has always been a democrat. Himself and family are members of 
Belle Chester Catholic church. The children were born as here 
noted : Peter U., Christmas, 1873 ; Dominick, May 27, 1875 ; John 
N., December 22, 1876 ; Annie M., October 24, 1878 ; Elizabeth, 
November 19, 1880 ; Mary J., August 19, 1882. 

John Anderson, clerk, in charge of merchandise department of the 
Knapp, Stout & Co. Companj^'s business here, has been in the employ 
of the company nearly ten years. Mr. Anderson was born near 
Yexio, Sweden, and came to America with his father's family in 
1857, at which time he was seven years of age. They settled in 
Chisago county, in this state, on a farm, and there young Anderson 
remained until lie was eighteen years of age. His education was 
received in the district schools of that county, and afterward in the 
village of Pepin, where he was engaged in clerking prior to coming 
to Bead's Landing. July 20, 1871, he married Miss Sarah Holden, 
of Pepin. They have three children : Mabel, born August 20, 1872 ; 
Maud, December 17, 1877; Norman E., September 22, 1881. Mr. 
Anderson is a prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal 
churcli in this place, and since his connection therewith has been 
recording steward of the society. 

William Witte, general merchandise, store on north side water 
street, on which it fronts twenty-five feet, running forty feet to the 
levee in the rear. Business established in this city in 1879.' Mr. 
Witte is a native of Hanover ; received his education in the college 
of St. John, at Hazlake, and came to America in 1865. Two years 
later he removed to Wabasha, and was for a time clerk in general 
store of Lucas Kuehn, at that place, and was for eleven years in 
the store of H. Duerre, who died here on April 20, 1879. April 
20, 1871, Mr. Witte married Miss C. Brass,. of this city. Their 



1162 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

children, four in number, are all in attendance upon the public 
schools of this city. They are : Herman, born January 15, 1872 ; 
Helen, April 30, 1874; William, February 21, 1876; Bernard, 
January 7, 1878. 

Wabasha Foundry and Machine-Shop. This industry is located 
on the west half of block 17, original town site of Wabasha, the 
east half being occu}>ied by the mill of the Wabasha Milling Co. 
The entire block is traversed by the spur tracks of the Chicago, Mil- 
waukee & St. Paul railway, which afford ample facilities for ship- 
ping purposes. The business was established in 1869 by M. F. 
Lowth & Co., who erected the buildings that year and started their 
machinery the following spring. These buildings are : a two and 
one-half story machine-shop, 40 X 50 feet ; a foundry, 40 X 50 feet ; 
a paint shop, 36x40 feet, and a blacksmith-shop with two forges. 
Lowth & Co. were succeeded, in 1874, by Dayton, McDougall & Co., 
and they in turn by the Wabasha Manufacturing Co., who gave 
place to the firm of Downer & Porter, and this latter, on the death 
of the senior member, John B. Downer, in October 1882, to the 
firm of Campbell & Porter, the present proprietors. During all 
these changes Mr. Porter has stood by the concern, having been a 
member of the original firm of Lowth & Co. The business consists 
in the manufacture and repair of portable and stationary engines 
and steamboat-work, as well as general foundry and machinery busi- 
ness. The shops are equipped with two lathes (fifteen-foot bed), an 
iron planer, an engine of fourteen-horsepower, and all the other 
necessary machinery for their line of work, which is largely for the 
lumbermen of the Chippewa and Beef Slough logging companies. 
Their cupola has a capacity of from two and one-half to three tons 
of metal, and they are well equipped for filling all orders. Their 
present working force is from six to eight hands. The present mem- 
bers of the firm are W. H. Campbell and O. H. Porter. O. H. 
Porter is a native of Pennsylvania, a moulder by trade, and has 
been a resident of this city about fourteen years. He was born in 
1833 ; came into Michigan at nineteen years of age ; learned his 
trade in Tecumseh, in that state, and in 1856 removed to Beaver Dam, 
Wisconsin, and was there until the breaking out of the war of the re- 
bellion, July 13, 1861. He enlisted as a musician ; was afterward 
promoted fife-major, and was mustered out of service in 1863, re- 
turning to Wisconsin. December 6, of that year, he married Bar- 
bara Yambor. One daughter was born to them on October 3, 1864, 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1163 

Miss Nellie J., who grackiated from the high school of this city in 
class of 1882 ; is now pursuing her studies at the State Normal 
School, Winona, from which she will graduate in the class of 1884. 

William L. Hardy, blacksmith, Plainview, was born in Hamil- 
ton county, Ohio. He was the son of a saddletree maker by the 
name of Henry Hardy, who married Libby Lemmon, the daughter 
of a Baptist clergyman, of Hamilton county. While William was 
yet a cliild his parents removed to Dublin, Wayne county, Indiana. 
Here the death of bis mother occurred when he was about twelve 
years old, and he was bound out to a farmer by the name of Isaac 
Smith, a Hicksite quaker, with whom he found a home for six 
years. By consent of Mr. Smith he left the employ of the latter at 
the age of eighteen, and went to work with his brother, at the 
saddletree trade, in Dublin. He afterward learned blacksmithing 
in the shop of E. Lemmon, Esq., of Dublin, and continued to wield 
the sledge in various Indiana towns for a number of years, dur- 
ing which time he met at Pendleton, and married Miss Sarah E. 
Huston, the daughter of a Pendleton mechanic by the name of 
John Huston, February 15, 1855. This lady was born on the 
Erench Grant, Ohio, near Portsmouth, on August 7, 1838. Mr. 
Hardy shouldered a musket in the 63d Ind., in 1862. He was 
afterward detailed a blacksmith, and served Uncle Sam, as well as 
ill-health would permit him, until the war closed. In 1867 he came 
to Plainview and resumed his old trade in the blacksmith-shop 
of D. R. Sweezy, afterward with Mr. Pomoroy, then formed a 
copartnership with Mr. Sweezy, and finally with Samuel Purvis. 
The firm have a fine shop on Washington street, Plainview, and 
both gentlemen occupy comfortable homes, which they own in the 
same block. Mr. Hardy has two children, namely, Edward O., 
married, and residing in Plainview, a fireman on the Nortliwestern 
railroad, and Charles L., jeweler, of Granite Falls, Minnesota. 

Philip Arendt is one of the largest farmers of Chester township. 
His estate now includes five hundred and eighty acres, all but 
thirty of which are improved, and has been made by his own indus- 
try and thrift from small beginnings. He was born in Belgium, on 
December 6, 1847. His father was a farmer, and till twelve years 
old he passed the life of a Belgian farmer's son, receiving a fair 
common school education in his native tongue. In 1860 his parents 
crossed the Atlantic, and settled at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From 
that time young Philip earned his own livelihood, and had no 



11 ()4 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

chance for Eno^lisli schooling. Two years were spent in learning the 
shoemaker's trade, after which lie worked as journeyman in Mil- 
waukee, Chicago and other cities. He was married in Milwaukee, 
on March 28, 1870, to Miss Kate Ludovise, a native ot Wisconsin. 
In 1868 Mr. Arendt came to Chester, but soon removed to Dakota 
county, where for five years he kept a saloon and shoemaker's-shop 
combined. Tiring of the associations attending the liquor trade, he 
returned to Chester, and bought one hunch-ed and sixty acres on 
sections 7 and 8. In 1876 he built the large residence on section 8, 
which he occupies. Two years later he built a granary, 22x32, 
with basement, and two years after ^ barn, 40x60. In 1876 he 
dug a well near the house, and found, at a depth of sixty-four feet, a 
perfectly preserved piece of wood, which he still retains. The family 
is mcluded in Belle Chester Eoman Catliolic society, and inchides 
children born as follows: Nicholas, January 6, 1871 ; Susan, March 
6, 1872 ; Josephine, December 3, 1874 ; Mary, September 1, 1876 ; 
Peter, March 8, 1878 ; August, July 19, 1879 ; Catharine, August 
22, 1881 ; Margaret, August 3, 1883. A daughter was born August 
28, 1873, and christened Josephine, but soon died. Thus, for each 
of four callendar years in succession, a child was born. 

Richard C. Carroll, farmer, is a native of County Kilkenny, 
Ireland. His parents were Richard and Ellen Commerford-Carroll, 
to whom were born eight children. When sixteen years old he emi- 
grated to St. Louis, where he passed two years in a wholesale grocery 
house. After spending one year in Memphis he located in Arkansas, 
and afterward returned to St. Louis. W^ith the exception of the first 
two years, his attention while in the south was occupied in the 
nursery and greenhouse business, and in landscape gardening, in all 
of which he was quite successful. The year 1864 found him at Fort 
Benton, Montana, and about four years were passed here^in the 
mercantile business. In 1868 he located in Mount Pleasant, where 
he began the life of a farmer, and now owns two hundred and eighty 
acres of fine land. He was married December 2, 1871, to Mary A. 
Rahilly. They have five children : Richard M. (deceased), Ellen 
M., Winnifred C, Alice E., Margaret M. Mr. Carroll and wife 
belong to the CathoMc church. In politics he is a democrat in prin- 
ciple, though he generally votes for the best man regardless of party. 
He has held offices in the township, and is one of its prosperous 
farmers and substantial citizens. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1165 

Stephen K. Gates, retired farmer, Lake City, is descended from 
an old New England family of English origin. His father, Isaac 
Gates, was a native of New Hampshire, and married Hannah Ken- 
d'all, of Yermont. Eeuben, father of Hannah Kendall, enlisted in 
the revolutionary army at sixteen, and served through the great 
struggle. Isaac Gates dwelt with his family in 1815 at Ackworth, 
New Hampshire, where the subject of this sketch was born June 30. 
When the latter was thirteen the family went to Windsor, Yermont, 
where he grew to manhood on a farm. Mr. Gates attended an 
academy one year after he had become of age, and earned enough 
to defray the expense of such a course. He engaged largely in 
farming in Yermont for many years, and then retired to a small 
estate. In 1855 he visited the west, and purchased land far from 
this city, in Wisconsin, of which he still owns a part. In 1868 he 
removed to Lake City, and having decided to remain here, sold his 
eastern home two years later. Keal-estate dealings and loans have 
occupied his attention somewhat here. In 1841 he married Sarah, 
daughter of Oliver and Sally Hale, all born in Windsor, Yermont. 
Mr. Gates is sceptical about the divinity and truth of the Bible, but 
contributes liberally to the support ot the Episcopal church, which 
claims all the other members of the family. He has always been a 
consistent adherent to the principles of the republican party. Two 
daughters constitute the offspring of this family. The elder is Mrs. 
W. K. Murray, of this city, mentioned elsewhere ; the younger, 
Hannah Frances, married Eev. Charles H. Plummer, now rector of 
the Episcopal church at Branford, Connecticut. 

Oliver Carlson, carpenter, Lake City, is a native of Sweden, 
born in Blikinge county, in the southern part of that kingdom, 
October 16, 1845. His early life was passed on a farm, and he 
received the common-school education of his native tongue. When 
sixteen years old he was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade, and 
this has ever since occupied his attention. In 1869 he set out for 
America, and came direct to Lake City. He at once entered the 
employ of E. Alexander, a contracting builder, and served this till 
1880, when he became the partner of his employer. In 1883 this 
firm built the county poorhouse, and the handsome brick schoolhouse 
in the second ward of this city. Mr. Carlson is a member of the 
A.O.U.W., and an independent republican. In January, 1872, he 
was married to Hannah Johnson, who was born three years previous 



1166 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

to her Inisband, neur tlie same place. Their offspring are christened 
and aged as here noted : Caroline, thirteen ; Ethan Elmer, seven, 
and Julia, five years. 

Edwahd Strk'ki.and (deceased) was born in Goosnargh, Lan- 
cashire, England, August 2, 1811. He early learned tlie trade of 
mason and builder, which occupied most of his life. Married 
March 27, 1840, the bride being Miss Ann Knight, born December 
22, 1820, within nine miles of her husband's birthplace. In 1849 
Mr. Strickland came to America and settled at Joliet, Illinois, where 
he remained eighteen years and followed his trade. In 1863 he 
bought eighty acres of land on section 13, Zumbro, on which he 
dwelt from 1867 till his death, July 20, 1879. Besides his widow, 
four children survive him, as here named : Isabella, born June 2, 
1843, married Abram King, resides La Crescent ; Richard (see be- 
low) ; John, December 5, 1848, Zumbro Falls ; William, December 
2, 1854, tliis town ; James T., November 11, 1859, died August 2, 
1883. The parents were reared as Episcopals. 

Richard Strickland was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, De- 
cember 24, 1845. He was seven years old when he came to the 
United States, and twenty- two on ari-ival here. His education was 
supplied by the common schools of Illinois. Has always followed 
farming. In 1873 bought forty acres of land on section 23, where 
he resides. Was married January 15, 1876, to Viola O'Connor, 
born in Dodge county, Wisconsin, January 15, 1848. Mr. and Mrs. 
Strickland are members of the Wesleyan Methodist church. Like 
his father, the former is a democrat. Their children were born as 
follows : AVillis Edward, July 20, 1878 ; Ethel Irene, June 4, 1882. 

Sidney Corp, farmer, is located on section 29, Zumbro, where 
he settled in 1860, and now has three hundred and eighty acres. 
He is a native of England, born February 15, 1832, in Wanstrow, 
Somersetshire. His early years were passed on a farm and in at- 
tendance at a rate school. In 1850 he crossed the Atlantic and 
settled at Brecksville, Ohio, where he learned the carpenter's trade, 
and continued at that occupation till he came here. In 1854 he went 
to Melrose, Illinois, from whence he removed to Minnesota. As 
soon as he was settled here he set about improving his land and set- 
ting out trees. He is now one of our model farmers, and was the 
first to ship fruit from this section. September 25, 1853, he married 
Elizabeth, sister of James Arnold, parentage elsewhere given. Both 
are among the earliest admitted to the AVesleyan Methodist church 



OTHEE IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1167 

here. In politics Mr. Corp is independent of parties. Their only 
child, Annie, born June 4, 1S54, is now the wife of Harry L. Eolph 
and resides near her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Rolph have two daughters. 
Geo. D. Phillips, farmer, was born in Aberdeenshire, Scot- 
land, April 1, 1820. His parents were Alexander and Elizabeth 
Smith-Phillips, to whom were born twelve children, George being 
tenth. At the age of eleven the subject of our sketch left the home- 
stead, going to Banffshire, where he resided many years. Here he 
was married January 1, 1839, to Helen Annand, of Banffshire. 
Shortly after he leased a farm which he worked until 1868, when he 
came with his family to Wabasha county. The first two years of 
his residence here were spent in Mount Pleasant township, and in 
1870 he located in West Albany, where he now lives. He has a 
good farm of one hundred and sixty acres acquired solely by his own 
economical industry. Mrs. Piiillips departed this life November, 
1877. She was the mother of eight children : James, deceased ; 
Mrs. Mary A. Smith, of Lyon county ; George, a farmer of Mount 
Pleasant ; William, Mrs. Helen Wilson, of this township, Alexan- 
der, John, James E. Mr. Phillips is a member of the United 
Presbyterian church, as was also his wife. He is a republican, but 
has never been an office-seeker. 

• Frank Conrad, Chester, farmer, was born near Arlow, Belgium, 
April 3, 1842. When he was fourteen years old his father, William 
Conrad, came to the United States and settled on a farm at Port 
Washington, Wisconsin. His mother, Barbara, died when he was 
five years old, and his father now resides with him. Mr. Conrad 
never attended an English school. In 1867 he came to this town 
and bought eighty acres of land on section 3, and he now has two 
hundred acres of beautiful farming land, and is independent. In 1883 
on one hundred and fifty acres he produced thirteen hundred bushels 
of wheat, five hundred and fifty of barley, six hundred of oats and 
one hundred and fifty of potatoes. The corn crop of the whole 
region was a failure. Mr. Conrad was married in February, 1870, 
to Mary Gregoire, born in the same locality as he. Their children 
were given them and christened as below : July 19, 1871, Mary 
Josephine ; November 5, 1872, John B. ; November 20, 1874, 
Michael ; April 20, 1877, Paul ; April 11, 1880, Joseph. All the 
family are communicants in Belle Chester Catholic church. 
* Paul Conrad, farmer, was born in the same place as his brother 
above, in April, 1848. He was but eight years old when his father 
71 



1168 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

brought him to the United States, and his training has been the 
same as that described above. In 1872 he bought a farm near Lake 
City, in Goodhue county, where he lived six years. He then sold 
out and purchased one-fourth of section 20, Chester, where he now 
resides. He began in this state with nothing but his hands, and is 
now independent. He was married in February, 1872, to Catharine 
Poncelet, a native of Luxemburg. Their children were born as 
follows : William, April 27, 1873 ; Frank, March 22, 1875 ; Mary, 
February 1-i, 1877 ; Annie, March 31, 1879 ; Kosa, December 13, 
1880 ; Susie, January 21, 1882. All are baptized in the Koman 
Catholic church. 

Thomas P. Stearns, agent for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul railway, and the Mazeppa Mill Co., at Millville, is a native of 
Columbia, South Carolina, born in 1848. He is the youngest son 
of Arba and Catherine G. A. Stearns, tlie former native of New 
York and the latter of South Carolina. He resided some in South 
Carolina and Alabama, but when the war began he joined Gov. 
"Watts' scouts and fought for the country of his birth, a lad though 
he was. When twenty years old he sought a northern home, his 
southern one destroyed, and lived with his uncle in Monroe, Wis- 
consin, for a time. Plainview, this county, was his next home, and 
after clerking here for live years and then farming for three years he 
came to Millville, the first express and railway agent and wheat 
buyer in the place. His present standing shows he has made it a 
success. He is a Master Mason, Koyal Arch Mason and Knight 
Templar, and has been an Odd-Fellow. He was married in 1883, 
to Katie A. Holihan, of Wabasha, his second wife. He has one 
child, Arba L., by his first wife. 

Martin A. Grove, farmer, county commissioner, was born in 
1845, in Norway. He is the youngest son of Andrew and Ina 
Grove, both natives of Norway. When our subject was five years 
old they came to America, Blackearth, Wisconsin. Here Mr. Grove 
received his education, and when nineteen years old he enlisted in 
the 38th Wis., Co. G, and went to near Petersburg, Virginia, in 
South Side Railroad battle, and other skirmishes before Petersburg 
for about two months, then (April 2, 1865) the taking of Petersburg 
and Richmond. Here he was wounded by a shot through the left 
arm, below the elbow, which has disabled his arm. He was dis- 
charged and sent to Madison, Wisconsin. Here, soon as able, he 
clerked for about three years. In 1868 he clerked in Plainview and 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1169 

Lake City ; altogether three years, when he settled on his present 
farm in Oakwood, of one hundred and sixty acres of all cultivated 
and well improved land. In Dakota he has a three hundred acre 
farm, one hundred and sixty acres cultivated. He is a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal church, A.F.A.M. order, and G.A.R. He 
has been county commissioner for live years. In political belief he 
is a republican, and one of our most influential citizens. He was 
married in 1869, to Miss Mary Christopher, a native of Norway. 
They have six children. 

John Reiland, farmer, dwells on section 5, Chester, where he 
purchased land in 1869. His estate includes two hundred and forty 
acres of fine farming land, and he is prosperous and independent. 
Mr. Reiland is among the most exemplary men of the township. 
He is a member Belle Chester Catholic church, and a democrat. In 
1863 he married Mary Bartolmy, born in Kaalbach, Luxemburg. 
Mr. Reiland was born in the same duchy, in the village of Holtz, 
Christmas day, 1840, Eight children have been given to him, 
and christened : Nicholas, Dominick, John P., Peter, Joseph, 
Michael, Catharine and Anna, 

John Beckman (deceased) was born in the northern part of 
Sweden, June 21, 1845. Angeline Sophia Johnson, now widow of 
the deceased, was born in the southern part of the same country, 
March 27, 1828, and was united to him April 5, 1871. In 1869 Mr. 
Beckman left his native land and came direct to Lake City. For 
some time he engaged in various occupations ; he became owner of 
a quarter-section of land in Gillford, which he tilled up to the time 
of his death. In 1871 he built the "Marion Street House," which 
continued to be his residence thereafter, and where he died of con- 
sumption, September 17, 1881. During his American citizenship, 
Mr. Beckman was a loyal supporter ot the republican party. All 
the family were baptized and reared in the Lutheran church. There 
are two daughters, born and christened as below : February 7, 
1872, Anna S.; April 1, 1875, Alice E. 

Michael O. Kemp, of the firm of Kemp & Schmidt, dealers in 
general merchandise. Lake City, was born in Tifiin, Ohio, October 
18, 1848. His parents, Frank and Clara, were natives of Belgium. 
Michael attended the city schools of Tiffin till fourteen years old, 
when his parents removed to Galena, Illinois, and he began to earn 
his own livelihood. He was employed as clerk in a store till 1869, 
and then came to Wabasha, where he was similarly occupied. In 



1170 iriSTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

1S77 the firm named above was organized, and began business in 
Lake City. Mr. Kemp is bookkeeper of the establishment, where 
are kept drygoods, clothing, furnishings, groceries and crockery, 
with annual sales of about twent^^-five thousand dollars. In the 
great fire of 1882 the stock was destroyed, causing a loss in excess 
of insurance of two thousand dollars. The firm is now established 
at the corner of Center and Washington streets, with entrance on 
each, and owns the adjoining building on Washington. The subject 
of this paragraph came to Wabasha county with only his health and 
business talent, and has earned the reward of industry. In 1875 he 
wedded Miss Anna Hosch, born in Dubuque. Iowa, of German 
parents. The children given to this union have been christened as 
named below, in the order of birth : Francis, Clara and John. 

AViLLiAM Parkinson, farmer, Zumbro, was born early in June, 
1833, in the parish of Clitherow, Lancashire, England. At nine 
years of age he began work in a cotton factory, and afterward served 
as groom and gardener with a clergyman. His educational ])rivileges 
were very limited. April 10, 1861, he was united in marriage with 
Ellen Eastham, born Knight, in Gisbon Forest, Yorkshire, October 26, 
1831. They set sail for the United States in February, 1864. After 
spending three years as gardener in Joliet, Illinois, and two in the 
lumber regions of eastern AVisconsin, Mr. Parkinson settled in this 
town, arriving May 4, 1869. He bought eighty acres of land on 
section 14, where he now resides. He had barely sufficient capital 
to purchase his land, on which only six acres were broken. Pie rented 
a farm for three years, and in the meantime broke up his own. He 
is now comfortably situated. Mr. Parkinson became a citizen as 
soon as he could, and has always voted with the republican party. 
The family are Episcopalians. There are four children, born as fol- 
lows: James W., January 24, 1863; Joseph, September 14, 1866; 
Elizabeth E., September 28, 1869 ; Mary A., August 15, 1873. Mrs. 
Parkinson's first husband was John Eastham, who left one son, now 
residing with this family, Richard Eastham, born May 14, 1859. 

Michael Hart, farmer, Chester, was born in Gravenmacher, 
Luxemburg, June 22, 1839. When sixteen j^ears old, his leg was 
broken by a wagon, and he has always been lame since. From 
nineteen to twenty-seven he was employed in operating a stationary 
engine. (His brother Marcus, six years his elder, came to Erie 
county, New York, in 1856. Eeturning to Europe in the fall of 
1865, he was married on January 1, 1866, to Elizabeth Olding, born 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1171 

in tlie same village. When he returned to Xew York he was 
accompanied by the subject of this sketch. In 1869 he came to 
Chester and bought one hundred and twenty acres of land on sec- 
tions 19 and 20, where he died March 16, 1872. He left two chil- 
dren, John M., born 1S67, and Matthias J., 1869, now with their 
mother.) After spending some years in farm labor in New York, 
Michael Hart stayed four years at Pewaukee, Wisconsin, where run 
an engine most of the time. He came to Chester in 1870, and 
assisted his brother in the operation of the farm, in which he owned 
an interest. In 1873 he married his brother's widow, and they have 
just added eighty acres to the farm by purchase. When Mr. Hart 
arrived in America he was thirty dollars in debt, and has secured a 
competence by industry and frugality. He has two children, Annie, 
born 1875, and William, 1877. All the family are members of Belle 
Chester church. 

John Schermult, native of Germany, was born in Mengers- 
kerchen, May 6, 1811, of German parents. His education was 
obtained in a common school of his native country. His youth 
was spent at home, and was employed most of the time as a painter. 
About the age of twenty-three he moved to America, visited 
Chicago, St. Paul, Stillwater and Redwing respectively, and finally 
settled at Wabasha, in 1 869, where he commenced in the po]) factory 
business, and continued in same till 1875 with good success. He then 
engaged in the restaurant business, and has followed same ever since. 
Mr. Schermuly fought in the Austrian army during the war with 
Prussia, in 1866, and was sergeant of 4th company in the 1st regi- 
ment of the Duke of Nassau. He is a member of the Odd-Fellows 
and Freemason societies of this city, and also of the Turn-Verein. 
He was married in 1868, to Fannie Eberwine. They are the parents* 
of nine children, five of whom are living. His present circum- 
stances are fair. 

A. D. SouTHwoRTH, iusurauce, office on south side Main street, 
between Alleghaney and Church streets. This business was estab- 
lished in 1872, by Mr. Southworth. The fire protection represented 
by him aggregates fifty-eight million six hundred and forty-nine 
thousand two hundred and sixty-three dollars, and includes the 
leading companies in Great Britain and America. The assets of 
the life insurance companies for which he is agent are placed at 
one hundred and thirteen million three hundred and nine thousand 
eight hundred and six dollars. Mr. Southworth was born in Oneida 



1172 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

county, New York, August 13, 1829, and was variously employed, 
working on the farm, attending and teaching school, etc., until 1853, 
when he removed to Illinois, and for two years was employed on the 
survey and construction of the Illinois Central railway. In 1855 he 
removed to Lodi, Illinois, and was engaged in surveying and real 
estate until 1862, when he was aj^pointed deputy collector and 
inspector of liquors for the seventh internal revenue district of 
Illinois. This position Mr. Southworth held until 1870, when he 
removed to "Wabasha county, and settled on a tract of thirteen 
acres, which he had purchased within the corporation of the city of 
Wabasha, in what is known as the west side. This property has 
been added to from time to time, until it now embraces a tract of 
one hundred and forty acres of richly productive land, the meadows 
yielding this season three and a half tons per acre for the first cut- 
ting, and his potato and oat fields giving promise of an abundant 
crop. In addition to the home farm, Mr. Southworth owns three 
hundred and twenty acres of bottom land just across the river in 
Wisconsin, and a farm of two hundred acres over on the Zumbro, 
in Wabasha county. Two years after coming to this city, Mr. 
Southworth, in connection with W. F. Florer, established the exchange 
bank of A. D. Southworth & Co., for particulars concerning which 
see article on "banks." Mr. Southworth was married in 1857, and 
one daughter. Miss Mary L. Southworth, the child of that marriage, 
is now attending school at Wellesley, Massachusetts. Mrs. South- 
worth dying in 186-1, Mr. Southworth remarried the following year. 
Two children of the second marriage survive : George A. and 
Cornelia H. Mr. Southworth's family residence is in a beautiful 
spot on the high bank of the Mississippi, about a mile from the 
business center of the city, and commands a magnificent view of 
river scenery, from the outlet of Lake Pepin to Alma, ten miles 
below, on the AVisconsin shore. 

F. J. CoRNWELL, the leading drygoods and general merchant of 
Plain view, was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1836, where he 
remained until thirteen years of age, during which time he had the 
misfortune to lose both his parents. Nothing daunted, young 
Coriiwell struck out for Burk county, in his native state, and five 
years clerked for his brother-in-law, when he returned to the scenes 
of his childhood, and continued to clerk in the place of his birth 
until 1856. Then, at the age of twenty, he moved noi-thwest into 
Dodge county, Minnesota, and in a similar position in general mer- 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 



1173 



chandise served Porter & Lock, and otliers, until at the end of two 
years and a half he hired to L. E. Casey, at Cordova. Illinois. In 
1861, still in Mr. Casey's employ, he removed with him to Winona, 
and continued until 1S63. At this time he went to St. Charles, and 
engaged in business with J. Himsted & Co., still clerking, and for 
two and a half years longer, at which time he removed to Plain- 
view, where he commenced operations as partner of the St. Charles 
firm. At the end of the next year Himsted sold his interest to 
one John Taylor, and the business continued as J. Taylor & Co. 
In 1872 Mr. Cornwell sold out to J. Taylor, and for two years and 
a half next succeeding acted in the capacity of bookkeeper for 
Ozias Wilcox, until the summer of 1875, when he went south. In 
December of the same year a telegram announcing the low con- 
dition of his late employer summoned him to return and take 
charge of the business. Wilcox died January 1, following, and 
January 12 Mr. Cornwell reopened the business, and ran it in the 
interest of the family of deceased until June of the same year, 
when he became sole proprietor. In 1876 he removed to and 
became the first occupant of the spacious brick building, the finest 
business building in the town, and built by A. Y. Felton, of 
creamery notoriety. In 1881 — a self-made man — Mr. Cornwell 
purchased the building, thus becoming the sole proprietor of both 
building and business. He is the owner of other real estate in 
Fargo. The subject of this sketch is reputed to be the most pros- 
perous merchant in this vicinity, and generally liked for his busi- 
ness tact, impartial dealing and careful self-respect. 

J. Leininger, the only jeweler in Plain view, started business in 
the Ml of 1870. He belongs to Eedwing Association, is married 
and has three children. 

John B. Gregoire, implement dealer, is a native of Belgium, his 
birth dating February 5, 1853. His father, whose name was the 
same as his own, emigrated to the United States in 1856, and settled 
in Calumet county, Wisconsin. Here the subject of this sketch was 
reared on a farm, receiving a good common-school education in both 
English and German. In 1870 he came to Chester, this county, and 
engaged in farm labor. In 1873 he was employed in the sale of farm 
machinery by C. F. Rogers, of Lake City, and remained in his 
service four years. In 1878, with J. W. Kingsley, he opened a 
machinery depot at Mazeppa, and four years later bought out his 
partner. His sales now exceed twenty-live thousand dollars per 



1174 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

year, including the celebrated McCormick machines. He is the 
owner of a line residence in the village, and also his warehouse on the 
principal business street (First). His possessions have been acquired 
by his own energy in business from a small beginning. On Septem- 
ber 10, 1S83, he was married to Miss Anna Clemens, of this village. 
Mr. Gregoire is a member ofMazeppa lodge, I.O.O.F., of which he 
is now secretary ; is also a Freemason ; is a member of St. Peter's 
Catholic church here. In politics he is a republican ; was three 
years village marshal, and is now deputy sheriff of the county. 

William H. Hobbs, Lake City, is the son of George H. and 
Sarah M. (Crandall) Hobbs, and was born at Buffalo, New York, 
October 12, 1855. His father was a native of Grand Isle, Vermont, 
and was by trade a machinist and engineer. His mother was born 
in Saratoga, New York, and her parents in the State of Khode 
Island. Her father was a soldier in the war of 1812. In 1859 the 
family removed to Wisconsin, where our subject's father enlisted in 
the war for the Union as a member of Co. I, 11th Wis. Vol. Inf., in 
1861. Soon after his connection with military affairs he was trans- 
ferred to the naval service and assigned a position as first assistant 
engineer on the gunboat Osage on its famous expedition up the Red 
River. Wm. H. received a good common-school education, as well 
as the mason's trade, after his removal to Lake City in 1870. He 
followed his trade in this state about seven years, principally as a 
contractor and builder. In 1879 he entered the hardware store of 
J. Cole Doughty as salesman, and about two years later bought an 
interest in the business, which was again sold in the winter of 188-1. 
As an evidence of the esteem in which he is held b}^ his fellow 
citizens, he was elected to city school board in the spring of 1883, 
and on its behalf superintended the erection of the new brick school 
built that year. One meritorious trait of character in Mr. Hobbs is 
bis manly and filial treatment of his widowed mother, who resides" 
with him in this city. He has an only sister, Lura M., now Mrs. 
C. S. Lilley, of this city. 

"^ Edward M. Card, attorn ej'-at-law, Lake City, was born in New 
port county, in the State of Rhode Island, June 2, 1828. His 
parents, John L. and Catharine B. (Mott) Card, moved to Otsego 
county. New York, in 1835. The most of his early daj^s were spent 
in the schoolroom, his leisure-time on the farm with his parents. In 
October, 1819, he entered the law office of Judge Thomas Mcintosh, 
at Hartwick, New York, where he pursued the study of law till his 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1175 

accession to the bar in July, 1852. In the fall of the same year he 
opened an office in Portlantlsville, in the same county, and there 
practiced, his profession till 1855. He then removed to Hartwick, 
where he formed a law partnership with his old preceptor, Judge 
Mcintosh. In 1857 this partnership was dissolved, Judge Card 
continuing here in practice till 1863. - In the fall of this year he was 
elected judge of the surrogate court of Otsego county, which then 
contained a population of some fifty thousand. This was a sharp 
and closely contested election, and he was returned with a small 
majority over his democratic competitor, Judge Mcintosh, and was 
the youngest man ever elected to that honorable and important trust 
in the county. The same fall he removed to Cooperstown, the 
county seat, and on January 1, 1864, entered upon the discharge of 
his official duties. During the four years of Judge Card's official career 
he creditably acquitted himself as a jurist eminently fitted to sustain 
the high honor of the bench and bar. In the fall of 1867 he declined 
a renomination and resumed the legal practice without change of 
residence till 1871, when he came west, settling in Lake Cit}^, where 
he now resides. The season of 1872 was mostly spent by him 
looking after his farming interests in Wisconsin. In March, 1873, 
he opened a law office in this city, .and actively entered on his pro- 
fessional practice, which has since been extended over five or six 
counties surrounding Lake City, on both sides of the Mississippi. 
Much of his time during the past year has been spent away from 
home, engaged in important trials, involving life, liberty and 
property. The result of these trials has established for Judge Card 
the reputation of being one of the leading lawyers of the state, and as 
such has been prominently referred to by the local and city papers. In 
March, 1853, E. M. Card and Miss Eliza Halstead were united in mar- 
riage at Westville, New Yoi-k. Mrs. Card is a daughter of Kev. Henry 
Halstead, of New York. They have one child, christened Jessie E., 
who graduated from St. Mary's Academy, at Faribault, in June, 1882. 
George F. Benson, banker, Lake City, is a son of John and 
Lucy A. (Adams) Benson, natives of New Hampshire. He was 
born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1834, and educated in the schools 
of that city, and Philips' Exeter Academy, at Exeter, New Hamp- 
shire. When seventeen years of age he went to Buffalo, New York, 
and found employment in the office of a lumberman, where he 
remained about eight years. In 1860 he engaged in the lumber 
trade at South Bend, Indiana, and two years later removed his busi- 



1176 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ness to Plymouth, same state. He became a resident of Lake City 
in 1871, and was one of the organizers of the First National Bank, 
and was president of that institution from August 19, 1873, to" 
November 17, 1876. In 1877 he became a stockholder in the Lake 
City Bank, and is now director, and one-fourth owner, of this solid 
establishment. He is a member of the masonic order, the Episcopal 
church, and the republican party. 

Maktin & Greer, attorneys-at-law, Lake City, office in Lyon 
block, corner of Lyon avenue and Washington street, successors of 
Scott & Halm, formerly a ])rominent law firm of this city, the latter 
now attorney-general for the State of Minnesota, will act as their 
legal adviser in complicated and important cases. This is one of the 
most promising law firms in Lake City, if not in the county, and are 
in possession of the only complete set of abstracts, at this time, in 
the county. 

James M. Martin, the senior member of the firm, was born in 
Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, October 10, 1851. His parents, 
James M. and Emily (Alexander) Martin, were natives of the same 
state, and bj^ occupation farmers. Young James occupied his time 
on the farm and attending the country schools till the age of sixteen, 
when he entered the Columbia Classical Institute, and diligently 
pursued his studies four years. In 1871 he came to Lake city, and 
at once took a position in the city schools as assistant superinten- 
dent. This position he retained till the close of 1873, when he 
turned his entire attention to the reading of law, which he previously 
had begun, in the office of Scott & Hahn. He was admitted to 
the bar, May 15, 1876, and at once entered the law practice, form- 
ing a business partnership with his brother-in-law, Hon. W. J. Hahn. 
They opened a branch office at Wabasha, which he conducted till 
1881, when Mr. Hahn was aj^pointed to the attorney-generalship ot 
Minnesota. In December of the same year he associated with him- 
self, in the abstract business, Mr. A. J. Greer, who the following 
May became a full-fledged lawyer. Mr. Martin was married June 
12, 1879, to Miss J. Maggie Bell, daughter of Prof. John M. Bell, 
of Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, and has two children : James M. 
and Vernon Bell. They are members of the Methodist Episcopal 
church, and he is prominently connected with the Masonic fraterni- 
ties of the city. 

Ali.ex J. Greer, the junior member of the firm, was born in 
Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, June 14, 1854. His parents, James 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1177 

and Sarah A. (Carson) Greer, removed to Jefferson City, Missouri, 
in 1858, where he was in business at the outbreak of the late war. 
In 1861 he enlisted as a private in the war for the Union, and died 
of pneumonia at Helena, Arkansas, February 18, 1862, having 
risen to the rank of second lieutenant. lie was a native of Penn- 
sylvania, and a son of Adam Greer, who emigrated from the North 
of Ireland to America, with his wife and elder children, in about 
the year 1830. Mrs. Gi-eer finding it unsafe to remain in a country 
infested with rebels, Ku-kluxand borders ruffians, after her husband's 
enlistment, returned with her three small children to her old eastern 
home. In 1865 she came with her family to Lake City, where she 
was married in 1869, to the Rev. Silas Hazlett. Here young Greer 
began the rudiments of an education, which he completed with dis- 
tinction at the state university at Minneapolis, where he graduated 
June 5, 1879, with the degree of bachelor of science. To Mr. Greer 
is due the credit of making his own way through all the branches to 
the end of a complete scientific course, and is the first young man 
from Wabasha county so distinguished. After graduating from the 
State I^ormal at Winona in May, 1873, he secured a position as 
principal of the Carver, Minnesota, high school, where he taught 
two years previous to entering the State University. While pursu- 
ing his university course, he also (under authority of the state super- 
intendent of public instruction) taught county institutes in nearly all 
the counties in the state. In 1879 he was elected to the position of 
superintendent of schools for Wabasha county, and again in 1881, 
without opposition. Mr. Greer having had from childhood a taste 
for the legal profession, he devoted what little spare time he had, 
after 1879, to the reading law in the office of the Hon. Wm. J. 
Hahn, and was admitted to the bar in May, 1882, and at once be- 
came Mr. J. M. Martin's law partner. He was married February 
21, 1882, to Miss Mary Dorman, daughter of D. B. Dorman, Esq., 
of Minneapolis, and has one son. 

Rev. John W. Ray. The subject of this sketch was born in 
Chester, now Auburn, New Hampshire. His father was Stark Ray, 
of Manchester, New Hampshire, and his mother was Hannah C. 
Wason, of Candia, New Hampshire. His grandfather Ray was 
from England, and was a soldier in the revolutionary war, under 
the renowned Gen. Stark, whose wife's sister he married. His 
mother was of Scotch-Irish descent. Her father was also in the 
revolutionary war. He spent his early life on a farm, enjoying the 



1178 ■ HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

educational advantages of a common school, and of an academy, 
lie iitted for college at Pinkerton Academy, in Derrj-, New Hamp- 
shire, and entered Dartmouth College in 1839, graduating in 1843. 
After graduation, he engaged in teaching, following this profession 
for about thirteen years. He spent one year at Atkinson, New 
Hampshire, in the academy in that town. He was then invited to 
the principal school in Manchester, New Hampshire. At the end 
of one year this was constituted the high school of the city. From 
Manchester he went to Eastport, in Maine, as principal of the high 
school. Sickness compelled him to resign before the end of one 
year. He returned to New Hampshire, and on recoverj^ became 
associate principal with Prof. William Russell, in charge of the Mer- 
rimac Normal Institute of New Hampshire. On leaving this posi- 
tion, he was elected principal of Pembroke Academy, and soon after 
was elected principal of Pinkerton Academy, in Derry, New Hamp- 
shire, where he continued until he resigned to enter the ministry. 
Although finding the profession of teaching an agreeable work, he 
could not feel satisfied to relinquish the purpose he had in securing 
an education, and after taking a private course of theological study, 
he was licensed to preach in the autumn of 1856. While teaching 
he was active in temperance work, going through the long and 
laborious struggle f(n- a prohibitory temperance law in his native 
state. This was finally secured in 1855. He was also somewhat 
active in political life, holding several offices, and representing the 
town of Derry in the state legislature. But on entering the minis- 
try, he felt called upon to retire from active political life, and devote 
his energies to the one work on which he had ertered. In April, 
1857, he was called to the Congregational church in Goft'stown, New 
Hampshire, and remained there till he came to Minnesota, in May, 
1867. During this period he kept alive his interest in education by 
superintending schools, and in teaching in the institutes of the state. 
In 1867 he was called to the Presbyterian church in Hastings, Min- 
nesota, and labored there till 1872, when he accepted a call to the 
Congregational church of Lake City, Minnesota, having felt obliged 
to decline a previous call to the same church in 1867. While at 
Hastings, he kept alive his interest in education by superintending 
the schools of the city, and in some other forms of educational work. 
But on coming to Lake City, he felt that he ought to give up such 
work, and so held himself aloof from it. At Lake City he con- 
tinuedin the pastorate of the church, till December, 1866, when he 



OTHER IMPOETANT PERSONAGES. 1179 

resigned, and was dismissed by council in the spring of 1867. At 
the time of the resignation, he had a severe affection of the ejes, so 
that his phj^sician assured him that he must abstain from all mental 
labor, or lose his sight. He yielded to this advice. About this 
time a foreign tour was decided upon, and he with his wife 
visited Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land. They were accom- 
panied as far as Geneva by their daughter and her husband, 
E. P. Gates, Esq. This trip had the desired effect of restoring 
his eyes to about their former condition. On his return he sup- 
plied the Congregational church at Wabasha, continuing his 
residence in Lake City. He pursued this course until the last sab- 
bath in 1882, and then accepted an invitation to supply the pulpit 
of the Presbyterian church of Lake City, in which work he is still 
engaged. He grew up from childhood in the Presbytei-ian church, 
of which he became a member when about seventeen years of age. 
He was married in July, ISli, to Miss Lucy Lee Sargent, daughter 
of Rev. Benjamin Sargent, of Chester, New Hampshire. She died 
July 17, 1815. He was married again on December 28, 1818, to 
Miss Georgeanna Babb, daughter of Dr. James Babb, of Manches- 
ter, New Hampshire. His children were James Stark, Lucy Helen 
and George Wason. Both boys died in childhood. Lucy Helen 
was married December 28, 1875, to E. P. Gates, Esq., of Lake City, 
formerly of Warsaw, New York. Mr. Ray is a faithful laborer in 
the cause he has espoused, and is content with the prospect that 
faith will reward, not only in this woi-ld, but more abundantly in 
that which is to come. 

Ora N. Smith (deceased), son of Jacob and Lovina Smith, 
was born in Leinster, New Hampshire, February 13, 1828. His 
paternal progenitors were English and the maternal were Scotch, 
He assisted his father during early life in the tillage of a farm and 
at carpenter work, so that when he began business on his own 
account he was master of a trade, and this occupied his time and 
yielded his livelihood always. In 1853 he was married in Vermont 
to Miss A. L. Felton, and removed two years later to Illinois. In 
1866 he went to Michigan, and came thence to Lake City in Octo- 
ber, 1870. Here he built a house, made a pleasant home for him- 
self and fiimily, and was prepared to enjoy life, but was taken away 
by the fell destroyer September 9, 1882. The cause of his death 
at the early age of fifty -four was Bright's disease, and he was 
disabled for nearly a year before his demise. Two children, besides 



1180 HISTORY OP^ WABASHA COUNTY. 

his widow, survive him. The eklest is mentioned beh3w. Flora C, 
born in Winnebago, Illinois, April 14, 18G0, remains with the 
mother as a help and stay. A dauojhter died here in November, 
1877, aged nearly fourteen years. Mr. Smith's death was, no doubt, 
the result of exposure in the United States service. In 18C3 he 
joined an independent company of mechanics' fusileers, then form- 
ing for service in the war of the rebellion. After lying in Camp 
Douglas at Chicago for six months the company was disbanded 
without being called into service. While here Mr. Smith contracted 
inflammatory rheumatism, by which he was entirely disabled for 
some time, and from which he never fully recovered. 

Herbert L., eldest child of Ora N. Smith, was born in Orange 
county, Vermont, June 30, 1854. He attended school until fourteen 
years old, and then began to learn the printer's trade in Michigan. 
After his parents came here he was employed in this city and in 
Minneapolis. He founded the Lake City "Graphic" in 1882, being 
called upon to chronicle the death of his father in its tirst issue, 
September 12, 1882. At this time he had a partner named Russell, 
but the paper was shortly sold to a stock company and Mr. Smith 
placed in charge of the business. October 8, 1883, the business 
passed into the hands of Smith & Messmer, Mr. Smith having asso- 
ciated with himself for its purchase Mr. W. S. Messmer, much of 
whose work is found in this volume. While the latter looks after 
the editorial department, Mr. Smith is the active and efficient mana- 
ger of a prosperous and rapidly-growing business. He is an active 
member in the Masonic and Odd-Fellows' lodges, having taken the 
highest degrees in both orders. January 1, 1878, H. L. Smith and 
Mary A. Jones, of Lake City, were united in marriage. One 
daughter has been given this couple and christened Florence May. 

S. J. Johnson was born in Sweden in 1850. After receiving 
an education at Bersbo, and also at Janskaping high schools, he 
came to America in 1868, his father coming in 1870. Our subject 
came direct to Chicago, but still being restless, came to Minneiska. 
Ever since he has been in the employ of W. H. Hopkins as head 
clerk. He is married, and both are members of the Lutheran 
church. His wife's name was Anna Johnson, and they were 
married in 1865. 

William Henry Hopkins, merchant at AYeaver, was born at 
Villenovia, New York, in 1840. Mr. Hopkins is one of our self- 
made men, having attended school but very little. In 1861 he 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1181 

visited Minneiska, and opened up a store, and the old maxim, For- 
tune favors the brave, held good in his case, for ever since he has 
prospered. At present he owns a fine brick block, 44 X 65 in Weaver, 
and deals in general merchandise and machinery. In politics he is 
independent, voting for good men without respect to party. He 
married Rachel E. Montgomery, of Lake City, and they have three 
children : Joseph William, now at Casselton, Dakota Territory ; 
Mary E. and Susie, both attending school at Winona. 

Fred Langer, farmer, was born in Portage, Wisconsin. He is the 
youngest son of Franz and RosaLanger, natives of Austria. When 
about twenty-eight years of age the elder Langer came to Wiscon- 
sin, and about ten years later bought their present farm of over five 
hundred acres, together about three hundred acres under cultiva- 
tion, and well improved. The elder Langer was drafted for service, 
but on arriving at St. Paul the war was closed. Fred is a member 
of the A.F. A.M. order. They both, especially the younger, vote for 
the man, in politics, regardless of ])avty. They are among our re- 
liable farmers. The elder Langer was married 1823, to Rosa Miller, 
of Austria. He has four children ; three in Dakota. 

M. A. Odink, druggist, bookseller, stationer and dealer in paints, 
oils, etc., Pembroke street, two doors south of Main, premises owned 
by Joseph Odink, father of the M. A. Odink. The drug house 
fronts twenty-five feet on Pembroke street, and extends fifty-eight feet 
to the rear. Business was established in 1878 as Legge & Odink, 
became Toussaint & Odink, and M. A. Odink in March, 1882. The 
presci'iption department is under charge of B. A. Slade, a graduate 
of the Chemical and Pharmaceutical department of the Illinois State 
University at Champaign. Business is good, and shows an increase of 
fifteen per cent over corresponding period of 1882. Mr. M. A. Odink 
is a native of Jackson county, Iowa ; came to this county when six 
years of age, his parents settling at Read's Landing. Young Odink 
attended school at home, and then at high school in Winona, 
taking a final course at Bryant & Stratton's Business College in 
Chicago, from which he graduated in 1870. He is unmarried, 
and resides with his parents on Fourth street. 

Benjamin F. Leininger, jeweler, of Plainview, was born August 
8, 1847, of farmer parents, in Green county, Ohio. He received a 
country school education. Most of his youth was spent near Elk- 
hart, Indiana. At the age of nineteen he entered the employ of 
Michael Trubi, an Elkhart jeweler, of whom he learned the trade. 



1182 HISTORY OF WAV.ASIIA COUNTY. 

Two years later he went to Lincoln, Illinois, and worked at the trade 
two years. In the fall of 1870 he came to Minnesota and worked 
at his trade in Eyota and Plain view for a few months, and then 
bought the Plainview jewelry store of Mr. Brown, and has since 
continued business in this town, where he now owns a residence and 
business block. October 1, 1874, he was married to Helen Smith, 
daughter of Milton Smith, Esq., of Plainview. Three children have 
been b(^rn to them, namely, Darwin, Milton and Frederick. 

J. B. FiNciii, grocer, east side Pembroke. This business was 
established here in 1877, in a small wooden building on the site of 
the present brick structure, which was erected this present season 
and occupied by the proprietor about September 1. It is a solid 
two-story brick, stone basement, and sills 20x50, the upper story 
fitted for dwelling, and stands on the lot adjoining the alley between 
Second and Pembroke streets. Mr. Finchi employs one clerk in his 
business. Mr. Finchi is a native of Canton Grisons, Switzerland, 
from which country he came to America in 1870, and the year fol- 
lowing to Wabasha. Was clerking in this city for Lucas Kuehn 
and John Duke (deceased) until 1877, when he started trade on his 
own account. He was married to Miss Barbara Meyer, of this city, 
in 1876. They have three children, one of them in attendance at 
the public schools of this city. 

De. M. E. Taber, dentist, Plainview, came here from Spring- 
dale, Iowa, April, 1871. Born in Vermont in 1852, he was taken 
in his young days, by the removal of his parents, to Cedar county, 
Iowa, where he passed through the high school and spent his vaca- 
tion with his uncle, Abner Smith, then residing in the town of the 
doctor's present business success. Not favored by being born, as it 
were, with a silver spoon in his mouth, young Taber was ready for 
any opportunity that would enable him to earn an honest livelihaod. 
This he found for a beginning in the village hotel, where he hired 
out for awhile to John Bigham, proprietor, as clerk. Ever on the 
lookout for chances of advancement, he invested in and ran on his 
own responsibility a barber-shop, which he undertook, not for the 
love of the business, but for its returns and leisure time for study 
and preparation for the great object of his ambition, the practice of 
dentistry. It was not hmg before he sold out to advantage and was 
thus enabled to devote his whole time to the dental art, under the 
supervision of Dr. S. S. Shernuin, of Eau Claire. For three years 
he applied himself vigorously with all the energy his system would 



OTHEK IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1183 

permit. Finally, after one full course in the Missouri Dental, and 
one in St. Louis Medical College, he graduated in 1882 D.D.S., 
from the former well-known institute, and immediately settled down 
in Plainview to his practice in dentistry, in the science and art of 
which he stands second to none. Full of ambition and a lover of 
music alike, to gratify the former and improve the latter in his 
leisure after-business hours, the doctor immediately took charge of 
the Methodist church choir, which laudable position he continues to 
hold. He is an apt scholar and accomplished both in vocal and 
instrumental music, the brass band and singing-school of the village, 
numbering over a hundred, being under his superintendence and 
leadership. Not the least of Dr. Taber's qualifications is his marks- 
manship. No less than four gold medals bear evidence of his ability 
as an expert shot and champion in this progressive art. The medal 
for the championship of five counties was awarded him in 1881, 
which, by holding for two years against all comers, became his per- 
manent personal property. Of the others two in one day, July 4, 
1878, were won by him at Wabasha. Any man that shoots eleven 
out of twelve running deer, as his trophies prove, is deserving of no 
little commendation. He enjoys the respect and confidence of the 
community, and though at present in the full enjoyment of single 
blessedness, dame rumor has him full speedily a benedict. A 
veritable self-made man, to society he is eminently a useful member 
in more ways than one. 

Nicholas Liffrige, farmer, Chester, was born near Arlow, 
Belgium, September 20, 18-i8. He attended school till twelve years 
old, and then engaged in farm labor. He came here in 1871, and 
was employed as a farm laborer for some time. He soon bought 
one hundred and sixty acres on section 19, where he now lives. He 
has at present a fine farm of three hundred acres, on which he has 
placed good buildings, at a cost of fifteen hundred dollars. In 1883 
he raised fourteen hundred and forty bushels of wheat, ten hundred 
of barley and six hundred and twenty-five of oats. He was married 
in 1878, to Annie Fleming, born of German parents at Shakopee, 
this state. Their children were born and christened as follows : 
Andrew, September 17, 1879 ; Susan, March 30, 1881 ; Peter, De- 
cember 21, 1882. All have been baptized in the Catholic church. 

Jacob M. French, farmer, and prominent citizen of Wabasha 
county, came to Highland township from Erie count}', Pennsylvania, 
in 1871, soon after purchasing the farm on sections 20 and 21 on 
72 



1184 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

which he has smce resided. He was born July 8, 1826, at Mount 
Holly, Rutland county, Vermont. His parents, David and Susa 
(Marsh) French, were natives of the same state, his father being 
born in Reading, March 15, 1779, and his mother at Halifax, JSTo- 
vember 27, 1802. When Jacob was eleven years old, his parents 
removed from Vermont to Warren county, Pennsylvania. This re- 
moval was the result of business reverses, Mr, French, senior, being 
a manufacturer. The family not having retrieved its fortunes in 
Pennsylvania, we find the subject of this sketch in 1852 an inmate 
of a mining camp at Oroville, California. Four years later he re- 
turned to Pennsylvania, and engaged in agricultural pursuits there 
until his removal to Wabasha count}'. Miss Eveline G. Cook, a na- 
tive of Warren county, Pennsylvania, then in her twentieth year, 
became his wife. Her parents were Asa Cook, a native of Massa- 
chusetts, and Fannie (Elmer) Cook, a native of Vermont. Mrs. 
French received an education at the Fredonia, New York, Academy. 
Four children have blessed this union, viz : Fannie G., born in 
Pennsylvania, August 9, 1859, a graduate of the Minnesota State 
Normal School at Winona, and first assistant teacher in the Wa- 
basha graded schools ; D'Ette A. (Mrs. C. E. Robbins, of Fargo, 
Dakota, born October 18, 1861) ; Alden M., born July 12, 1867; 
Ernest A., born March 13, 1878. Mr. French is a republican in 
politics ; has been township clerk several terms, and county commis- 
sioner for three years. He is also a member of the Plain view 
Grange. 

Hk'zekiah F. Messer, farmer, of Plainview, is the son of Fred- 
erick and Martha (Whittier) Messer. He was born in Danbury, 
New Hampshire, on March 12, 1836 ; received a common-school 
education, and at the age of seventeen entered the employment of 
the Northern New Hampshire Railroad Company as a construction 
and track hand, and for the next eighteen years was engaged chiefly 
in the service of this company, most of the time as section-boss and 
conductor of a construction train, while that corporation had for its 
head the Hon. Onslow Stearns. He came to Minnesota with his 
brother David in 1856, but not being pleased with the country, 
then just emerging from the snows of a dreary winter, he returned 
without investing ; but David remained, and in 1871 induced his 
brother to purchase eighty acres of C. O. Landon, just east of Plain- 
view village. On this place he at once took up his residence, and 
has since made it his home, having added by purchase forty acres 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1185 

more to the farm. Mr. Messer spent three years in the gold dig- 
2:ings of California, in Shasta county and Scorch mountains, and in 
the Frazer River country. On December 13, 1864, he espoused 
Mrs. Nancy J. Brown {nee Keniston), relict of E. G. Brown, Esq., 
of Andover, 'New Hampshire. This lady was born in Wilmot, New 
Hampshire. She had three children by her first husband, now 
living, viz : Ella J., Loren E., living in Plain view, and Addie (Mrs. 
Edwin May, of Wilson, Wisconsin). Mr. Messer is a democrat, and 
boasts of never having " scratched '' a party ticket. 

Philemon Brandt, miller, was born in Green county, Wisconsin^ 
September 18, 1850. He was tenth of twelve children, born to Eli 
and Mary JSTofsinger-Brandt, natives of Somerset county, Pennsyl- 
vania. In 1854 the family settled in Dodge county, Minnesota, 
where they lived on a farm until 1871, when Eli purchased the farm 
in West Albany where they now live. Upon settlement here Mr- 
Brandt purchased the sawmill formerly owned by Hiram Fellows,, 
and in 187Y the present gristmill was erected by Philemon, Rufus. 
and Mason Brandt, brothers, who are now doing a flourishing busi- 
ness. Mason Brandt is married and living in Walsh county, 
Dakota, while the mill is run by Philemon and Rufus, who are 
young men of energy and promise. 

Bruce Florer, casliier of the First National Bank of Wabasha, 
is a native of Newport, Indiana; came to Wabasha in 1872, at which 
time his brother, W. J. Florer, who died in this city August 18, 
1881, was engaged in banking here in connection with A. D. South- 
worth. Mr, Bruce Florer spent the first year of his residence here 
attending school, was then one year in a grain and commission 
house, and clerking in the county ofiices until 1874, when he entered 
the banking office of A. D. Southworth & Co., and was their book- 
keeper for five years, when he was promoted to the post of cashier. 
He has retained that position during all the subsequent changes in 
the bank management, and is practically its business head. January 
1, 1878, he married Miss Mary S. Robinson, of this city. 

Henry Simons, carriage and wagon manufacturer. Lake City, 
established himself in business here in 1872 as the partner of George 
Lemley. He soon after, however, bought out his interest and built 
a shop on rented ground near the corner of High and Centre street. 
Four years later he purchased a lot on the opposite side of Centre 
street, on which he built a shop and put in machinery. On June 
17, 1882, this building was destroyed by fire, but fortunately by the 



1186 IIISTOKY OF WABASHA QOUNTY. 

exertions of many kind neiglibors most of liis stock and macliineiy 
was saved. Mr. Simons immediately rebuilt, and is now in the 
market with a full line of carriages, buggies, wagons, sleighs and 
cutters. He was born in Holland, December 28, 1844, and the 
following July the family emigrated to the United States and settled 
in Wyoming county. New York, on a farm where the father (Stephen 
Simons) died in 1871. The mother Susan (Arrand) Simons still 
resides on the old homestead. Mr. Simons was united in marriage 
on June 22, 1873, to Miss Mary Tuck, a native of the State of New 
York, born of German i)arents. They have tln-ee children, whose 
names in the order of their birth are: William II., Julia M. and 
Jennie B. They are members of the Catholic church. Mr. Simons 
is a member of the Knights of Honor. 

Frederick W. Rueckert, hardware dealer, Lake City, was born 
in the German province of Bavaria, in 1843. His parents, Melchior 
and Eve (Stegmeier) Rueckert were also natives of the same province, 
the former by trade and occupation a regimental gunsmith. During his 
■early youth Frederick mastered the trade and followed the same till 
1870, when on June 22 he left his native home with a view of reap- 
ing a greater reward for his skill and labor. After a short stay in 
New York he came to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he remained 
till May, 1872, when he came to Lake City and engaged in his 
business. In November, 1879, his property was destroyed by fire, 
though fully covered by insurance. He next built a brick store on 
Washington street, which was burnt in 1882, and only partially 
insured. Soon after he bought his present brick store, a good and 
substantial building, corner of Washington and Marion streets, 
where he carries a full line of hardware and guns. He was mar- 
ried December 17, 1878, to Miss Mary Yogi, a native of New 
York, born of German parents. His two children are Clara and 
Fred. M. 

Manasses S. Hostetter, miller, Gillford, has been a resident of 
this county since 1872, at which time he built a mill at Wabasha. 
Five years later he exchanged for Cold Spring mill his present 
property, half a mile from Zumbro Falls. Here he is doing a fine 
business in custom milling. Besides the mill property, he has half 
a section of land near Grafton, Dakota, which indicates that his 
industry and sagacity have served him worthily. Mr. Hostetter's 
parents, Daniel and Elizabeth, were of German descent and Penn- 
sylvania birth. They settled near Zanesville, Ohio, and here this 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 118T 

subject. was born in 1840. When he was six years old his parents 
removed to Indiana, subsequently to Wisconsin, and in 1854 to Pine 
Island, this state. Less than one month of his time has been spent 
in a schoolroom, but his own research has fitted him for good citizen- 
ship. At seventeen he began work at his trade, and worked at 
various points in the state. In 1859, with a partner, he built a mill 
at Pine Island, but it was destroyed by fire before it was completed. 
In August, 1862, he entered the United States service, and served 
till the close of the civil war in Co. H, 8th Minn. regt. During the 
last 3^ear he was stationed at different points in the south, and the 
balance of his service was rendered on the western frontier in sub- 
duing the bloodthirsty Sioux. Many a weary march was made 
through the "bad lands," with the prospect of an ambush behind 
every pinnacle. In November, 1859, he espoused Lucinda Brandt, 
daughter of Eli and Mary, all of Pennsylvania. Two sons and a 
daughter have been given them. The latter was christened Cora, 
married John Cliif, resides with her father. The eldest and youngest, 
Eli Daniel and Murray Willis, reside at Grafton. 

Eli B. Guptil, farmer and stockraiser, was born in 1845 in Ver- 
mont. He is the second son of Benjamin R. and Lucy Guptil, 
natives, the former of Maine and the latter of Vermont. His father 
and mother died when he was about fourteen, when they lived in 
Wisconsin. He then lived with a Mr. Maxwell until 1861, when he 
enlisted in the 16th Wis. Inf. He was in the battle of Shiloh, siege 
and second battle of Corinth ; then started for Vicksburg, but being 
cut ofi" by Van Dorn returned to Memphis, then to Vicksburg siege 
for a time, then in Louisiana ; then after a furlough of thirty days 
at home, under Sherman through to the sea ; then to Beaufort, 
Columbia, Goldsboro, Raleigh, Richmond, Washington, the great 
review ; then the 17th army corps were sent to Louisville, Kentucky, 
where they were mustered out in July, 1865. For over two years 
he never slept under a roof or ate at a table. Alter such a remark- 
ably long and varied service he returned to Wisconsin, remaining 
until 1872, when he spent a short time in Minnesota, but soon again 
returned to Minnesota, and bought part of his present farm of one 
hundred and sixty-nine acres, the principal feature of which is fine 
stock facilities, and which he intends to develop and make stock- 
raising a specialty. He has been chairman of the township super- 
visors for some time, and is director of school district No. 44 at 
present. He is independent in politics, and has voted with both 



IISS HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

parties, and is among our influential citizens. lie was married in 
1880, to Anna M. Powell, of Wabasha county. They have one child. 

Elnathan Cook, Chester, was born in the town of Maria, Essex 
county. New York, October 1, 1844. His father, Chester K., was 
born in New York, and married Harriet Dutton, of Vermont birth. 
Young Cook was taken at nine years of age to St. Lawrence county, 
whei-e he was reared on a farm and received a common-school educa- 
tion. At twenty-two he settled in Minnesota, being employed three 
years to manage a stock-farm near Dodge Center. He subsequently 
rented land in that vicinity, and engaged in general farming. Mr. 
Cook is a good judge of horseflesh, and has raised some good horses. 
In 1878 he bought one hundred acres of land on section 31, about a 
mile from Mazeppa, and took up his residence thereon in 1880. 
March 16, 1872, he was wedded to Miss Lovina Arnold, daughter of 
Charles and Lovina Arnold, all of New York. Mrs. Cook is a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal church, while her husband's 
sympathies are with the faith of his parents, Baptist. He is an 
enthusiastic republican. Their children were given them at following 
dates : William, December 12, 1872 ; Maude, September 5, 1877 ; 
Mary, July 30, 1882. 

Q. A. Low, M.D., office corner Main and Alleglianey streets, 
over JewelFs hardware store. Practice was established in this city 
ten years since. Dr. Low is a native of Vermont. He came west 
with his parents in 1860, the family settling in Wiscoy township, 
Winona county, Minnesota. Dr. Low spent his early years on tlie 
farm, and at eighteen enlisted in 2d Minn. Cav., and was with his 
regiment, from the fall of 1864, on duty at the frontier until he was 
nmstered out of service at the close of the war. Returning home, 
he soon afterward entered Hamlin University, Redwing, Minne- 
sota, where he pursued his studies four years. He then 
studied for his profession, reading for three years in the office 
of Drs. Richardson & Staples, of Winona, during which time 
he attended two courses of lectures at the University of Michigan. 
His concluding course was taken at Long Island College Hospital, 
from which institution he took his degree of M.D., class of 1873. 
During that time he also took a special course of operative surgery, 
for which he received a diploma on the same year. Returning to 
this state, the doctor located for practice in this city, December, 
1873. Dr. Low is a member of the county, state and American 
medical associations, the latter a national body, and has been 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1189 

treasurer of the "Wabasha County Medical Society since 1877. Janu- 
ary 24, 1875, Dr. Low married Miss C. E. Finch, of Hennepin 
county, Minnesota. 

Henry Hallaway, Mazeppa, is a son of John and Ruth Halla- 
way, wlio now reside in Pine Island township, three miles from 
Mazeppa. All these people were born in the parish of Ticehurst, 
Sussex, England, this subject, March 1, 1846. He attended the 
common schools of his native land till fifteen years old, when his 
parents removed to the United States, arriving in Pine Island in 
July, 1861. He assisted his father in farming operations several 
years. In 1873 he was united in marriage to Miss Jane Austin, a 
native of New York. He is at present in possession of a quarter- 
section of land near the village, in Pine Islaild, which he tills. In 
the spring of 1874 he built a residence at the head of Chestnut 
street, in this village, and has dwelt here since June of that year. 
He is a member of the Masonic order, being treasurer of Tyrian 
Lodge here. He is an Episcopalian and a republican. 

Axel E. Edholm, merchant. Lake City, became established in 
business here in 1873. In the city of Orebro, Sweden, July 4, 
1847, he was born. Until he was thirteen years old he attended 
the schools of the city, and then went to Stockholm, and entered a 
store as clerk. He came thence to Lake City in 1870, and was 
here employed in the same wa}^ three years. In the great fire of 
1882 his stock was destroyed, inflicting a loss of some thousands of 
dollars. He immediately secured a new stock, and is still doing a 
fine business, his annual sales exceeding twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars. Mr. Edholm was married in Sweden, in 1876, to Hildegarde 
Liliander, who was born and reared in Stockholm. Two daughters 
have been given to this union, and christened Bertha and Edith. 
All are members of the Lutheran church. Mr. Edholm is an ad- 
herent of the republican party. His father, Gustafus, came to tliis 
city with eight children in 1869. The youngest son died while a 
student at St. Peter. Edward, another son, is employed in his 
brother's stor,e here, and W. F, is in Minneapolis. Five daughters 
are married and living in this state, and the widow, Christina, still 
resides here. Gustafus Edholm died here September 11, 1875. 

W. S. Walton, formerly proprietor and editor of the Wabasha 
"Herald," and during his seven years' conduct of that journal, largely 
instrumental in securing the construction of the Midland railroad, 
which has done so much to further the interests of Wabasha. Mr. 



1190 HISTORY OF AV ABASH A COUNTY. 

Walton is a native of Ohio, received liis academical training at 
Fairfield Seminary, Fairfield, Herkimer county, New York, and 
had com]>Ieted one year of his course at Hamilton College, Clinton, 
New York, when tlie war of tho rebellion broke out. He enlisted 
that same month, April, 1861, at Little Falls, Herkimer county, 
New York, in Co. K, 34th regt. N. Y. Yol. Inf., which was mus- 
tered into the United States service for the term of two years. Mr. 
Walton was made orderly sei-geant of his company, was subse- 
quently promoted second lieutenant, then first lieutenantof his com- 
pany, then captain of Co. PI, same regiment, and was mustered out 
as such at the close of the term for which the regiment took service. 
The regiment was in active duty upon the peninsula until just 
before the battle of Gettj^sburg, and during those years of active 
struggle Capt. Walton saw his share of hard fighting. He was 
wounded in the right side at Fair Oaks, and in the left thigh at the 
battle of Nelson's Farm, at which latter place he was taken prisoner 
and sent to Libby Prison Hospital, from which he was exchanged 
aftet weeks' confinement, and came north, recovering from his 
wounds so as to rejoin his command at Harper's Ferry. Keturning 
home at the expiration of his two years' term of service, Capt. Wal- 
ton entered Wesley University, Middletown, Connecticut, completed 
a special course there, and subsequently as agent for Appleton's 
publishing house, visited the middle and western states, making his 
home for a season in Davenport, Iowa.' The climate of that place 
not agreeing with the health of his wife, Anna nee Loyd, of 
Gloversville, New York, whom he married, November 27, 1863, 
she came into Minnesota in 1870, and took up a temporary residence 
in this city. Two years later Mr. Walton removed to this city, and 
in September of that year, 1872, purchased the Wabasha "Herald," 
which he conducted for seven years and then sold. Since disposing 
of his newspaper property, Mr. Walton has been connected with 
permanent publishing houses east and west, visiting the Pacific 
slope, from lower California to Washington Territory, and making 
the voyage to the Sandwich Islands and Australia. He has a 
pleasant home on the bank of the river in the eastern part of the 
city, where he has a very unique and valuable collection of 
engravings, autographs, rare historical documents, letters from 
celebrated authors and statesmen, both of America and England, 
and some rare old editions of books that would delight the eye and 
arouse the envy of any bibliomanic. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1191 

Frank Stuetzel, wholesale and retail dealer iu wines and 
liquors, north side Main street, one door west of National Bank. 
Mr. Stuetzel is a native of Bavaria, Europe, from which country he 
came to America in 1871. After spending two years in New York 
and Missouri, Mr. Stuetzel came to Wabasha, where he was engaged 
in clerking for John Duke, until the spring of 1876, when he left 
the county for the Black Hills. Keturning to Wabasha the same 
fall, he entered the grain house of Laurence & Kriek, and was in 
their employ, purchasing grain, for three years. He then formed a 
partnership with Mr. J. G. Laurence, for the purpose of carrying 
on a grocery business, which was managed three years by Mr. 
Stuetzel, and then sold out to L. H. Whitmore. The same season, 
spring of 1885, Mr. Stuetzel opened his liquor house, where he 
carries a stock of about four thousand dollars' worth. October 2, 
1879, Mr. Stuetzel married Barbara, daughter of Phillip and 
Phillippena Reck, boru in this city July 20, .1856. They have two 
children, Phillip, born October 20, 1880, Phillippena, born Sep- 
tember 18, 1882. 

T. J. Wadleigh, the furniture man of Plainview, Wabasha 
county, was born in Unity, New Hampshire,^ March 4, 1821, of 
Henry T. and Hannah S., of old English stock. His father served 
in the war of 1812, thi-ough which his constitution was irreparably 
undermined. One of nine children, T. J., at the age of sixteen, 
was bound apprentice to learn the cabinet and joiner trade for three 
years, at Croydon, New Hampshire. His opportunities for early 
education were meagre, and at nineteen years he commenced as a 
jobber for others, in which line he continued until the fall of 1840. 
At this time, December 13, he was married to Fatima S. Powers, 
of Orange, Vermont, and for one year successfully ran a gristmill, 
returning to his trade until, in 1846, he built the hotel at Northfield, 
and for three years next succeeding worked as car builder for the 
Yermont Central railroad. In 1850, with his family, consisting of 
wife and three daughters, he emigrated to Hamilton, Canada West, 
and continued in the same line for the Great Western Railroad 
Company for four years. Iu 1855 he settled in Greenville, took a 
claim of one hundred and sixty acres, and changed, selling to T. A. 
Thompson, in 1856, and buying that now owned by David Messer. 
Selling this he bought and worked one of eighty acres, which he 
exchanged for another adjoining, Thos. Todd's, on the east. In the 
spring of 1865 he went to Rochester, Minnesota, where h6 remained 



1192 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

until 1874 ; then to Eyota, wliere he commenced the furniture busi- 
ness and continued till 1877, when he removed to Plainview, and 
occupied what is now known as the old Wilcox store, and in 1878 
built and removed to present site. Arthur, the only son, and now 
partner in the firm of T. J. Wadleigh & Son, was born April 4, 
1857. To the subject of this sketch, known universally as a good 
man, six children were born, all but one of whom are now living 
and married. 

Chester Hall (deceased) was a native of Massachusetts, born 
October 16, 1818. His parents were Benjamin and Polly Hall. 
His earliest years were spent with his parents on a farm in St. Law- 
rence county. New York, and at twelve years of age he entered a 
foundry, and became master of the moulders' trade. Subsequent to 
this, at various periods of his life, he followed blacksmithing, gun- 
smithing and cabinetmaking. When thirty-two years old he mar- 
ried Louisa Chase, of Jefferson county, New York. After two years' 
residence in Wisconsin, he came in 1864 to Dodge county, this 
state, and took up farming. In May, 1874, he became a resident 
of Zumbro township, and was some time employed at blacksmithing 
at South Troy. When his health gave out he took up his residence 
with his younger son, at whose residence he died, November 25, 
1883. Mr. Hall was a Close Communion Baptist, and a republican, 
as are his sons. His wife passed away June 2*2, 1875, aged forty 
years. Their youngest child, Ida P., married Henry L. Weaver, 
and resides at Minneapolis. The eldest, Jerome, was born August 
5, 1853, and was mostly reared in Minnesota. July 6, 1875, he 
married Miss lona Howard, and since 1S77 has resided on section 
15, where he has eighty acres of land. His children were born as 
follows: Etta L., June 30, 1876; HattieM., April 13, 1878; Charles 
A., December 3, 1881. Benjamin Austin, second son of Chester, 
was born February 14, 1857, and resides on section 22, where he 
has forty acres. He married Mattie Scrubey in January, 1878. 
Their children were given them as below: Chester F., November 
4, 1878; NinaE., Christmas, 1881 ; Frances L, January 2, 1883. 

Charles A. Pehl, mason, was born in Sweden, April 13, 1839, 
and remained in that country nineteen years. He received a fair 
education iti his native tongue, and since his arrival here has fitted 
himself for business by private study. He first settled in America 
at Kock Island, Illinois, where he engaged as a laborer, and subse- 
quently learned his trade. In 1872 he went to Ked Wing, and came 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 



1193 



thence to Mazeppa in 1875. Here he formed the acquaintance of 
Miss Eva Black, to whom he was married on June 20, 1875. They ^ 
have two children, Josephine and Charles. Mrs. Pehl is the youngest 
daughter of Elam Black, elsewhere mentioned in this work. Mr. 
Pehl is an adherent of the republican party. He was reared in the 
Lutheran church, and now cherishes its faith. 

Ole Chinberg, blacksmith and wagonmaker, Lake City, was 
born in Sweden in 1848, and was reared to the trade of blacksmith 
by his father, who was a skilled worker in iron. In 1871 he left his 
native home and sailed for America, having in view the bettering 
his condition in life and a better remuneration for his labor. His 
first work in this country was on a farm, where he readily learned 
the custom^ and language of the American people. Later he worked 
with a construction company on a Minnesota railroad. In 1874 he 
went to California, and worked at his trade nearly two years in the 
Sierra N'evada mountains, after which he returned to Minnesota and 
permanently located in Lake City, and opened up business for him- 
self. In 1876, in this city, he was married to Miss Anna Coleman, 
also a native of Sweden. They have two children, Alfrida Axelin 
and Harry Sigfrid, living, and one deceased. Mr. Chinberg is a 
reliable, trustworthy business man, and a credit to Lake City. 

M. Jacoby, general merchant, corner of Main and Pembroke 
streets, entrance on both, fronting seventy-five feet on Main and 
twenty-three feet on Pembroke. Business occupies one floor and 
basement and employs three persons. This house was started in 
1877 by Lindem, Satori & Co. Mr. Jacobi bought out Sartori in 
1879, subsequently purchased the other interests, and became sole 
proprietor in 1882. M. Jacoby is a native of Luxemburg, Ger- 
many ; was in school there until the family came to America in 
1874, settling on sections 4 and 5, T. 110, R. 11 W., where his father 
died September 10, 1882, the old homestead remaining in possession 
of one of the sons. M. Jacoby entered the drygoods house of Lucas 
Kuehn, of this city, in the spring of 1875, and remained there until 
he purchased an interest in the store he now owns. December 31, 
1878, he was married to Miss Rosa Funke, of Glasgow township. 
They have two children : Emma, born December 22, 1879 ; Lizzie, 
born September 5, 1881. 

Caleb C. Emery, stock-dealer, lias been a resident of Mazeppa 
since 1874, during which year he built a meat-market on First 
street, above Walnut, and a residence west of the river. He now 



119-i HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

has a partner who manages the market, and Mr. Emery is con. 
stantly occupied in buying and shipping stock. The subject of this 
matter was one of the pioneers of Olmsted county, having taken up 
land in Oronoco in September, 1855. From that time he was 
engaged in farming there until his removal to Mazeppa. He was 
reared on a farm in New Hampshire, having been born in the town 
of Holderness, that state, on January 4, 1834. His parents, John 
Emery and Sarah Fifield, were natives of the same state. He 
received a common-school education, and on reaching his majority 
set out to make himself a home in the west. In February, 1865, Mr. 
Emery enlisted in the 1st Minn. Heavy Art., and was stationed at 
Chattanooga till the close of the war. He has always been a demo- 
crat ; served some time as assessor in Oronoco. On Mtiy 8, 1867, 
C. C. Emery and Helen M. George were united in marriage. Mrs. 
Emery is the only daughter of Col. James and RhodaT. George, also 
pioneers of Oronoco. Col. George commanded the 2d regiment in 
the war of the rebellion, and was a well-known and popular man in 
Olmsted county and the state at large. Mr. and Mrs. Emery's five 
children were given to them as follows : Clara E., January 21, 
1869 ; James George, April 25, 1870 ; Rhoda J., A])ril 26, 1872 ; 
Mary E., September 10, 1876 ; Helen E., January 9, 1878. 

Robert Henry Foss, stock-dealer. Lake City, was born at Rye 
Beach, near Portsmouth, ]S"ew Hampshire, January 29, 1849. His 
father, Joel N. Foss, is of Scotch descent, and was born in the same 
state, as was his wife, Adeline Locke, of Puritan stock. In July, 
1857, our subject came to Minnesota with his parents, and was reared 
on a farm in West Florence, Goodhue county. His education was 
furnished by a limited course in the log schoolhouse of that region. 
He became a resident of Lake City in 1874, and has ever since been 
engaged in the purchase and sale of horses and other stock. Has 
real estate in Minnea])olis and Moorhead and in Pepin county, Wis- 
consin. In July, 1874, he was united in marriage to Miss Ellen A., 
daughter of Robert Gray, elsewhere sketched in this book. They 
have three children, christened respectively, Bernard, Clarence and 
Virginia. Mr. Foss is a thorough and consistent republican. He 
was five successive times elected constable of the town of West 
Florence. 



CHAPTER XCVI. 

OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES — CONTINUED. 

Mk. Morris C. Russell, editor " Sentinel," Lake Cit3\ After 
repeated solicitation on our part, Mr. Russell kindly consented to 
furnish us the following brief though very interesting account of his 
experience on the northwestern frontier, or early days in Minnesota, 
which at the same time illustrates the experiences of very many of 
our worthy pioneers, both living and dead^ and is given as a sample 
of the brave spirits who redeemed this grand commonwealth from a 
state of nature, and spread out its fields of golden grain, bred cattle 
on its thousand hills, and reared its numerous cities, towns and vil- 
lages with their prosperous churches, colleges and schools. He says : 

" I was born in Yenango county, Pennsylvania, February 22, 
1840. My father was Samuel Russell, and my mother was a Miss 
Matilda Raymond, whose brother, A. W. Raymond, owned large 
iron mines and blast furnaces, over which my father, although own- 
ing a large farm in the vicinity, was, most of the years I was at 
home, the manager for my uncle Raymond. The Raymonds were 
from Connecticut stock, although the branch which were within my 
knowledge came from New York State into western Pennsylvania; 
and my uncle A. W. Raymond, and his large family of sons and 
daughters and their descendants, are all alive at this writing, and all 
live near each other in Yenango county, the old gentleman at Frank- 
lin, the county seat. My father was one of a family of seven sons, 
all born in this country, although my grandparents on my father's 
side came from the north of Ireland. My father married twice, his 
second wife being a Miss Susan Smith, from Bangor, Maine, who 
came into western Pennsylvania as a school teacher. I am the 
youngest child of the first family, being the twelfth child and seventh 
son. My mother died when I was an inftmt, and I do not recollect 
her. I was raised, up to the time I left home at fourteen, by my 
stepmother, who is one of God's noble women, and who still lives in 
Jefferson, Iowa, with her youngest daughter, though very feeble and 



1196 HISTORY OF WA15ASHA COUN'n'. 

aged. By his second marriage my father liad nine children — 
twenty-one in all. Up to my fourteenth year I went to the old log 
schoolhouse tliree months each winter, where I learned to read in 
the New Testament, and could spell most of the easy words in Cobb's 
spelling-book ; also gained a trifle of knowledge about geography, 
and could 'cipher' a little before leaving home, but never 'learned 
grammar ' any. This comprised all the book-learning I ever had in 
school, and constituted my collegiate course, if I except a year spent 
in the Franklin 'Spectator' office as a 'printer's devil.' From 
ten to fourteen I worked on the farm, in the ore mines, and about 
the iron furnace, one year as ' under clerk ' in my uncle's large 
suppl}'^ store, where the hundreds of miners, furnace men, wood- 
choppers, teamsters and charcoal artists, who carried on the colliery 
department, bought all the supplies of every kind for themselves 
and families. All labor was employed by my uncle for half cash 
and half out of the furnace store. I never knew, however, of very 
much cash changing hands, but the 'furnace store' was a big 
thing as a mart of trade; men who had large families, as nearly all 
of them had, to support by chopping white oakwood — as an illustra- 
tration — for forty cents per cord, never had much " cash" due them 
on settlement day. My business capacity and my education fitted 
me admirabl}^ for my part of the duties — i. d., drawing the endless 
jugs of molasses, fish-oil, measuring out tar, sweeping the store, re- 
placing broken glass in the gristmill and the many other buildings 
about the ironworks, and doing ten thousand things which the higher 
operators about the place could not do without smearing their hands 
or their linen. About March 1, 1854, I succeeded in getting father's 
consent to go to Minnesota Territory, at that time a remote region, 
difficult of access, and of which but little was known in the east. 
Four years before, in 1850, my two eldest brothers, Aaron and Ed- 
ward, had gone to that tei-ritory, and in 1852 were followed by my 
brother Samuel, and brother-in-law, F. M. Ward. After two months 
of untold hardships, privations, suffering and adventure, a green and 
used-up youth landed in St. Paul from the steanaer Hamburg, the 
boat having, during all her voyage, been but little less than a float- 
ing palace of death. She had several hundred passengers, who died 
off by scores with cholera, their remains being buried in greater or 
less numbers at every wood-pile and landing. Those not sick spent 
their time in gambling and carousing night and day. We buried 
half-a-dozen one dark rainy night in the lonely wilderness where 



OTHER IMPOKTANT PERSONAGES. 1197 

we took on wood, placing them all in one shallow hole in the wet 
ground, by the weird light of tar torches. At another landing, I 
remember, among the dead carried ashore were eight members of 
one family. This was at La Crosse landing, where they were laid 
side by side on the ground, seven boys and the father, and we left 
the only surviving member, the wife and mother, sitting among the 



m- 



dead, wringing her hands in agony and despair. Most of the pr 
cipal towns now on the river were located about this time, or not 
long previously, but were composed of only a few wooden structures, 
scattered about over their respective sites, with not enough in a line 
to indicate which way the streets ran. There were "prairie-seas " 
spread out on every hand, which, with the wild Indians and their 
numerous villages, were sights emphatically new and picturesque in 
the eyes of a boy who had never seen either before, nor even a rail- 
road nor steamboat before starting on this long, tedious and event- 
ful journey, which alone would make an interesting volume if faith- 
fully written, with all its incidents, sights and experiences. 

"St. Paul was a singular-looking, rough-and-tumble sort ot a 
town. The central portion was reached by a set of rough, wooden 
stairs, leading from the steamboat landing up the side of the hill, upon 
reaching the summit of which one landed almost in the front yard 
of the Central House, one of the leading hotels of the town. The 
Mercliant's was a frame affair, on its present site. The amusement 
center was the old People's Theatre, a square, ugly-looking structure, 
made of slabs set up endwise. The autocrats of the territory were 
the government officials first, the steamboat officers next, and the 
Indian traders and ' sample-room' proprietors third. In those days 
all the rivers were navigable. The Minnesota river was navigable 
for large boats some three or four hundred miles above its mouth 
most of the season, and as the Minnesota valley was just beginning 
to attract immigration, the steamboat business boomed for several 
years, when, about the time it began to permanently ' dry up," rail- 
roads came into the country and relieved the exhausted streams of 
the traffic they no longer could discharge by reason of the absorption 
and evaporation caused by settling and opening up the country and 
its surface. The first legal execution in the territory took place that 
year. The 'subject' was a Sioux Indian, who was hanged for 
shooting at a white man, and killing the woman who was seated 
beside him in the wagon. The murder took place in the woods in 
the Sand Creek bottom, Scott county, near where Jordan is now 



1108 HISTORY OF WAIJASIIA COUNTY. 

located. The man shot at by the Indian was a German named Jacob 
Schroder, bat the name of the woman who was killed I do not 
remember. I knew Schroder personally many years after, and the 
last I knew of him he resided in Shakopee, where he probably still 
lives, if he lives at all. This and the two following seasons I ran on 
the Minnesota (then called St. Peter) river, on different ones of the 
early steamboats, the Montello and the Tola (which belonged to my 
two elder brothers), the Globe, and Time and Tide (which 
belonged to Capt. Louis Roberts, an early settler of St. Paul, who 
died only six or seven years ago, and was a noted character), on the 
Black Hawk, Greek Slave, Clarion and others. These first boats 
carried up into the great valley of the Minnesota the early settlers 
and their goods, the government supplies to Fort Ridgely, and the 
annuity goods to the Indian agencies at Red Wood and Yellow 
Medicine. At times the water was too low for the steamboats to run 
above the rapids, when the freight and passengers would be trans- 
ferred to flatboats, which were 'polled' up the river, a distance of 
two hundred miles, by French 'pollers,' at a speed of about twenty 
miles a day. This portion of m}-^ early-day experiences — my flatboat 
experience for three years through a country swarming with the 
wildest of wild Indians, the Sioux, eight years before the terrible 
outbreak and massacre of 1862 — was the most romantic and eventful 
time in all my frontier life, its stirring incidents, if properly recorded, 
being sufficient in number and thrilling enough in character to con- 
stitute a volume. The most noted men of that time whom I can 
now recall were : Gov. Alex. Ramsey, Gen. Sibley, Maj. Joseph R. 
Brown (Sioux Indian agent), Willis A. Gorman, Samuel Pond (the 
venerable missionary), Maj. Murphy, Messrs. Borup and Oaks, 
Wm. Constance, and the prominent 'river men,' while the grey- 
haired old Col. Abercrombie, of the regular army, was in command 
at Fort Ridgely. 01 course there were men in all the scattering 
communities along the Mississippi river, further south in the terri- 
tory, who were then, and since have been, prominent men, but of 
whom I knew but little in those early times, save by reputation. I 
and my brothers flatboated the first piano into the Minnesota valley 
that ever found its way up that river above Shakopee. It belonged to 
Col. Stoever, now of Henderson, and it was consigned and ' delivered 
in good order and condition ' to anew landing called Kasota, not far 
above St. Peter. The boat crew, after the strange instrument had 
been landed safely, all drew an extra pint of whiskey from the 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1199 

government barrels of that article that were on board, and drank to 
'the health of the first piano and its jolly, rollicking owner.' This 
reminds me that the crews always used to levy upon the government 
whiskey, which always constituted a fair proportion of every cargo, 
for their supply of ' firewater. ' They would tap a barrel whenever 
they ran short, draw out two or three buckets full of whiskey, and 
replace it by a similar quantity of river water. We used to deliver 
at the fort and at the agencies a good many barrels of tolerably weak 
whiskey ; some of it wouldn't have hurt the nerves of a child. At 
the close of the third year I returned home and spent the winter, 
returning to the northwestern frontier again early in the spring, this 
time all the way by river, making probably one of the longest con- 
tinuous river journeys ever made in this country ; nearly the whole 
length of the Alleghaney river, to Pittsburgh, thence the length of 
the Ohio river to Cairo, up the Mississippi to St. Paul, thence 
ascending the Minnesota river to Pedwood agency, in all between 
three and four thousand miles. During the years intervening 
between my return and the outbreak of the war of the rebellion, save 
one summer spent in Iowa, and one year in the newspaper business 
at Belle Plaine, Minnesota, I ran on the upper Mississippi, St. Croix 
. and Minnesota rivers, clerking, piloting, etc. ; spending the winters 
in the heart of the big woods, on the Minnesota river, where my 
brothers had a settlement, engaged in cutting steamboat wood and 
getting out various kinds of timber, among the rest the timber for 
the St. Paul bridge, which we four brothers cut and banked in the 
winter and rafted to St. Paul in the spring. We were to take our 
pay in city bonds, which our St. Paul agent, after considerable 
trouble, collected for us ; but before he had turned them over to us 
he became involved in some scandal, and when about to be arrested 
he, having our bonds in his pocket, ran to the new bridge and 
jumped into the river far below, from the highest span, and neither 
he nor our money was ever heard of again, excepting a skeleton 
found a few years afterward in the river above Hastings, which was 
supposed to be that of the rascally suicide, Gray. On one of the 
long, tedious rafting trips with this timber from the Big Woods to 
St. Paul, the raft became windbound on the lower Minnesota river, 
by strong headwinds common in the spring, and the crew, of which 
the writer w\as a member, came near starving to death. We sub- 
sisted for a week or over on nothing more than roots, bark, etc., 
gathered along the shores, and a small box of spoiled herring. 
73 



1200 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Parties who liad gone to St. Paul by land at last came to our relief 
up the river in canoes, bringing provisions. The lirst meal consisted 
of cheese, bread, etc., and a pint of whiskey each. The repast had 
a very revivifying effect, and the hilarity that followed we attributed 
to the cheese. I was ])ersonally and thoroughly acquainted with all 
the leading as well as subordinate chiefs of the Sioux nation, including 
Little Crow — the leading spirit in the massacre of 1862 — Standing 
Buffalo, Blue Blanket, old Shakopee, Cut Nose, Other Day (the 
friendly Indian who saved sixty-two whites during the massacre). 
Little Dog and many others ; also all the thirty-eight who were 
hanged on one scaffold at Mankato. All these chiefs liave often 
spent a night beneath the friendly roof of our Big Woods cabin in 
those early days, and partaken at our rude table with us. I also 
knew Hole-in-the-Day, the great chief of the Chippewa nation, and 
many of the principal chiefs of the Winnebago nation, Big Bear 
being a particular friend of the writer. Of the latter tribe I saw, at 
one time, four hundred canoe loads, with an average of five to the 
canoe, all in one body. I also witnessed the last great and bloody 
battle that took place between the Sioux and Chippewa nations, who 
have been the bitterest enemies from time immemorial. It occurred 
in the open river bottom on the north side of the Minnesota river, 
not far below Shakopee, and was attended by all the shameless and 
nameless atrocities common in Indian warfare. The Chippewas, 
after a most determined battle of several hours, were cut to pieces 
and put to flight. 

"For aught I have ever known to the contrary, I was the first 
white boy that became a permanent resident of the territory and 
state who had neither parent or guardian with him. The summer 
before referred to as having been spent in Iowa, I again entered upon 
an apprenticeship at the printing business, in the office of the 'Tipton 
Advertiser,' Judge Sjucer, editor. The summer was pretty badly 
broken up, however, owing to the fact that I became a member of a 
militia company, the Tipton Guards, commanded by that old Mexican 
veteran Capt. Hammond, in which, owing to my 'main strength 
and awkwardness,' I presume, I was made a sergeant. During the 
summer we served through what was known as the ' Iowa Horse 
Thief War,' immediately following the conclusion of which we were 
ordered to the frontier to quell the Indians who had broken out in 
what passed into history as the 'Spirit Lake Massacre.' Before 
reaching the bloody ground, however, the order was countermanded, 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1201 

much to our relief. After this, I resigned from the company, and 
also threw up my position of ' printer's devil ' in the ' Advertiser ' 
office, and returned to Minnesota — two wars in one summer being 
more than I had contracted for, even 'in my mind.' At eighteen, in 
company with Horace Baxter, another boy about my own age, and 
the only brother of Col. L. L. Baxter, now of Fergus Falls, I leased 
the 'Enquirer' office at Belle Plaine, and after conducting it a year 
sold our lease to Judge J. L. Macdonald, now of Shakopee, and 
Baxter and myself went to Portage Cit}', Wisconsin, with a view of 
buying out the ' Badger State ' office at that place. Before nego- 
tiations were closed, however, my gallant and gifted young partner 
was killed near Kilbourn City by falling between the cars. After 
this I traveled several months through various western states, in 
order to perfect myself in the art of printing, by 'getting the styles' 
in various localities, when I returned to Minnesota and was employed 
in the old 'Pioneer' office most of the time until the war of the 
rebellion broke out. I walked to Fort Snelling from Belle Plaine, — 
at which latter place I resigned my position of first lieutenant in 
what soon afterward became Co. A, 4th Minn. Inf., because the 
company voted not to join any regiment that was likely to be 
ordered south. When the vote was announced, in my boyish and 
enthusiastic rage I tore my sword from its scabbard and flung it 
through the air ; it fell point first, and I turned impetuously away, 
leaving it sticking in the prairie, and, as before stated, walked with- 
out stopping fifty miles to the fort, arriving just in time to get into 
Co. K, 2d Minn. Inf., with which I served nearly a year in Kentucky 
and Tennessee, and was finally discharged on account of disability 
received" in the line of duty, and from being over-zealous in seeking 
out and performing hard duty, and consequent exposure in the 
inclement weather of a southern winter in the field. I would say 
here, however, that the 4th Minn. Inf. soon followed tlie Second 
south, and no braver men nor better soldiers ever wore the blue of 
patriotism than the members of the Fourtli, and the members of 
Co. A afterward had the privilege of seeing and doing far more for 
their country than did their pettish lieutenant who threw his sword 
away at Belle Plaine. Upon my return to Minnesota, although in 
feeble health, I was just in time to go as a volunteer scout for Gen. 
Sibley in the Sioux war, consequent upon the awful massacre that 
deluged the Minnesota valley with blood, and during which prob- 
ably two thousand helpless men, women and children were put to 



1202 



HISTORY OF W A I! ASH A COUNTY. 



the scal]^ing-knife and tomahawk along our western border. Five 
of us, mounted on powerful horses, Sheriff Frank McGrade, of Scott 
count}', Garrj^ Du Bois (recently returned from the 1st Minn. Inf., 
disabled, like myself), two farmer brothers, named Kearney, and 
myself, were ordered to go all through the country north 
of the valley and asceitain the true conditions of things, and 




yCC<KUZ^Ai. 



join Sibley and his army at St. Peter and report, he moving up the 
south side of the river, hastening to the relief of Fort Eidgely, New 
Ulm and other points. This scouting expedition was a memorable 
experience, and braver and nobler men never lived than the four 
who accompanied me. When we started from Carver, on this 
expedition, we numbered forty horsemen, but in that first terrible 
night's ride through the dark woods all had turned back save we five 
before midnight. We, however, kept on, and scoured the whole 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1203 

country through to Hutchinson, swinging around through the prairie 
country, and reporting to the general as directed. We met no 
hostile body of Indians, fortunately for us, but saw much of their 
devilish work. Yery much worn out, with five ruined horses, we 
returned home in safety. Since that time I have followed the print- 
ing and publishing business continuously, three years in ISTashville, 
Tennessee, the remainder of the time in Minnesota. I established and 
conducted for five years the first newspa]3er on the Northern Pacific 
railroad, east of the Rocky Mountains, the 'Brainerd Tribune.' 
I am now, and expect to be, a resident of one of the prettiest little 
cities, richest counties and proudest states in all the sisterhood, 
Lake City, Wabasha county, Minnesota." 

Peter Reding, Lake City, was born in Sheldon, Wyoming county. 
New York, April 6, 1845. His parents, Henry and Mary C. (Weber) 
Reding, were natives of Luxemburg, Germany. They came to Red 
Wing in 1867, and died there. The subject of this sketch passed 
his early life on his father's farm, and received a limited education 
in English and German. After spending two years in the Pennsyl- 
vania oil regions, he came to Minnesota in 1868. For six years he 
dwelt in Belvidere, Goodhue county, and then purchased the north- 
east quarter of section 8, Chester, which he still owns. This he 
dwelt on and tilled for nine years, and removed to Lake City in the 
fall of 1883 ; is now conducting a saloon on Washington street. On 
September 1, 1872, he was married to Miss Kate Glasner, who was 
born at Port Washington, Wisconsin, of German parents, and is ten 
years her husband's junior. Their children were born and chris- 
tened : March 31, 1876, Isabel; April 5, 1880, Jacob Peter. All 
the members of the family are communicants in the Catholic church. 
Mr. Reding was elected by his democratic friends for three succes- 
sive years as constable of Chester, and seven years as supervisor. 

Clarence E. Finch, Lake City, born at Darien, Connecticut, com- 
menced business life as clerk in town clerk's ofiice, postoffice and 
country store of that town at an early age, for John S. Waterbury, 
who still conducts the same ofiices and business. Afterward engaged 
as clerk in a New York city retail drygoods store, with John S. Lane, 
a brother-in-law of his Connecticut employer, and remained in this 
position about two years. Later was salesman in the shawl and 
cloak department of the wholesale drygoods house of Lathrop, Lud- 
dington & Co., of New York city, for one year, and from there 
engaged with H. B. Claflin & Co. (the largest wholesale drygoods 



1204 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

house in New York) as general salesman. After remaining with 
this house about one year, went to St. Paul in pursuit of health. 
Being greatly benefited by the climate, concluded to make a resi- 
dence in St. Paul. He cast his first vote there in the interests of the 
republican party, and has adhered closely to the same doctrine ever 
since. After a short residence in St. Paul, engaged as salesman 
with the old and well known drygoods house of D. W. Ingersoll & 
Co., of that city, this firm being customers of the Kew York houses 
that Mr. Finch was previously engaged with. After a term of about 
three years with this firm, he engaged in the wholesale tea, coffee 
and S])ice business as traveling salesman for the firm of Granger & 
Hodge, of St. Paul, this change of business being made in pursuit 
of better health ; two years later was admitted as partner in this con- 
cern, and remained another year in the business. During the last 
year's connection with the tea and coffee house, Mr. Finch was 
offered a partnership in a new wholesale drygoods house of St. Paul, 
just commencing business. At the same time was tendered a large 
salary for a term of years bj^ Auerbach, Finch & Scheffer, wholesale 
drygoods, of St. Paul, which offer was accepted, and engagement ful- 
filled. In 1876 he returned to New York and re-entered the old 
house of H. B. Claflin & Co., as general salesman. In the sju'ing 
of 1877, while connected with the New York house, Mr, Finch 
brought a general stock of drygoods and groceries from New York 
to Lake City, and established his present business, bringing Mr. E. 
K. Cartwright, of New York, to conduct the business until he con- 
cluded his arrangements with H. B. Claflin & Co. In the fall of 
1877 Mr. Finch came to Lake City to personally superintend his 
business, which has steadil}'' increased in keeping with his previous 
successes, and has since been known as the "New York cash store." 
The store building Mr. Finch bought in 1875, on speculation from 
H. B. Claflin & Co., therefore his establishing a business in Lake 
Cit}' could be considered accidental. The building is the only white 
or cream brick structure in Lake City, and the first brick building 
built in the town. The brick were brought from Chaska, on the 
Minnesota river, and it was built by Mr. James C. Stout in 1866. 
It is one of the very best built buildings in the town, having been 
only slightl}' scorched by the two destructive fires of Lake City. 
The building, 25X80, is two stories and basement, and usuall}' 
crammed full of goods from roof to cellar, with a general stock of 
drygoods, cai'pets, oilcloths, house furnishing goods, crockery, glass- 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1205 



ware, groceries, etc. Mr. Finch buys his goods mostly in New 
York, from first hands, and strictly for cash. Having received his 
business education with the best business houses in this country, he 
enjoys the reputation of being one of the best judges of goods and 
closest buyers west of Chicago. He believes in the ''one price cash 
system, small profits and quick sales." His forefathers were of the 
revolutionary stock, English origin, and he still retains an interest m 
the two old homesteads in Connecticut, descending from both his 
father's and mother's side, one of which has been in the family about 
one hundred and fifty years, deeded to them from the government, 
and within an hour's ride of New York city. He was reared in the 
Episcopal church, commencing his business life at his home in Con- 
necticut. AYorked for a whole year, according to the custom of that 
country, for one dollar a week, and at about the age of thirty, before 
entering business on his own account, was paid a salary of five thou- 
sand dollars a year. He still has the identical first week's salary, in 
the shape of a gold dollar, in his safe. Besides Mr. Finch's interests 
in Lake City and Connecticut, he is extensively interested in St. 
Paul and Minneapolis real estate, and seems to have been successful 
in all of his undertakings, excepting the taking of a wife, being still 
a bachelor. 

Charles E. Hinckley, furniture dealer. Lake City, is a direct 
descendant, through his maternal grandmother, of Gov. Bradford, 
famous in early New England history. He was born June 1, 1850, 
in the town of West Point, Stephenson county, Illinois, to Ira Brad- 
ford and Martha Elizabeth Hinckley, natives of Vermont and New 
York. His father went to Illinois a young man and was married 
there. He secured land, taught school for some time, and finally 
settled at Lena. Here the subject of this sketch was reared and 
educated in the village schools. After managing his father's farm 
for three years he took a commercial course of one year at Madison, 
Wisconsin. In October, 1875, he became a resident of Lake City 
and engaged in the furniture trade with Samuel Butturff, now in 
Marshall county. Two years later he went into his present partner- 
ship with Andrew Koch, under firm name of Lake City Furniture 
Company. In the great fire of April, 1882, they suftered a loss of 
four thousand dollars on their stock. They then built the store 
which they occupy, on the south side of Washington street. Two 
stories are occupied and a large stock is carried. The monthly sales 
are about one thousand dollars. January 4, 1883, Mr. Hinckley 



1206 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

was united in marriage with Miss Susan J., daugliter of E. R. and C. 
M. Kinney, of Vermont and New York. Mrs. Hinckley is a native 
of Minnesota, having been born in the town of Lake, where her 
parents still reside. Mr, Hinckley is a member of the I.O.O.F., and 
has been connected with the Baptist church since sixteen years of 
age. He is a republican and an outspoken temperance advocate. 

William R. Murray, implement dealer. Lake City, is one of the 
early residents of Minnesota, having come in 1853 to Winona. He 
was born at Ann Arboi-, Michigan, in 1839. Philander and Harriet 
Murray, his parents, were natives of Genesee county. New York. 
The family is of Scotch origin, many generations ago. Orrin Mur- 
ray, the grandfather of this subject, was born and reared in New 
York. The parents of W. R. Murray died when he was a child, and 
he came west, as above related, in the care of an elder brother, 
Erastus H. The latter bought and finished the Winona House, and 
liis sign was the first ever hung out in Winona. In 1860 our subject 
went to Rochester, whei-e he dealt in agricultural machinery till 
1870. At this time he became owner of a custom-mill at Frontenac. 
He shortly sold out and traveled as collector for a wholesale machi- 
nery house three years. In 1875 he opened a grocery store at Lake 
City, and next year went into his present business with a partner. 
In 1878 G, R. Bartron became a partner in the business, and the 
firm is doing an excellent business. Mr. Murray has been twice 
elected alderman of Lake City, and was elected in 1876 to the state 
legislature. February 7, 1870, he led to the altar Miss S. Emma 
Gates, a sketch of whose parents appears elsewhere in this volume. 
Two children have blessed this union, aged at present as here noted: 
Sarah, twelve, and Edith, six years. While in Rochester, Mr. Mur- 
ray was initiated into the Masonic order and still retains connection 
with the lodge there. Mrs. Murray is a communicant in the Episco- 
pal church, and her husband's faith is in sympathy with hers. 

Richard R. Damoude, a prosperous Plainview merchant, was 
born in Waupun, Wisconsin, December 18, 1848. LCis parents 
were Richard and Jane (Edmonds) Damoude. When the great civil 
war was raging fiercest his youthful j^atriotism caused him, although 
but sixteen, to importune his parents for permission to offer his ser- 
vices to his country, and in May, 1864, he enlisted for one hundred 
days in the 41st Wis. Inf This regiment during its brief existence 
was stationed at Memphis, being assigned to the 17th Corps. Yery 
little fighting was seen by young Damoude during the three or four 



OTHER IMPORTANT TERSONAGES, 1207 

months he was in the army, as that period was only marked by one 
important event, the raid of the rebel Forrest. At the expiration of 
the one hundred days our subject returned to Wisconsin, and learned 
engineering in the steam-sawmills belonging to Daniel Shaw, Esq., 
of Eau Claire. For two years, from 1868 to 1870, he had charge 
of the engines in Woodruff, Tafft & Go's sawmills at Chippewa Falls, 
He next engaged in farming near King City, Missouri, but a' cyclone 
which destroyed the bulk of his personal property, during the third 
year of his sojourn here, so disgusted him with Missouri that he left 
his farm for sale and came to Minnesota, located in the pretty little 
village of Plainview and engaged in teaming and running a steam 
thresher for four or five years. In 1878 he entered the employ ot 
McLaughlin & Lynch, of the same place, dealers in agricultural 
implements. Was two yeai's with this firm and three years with 
Lynch, successor to said firm. From January 1, 1883, to January 
1, 1884, he was a member of the firm of Meachum & Damoude, 
and is now the sole proprietor of a very large business. He was 
married to Miss Hattie Beucus, a native of Wisconsin, at Fox Lake, 
in that state. May 22, 1870. They have two children : Lottie, born 
in King City, Missouri, January 25, 1873, and Charles C, born in 
Plainview, December 25, 1874. Mr. Damoude is a republican in 
• politics, and a prominent member of the Odd-Fellows fraternity of 
Plainview. 

Justin H. Clear, shoemaker, son of Bavarian parents, Henry 
and Margaret Clear, was born in Buftalo, New York, on the last day 
of July, 1854. When he was three months old his parents moved 
to Jefferson, Wisconsin, where he was brought up. He attended 
the schools of that city till fifteen years old, when he began to learn 
the trade he has followed ever since. He was emplo}'ed four years 
in a shoe factory at Jefferson. In ]S"ovember, 1875, he became a 
resident of Minnesota, working six months in Kochester. In May, 
1876, he bought the business of J. S. Huntley and settled down in 
Mazeppa. Next year he moved into the building he now occupies 
as shop and residence, corner of First and Maple streets, and a year 
later purchased the propei-ty. On February 4, 1878, he was married 
to Mary Trout, born of German parents at Rio, Wisconsin. They 
have one child, born July 27, 1882, and christened Fannie. Mr. 
Clear was reared in the Eoman Catholic church, to which he still 
adheres. He is a republican, and often has a voice in the councils 
of that party. 



1208 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

George R. Bartron, dealer in agricultural tools, Lake City, 
has been a resident of Minnesota since 1 855. David and Phoebe J. 
Bartron, his parents, were born in Pennsylvania, of French and 
German descent, and the subject of this biograpiiy was given to 
them July 15, 1844, in Wayne county, that state. The family set- 
tled in Hay Creek township, Goodhue county, at the date first above 
mentioned, and Mr. Bartron now owns the original homestead. 
The father and mothef afterward removed to Welcli township, in the 
same county, where the former died in 1883, aged seventy-nine, and 
the latter still resides, aged seventy-four. Our subject remained on 
the farm until the fall of 1876, and then came to Lake City and 
opened an agricultural warehouse. Two years later W. R. Murray 
became associated with him, and the firm has continued the business 
with marked success. While very liberal in religious theories, Mr. 
Bartron is a supporter of the Episcopal church, where his wife and 
children attend. His wedding occurred ]S«"ovember 8, 1866, the bride 
being Miss Maria D., daughter of W. J. Jacobs, a sketch of whom 
will be found elsewhere in this book. Four children have come to 
bless the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bartron, and have been severally 
christened George AV., John D., Sarah J. and Harry J. 

Dr. Chajbi.es W. Crary is a native of northern New York, 
and is descended from a line of Scotch-English ancestors, who 
settled in the Empire State early in the present century. The 
doctor's paternal grandfather, Nathan Crary, was born in Scotland, 
came to America in 1779, being then fifteen years of age, and settled 
in Connecticut, where he remained for more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury, A few years before the war of 1812-14, Mr. Nathan Crary 
removed to St. Lawrence county. New York, locating in Pierpoint, 
where he died in 1851, at the advanced age of ninety-two years. 
Nathan Crary married Lydia Arnold, aunt of the late Stephen A. 
Douglas. She was a native of Brandon, Vermont, and survived 
her husband about five years. To them were born a large family 
of children. Of these, John Wesley Crary, father of Dr. Crary, 
was one. He was bred a millwright, settled in Potsdam, and car- 
ried on a very extensive business along the borders, building the 
first mills ever erected at Ottawa, then By -town, the capital of the 
Dominion of Canada. Dr. Crary's lineage on his mothers side 
was purely English. The family had long been residents of the 
Empire State, when John Wesley Crary married into it. His wife's 
name was Mindwell P., daughter of Judge Lemuel Holmes, of Frank- 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 



1209 



lin county, New York, and a captain in the war of 1812-14. Mr. J. 
W. Crary is still living at St. Paul, Minnesota, with his youngest 
son, Dr. W. H. Crary, of that city, and is in the enjoyment of per- 
fect health. His wife died in Redwing, this state, February 24, 
1877, at sixty-six years of age, leaving to her husband and children 
the memory of a "life than which no nobler or more unselfish has 
been lived among women. To J. W. Crary and his wife were born 
three sons and one daughter. The eldest of these children was 
Charles Wesley Crary, the subject of this sketch, who was born 
at Potsdam, New York, May 6, isSS, and shortly afterward removed 
with his parents to the old farm on which he was raised, one and a 
half miles southeast of town. Charles W. Crary received a thor- 
ough academic training in the old St. Lawrence Academy, in his 
native town, from which he graduated in 1855. That same year he 
entered upon the study of medicine in the office of Carrol C. Bates, 
M.D., one of the most celebrated surgeons of northern New York. 
In the fall of 1858, young Crary, having completed his studies at 
the Albany Medical College, graduated M.D., and receiving his 
parchments from that institution, located for practice at Fort Coving- 
ton, New York. The following year. May 4, 1859, Dr. C. W. 
Crary married Miss Mary P. Porter, also a native of Potsdam, 
born January 4, 1837, and a graduate of the academy, class of 1856. 
Miss Porter's father, Orlin Porter, was a prominent clergyman of 
the Methodist Episcopal church ; her mother, Pamelia Porter {nee 
Allen), was a direct descendant of the old Ethan Allen stock of 
Yermont. The doctor and his wife number a long line of clergy- 
men among their ancestors on both sides of the house. Dr. Crary 
having married, continued in practice at Fort Covington, uMil the 
call came for additional troops in the fall of 1861, when within 
twenty-four hours' time he enlisted a full company of one hundred 
men, and tendered his services to the government. These enlist- 
ments were upon the express condition that Dr. Crary would remain 
with the company during its term of service. The company was 
accepted by the governor of the state, Dr. Crary was commissioned 
captain, and his command became Co. H, 98 regt. N. Y. Yols. 
The regiment was ordered to Washington, and in the following 
spring took the field under McClellan. Capt. Crary was with his 
regiment until May 31, 1862, when he was wounded at the battle of 
Fair Oaks, and sent to Annapolis, Maryland. Was in hospital there 
thirty days and was then sent north on sick leave. Returned to his 



1210 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

regiment at the expiration of sixty days, and being incapacitated 
for marching by the injury he had received, was released from 
his promise to remain with his company, and tendered his 
resignation as captain of Co. H, to accept the assistant-surgeoncy 
of the 114th regt. N. Y. Vols. He was soon afterward ordered to 
the department of the Gulf, under Banks, and reported at Port 
Hudson. He was in all the engagements fought by that command, 
ten in number, and served as medical purveyor of the corps (the 
19th) until it was ordered to the Shenandoah valley in the summer 
of 186-4. That same fall he was promoted surgeon, and assigned to 
duty with the 185tli regt. N. Y. Vols., then before Petersburg. 
The doctor was subsequently breveted lieutenant-colonel in the 
medical department, for honorable and meritorious services in the 
field, and during the last six months of his service was acting 
brigade-surgeon of the 1st brigade, 1st division, 5th Army Corps. 
The war having closed, Dr. Crary was mustered out of the service at 
Syracuse, New York, July, 1865. after having been on active duty 
for nearly four years. During this time he was present in seven- 
teen hotly-contested general engagements, besides numerous skir- 
mishes. The chief of these actions were the battles of Fair Oaks, 
Port Hudson, Pleasant Hill, both of the Winchester fights, Hatcher's 
Kun, Gravely Run and South side Railroad. The same year that he 
left the army, Dr. Crarj^ settled in Malone, New York, where he 
was enjoying a very considerable practice, which he relinquished to 
accept the post of contract-surgeon U. S. A., at Fort Gibson, 
Indian Temtory, his brother-in-law, Maj. A. S. Kimball, being 
quartermaster of that department. He had been in Fort Gibson 
about eighteen months, when, in the spring of 18'68, the smallpox 
broke out among the Indians at Cabin creek, some sixty miles up 
the Grand river from Fort Gibson. Having been recommended for 
that work by the agents of the Creek, Cherokee and Seminole Indi- 
ans, Dr. Crary threw up his contract at Fort Gibson, and made 
special terms with Gen. Parker, commissioner for Indian afiairs, to 
vaccinate all the Indians in the Creek, Cherokee and Seminole 
nations. Receiving due authority from Washington, and having 
made all arrangements with the medical department to forward him 
a fresh supply of non-lmmanized vaccine-virus every seven days, 
Dr. Crary entered upon his work. All the details of this service 
were thoroughly mastered and reduced to a system before it was 
commenced, and once entered upon it was not relinquished until 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1211 

under his own hand thirty thousand Indians had been vaccinated. 
The doctor was accompanied for weeks together while upon this 
duty with Mrs. Crary, camping out as they journeyed from station to 
station, at which the Indian runners had assembled detachments of 
the tribes in readiness for the doctor's coming. During the five 
months spent upon this service, the doctor and his wife only received 
the kindest and most hospitable treatment at the hands of the tribes 
among whom they sojourned. In 1S69 Dr. Crary removed with his 
family to Philadelphia, remained thirteen months attending clinical 
lectures at the Blocksley and Pennsylvania hospitals, received his 
parchments from Jeiferson Medical College in the spring of 1871, 
and shortly afterward located for practice in the city of St. Louis. 
The five years spent in this city were very prosperous ones, and 
during their continuance the doctor built up a lucrative practice, 
and enjoyed the confidence of the profession, a^ was evidenced by his 
being made a permanent member of the American Medical Associa- 
tion, at its session in St. Louis, in 1873. Having become a pro- 
nounced homoeopathist in 1875, the doctor formerly relinquished 
his relations to the old school of practice, and entered upon the newer 
and more progressive one, in which he has been signally successful. 
Owing to pecuniary reverses, the result of unsuccessful political 
aspirations, Dr. Crary resolved to remove from St. Louis, and being 
charmed with the scenery of this lake region, located here in 1876. 
During the eight years of his eminently successful practice in this 
city. Dr. Crary has won for himself hosts of friends, and four years 
since (1880) received the compliment of an election to the presi- 
dency of the Minnesota State Homoeopathic Institute, which posi- 
tion he filled with acceptability. A perfect gentleman in manners, 
genial in nature, generous to a fault, a fine horseman, a true friend, 
and a man among men. Dr. Crary — with his smiling face, and his 
two hundred and thirty pounds avoirdupois— is justly considered 
the heavj^-weight of the medical fraternity of Lake City. To Dr. 
Crary and wife have been born four children, of whom only one sur- 
vives, the eldest, Minnie P., born at Potsdam, New York, May 21, 

1860. ^ ^.^ 

C. E. Herman, meat market, also dealer m live stock, hides, 
pelts, tallow and lard ; market stand and oflice on south side Main 
street, four doors east of Alleghaney street. Mr. Herman estab- 
lished himself in business in this city in 1876, on the opposite side 
of Main street, purchased the property he now occupies in 1878, and 



1212 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

removed to the present location upon the completion of his shop in 
1882. His property fronts two hundred and ten feet on Main and 
extends to the alley in the rear, a depth of one hundred and forty- 
five feet. On the west twenty feet of this property his shop is built, 
a substantial two- story brick, 20x60 feet, witli stone basement, sills 
and caps ; the basement floor of brick and cement. The basement 
is used for cutting, salting meats, and winter packing, being specially 
arranged for that pui*pose. The main floor is used for market-room, 
office and cold-room, this latter by a special device of the proprie- 
tor's, being virtually a summer packing-room, well ventilated, with 
a uniformly low temperature, in which meats will keep perfectly 
fresh for a month. The floor of the market-room is laid upon double- 
braced joists throughout, and is practically able to stand any weight 
that may be put upon it. The curing-house, in the rear, has a capa- 
city of about two hundred hams ; the cold-room accommodates about 
twenty carcasses, and the ice-loft overhead holds about twenty tons ; 
the ice-house (lot 2, block 14) has a storage capacity of from two 
hundred and fifty to three hundred tons, the supplying of this com- 
modity being also a part of Mr. Hermann's regular business. The 
stables and sheds are in the rear of the market, the slaughter-house 
and yards in Pepin township, three miles from city, and the business 
keeps from two to three men and three horses constantly employed. 
They slaughter about five head of neat cattle, and from three to ten 
head each of sheep, calves and hogs per week. The upper story of 
the shop is the dwelling of the proprietor. Ceilings downstairs are 
thirteen feet, overhead eleven feet, C. E. Herman was born in 
Dresden, Saxony, learned his trade in his native city, came to 
America in 1870, locating for a time in St. Louis, then, after travel- 
ing quite generally over the United States, came to Minnesota in 
1874, and settled in this city in 1876. He was married April 6, 
1876, in Chatfield, Minnesota, to Miss Mary Shaab. They have 
two children : Theodore, born January 31, 1880 ; Mina, born Novem- 
ber 14, 1882. 

T. S. Jellison & Son, druggists and dealers in paints, oils, etc., 
north side Main street, two doors west from Pembroke. This busi- 
ness is of comparatively recent establishment, the present proprietors 
having been in the drug trade in this city only since November, 
1881, at which time they bought out John Moran, who had suc- 
ceeded John Schmit, who brought a small stock of drugs to this place 
from Lake City about three years since. The business under the 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1213 

former proprietors was not prosperous, but since it has been in the 
hands of Jellison & Son it has been well stocked up, a commodious 
salesroom occupied and a flourishing trade built up. The building, 
of which they occupy one floor and basement, fronts twenty-flve feet 
on Main, and has a depth of eighty-five feet. Business has increased 
over one hundred per cent since occupying the present stand, and a 
force of three persons are employed in its management. This house 
is also doing an extensive trade in pianos, organs, musical instru- 
ments and merchandise. Their sales of pianos and organs from 
October 6, 1882, when they established this branch of business, to 
July 24, 1883, aggregated sixty-seven; sales for the thirty days 
ending July 24, 1883, being five pianos and twelve organs. They 
handle the Hallett piano and Kimball organ principally, but are not 
confined to any particular manufactory, as they hold no agency, but, 
purchasing for cash, buy and sell to suit the demands of the trade, 
always keeping a full supply in their wareroom. C. C. Jellison, 
who manages this branch of the business exclusively, is a native of 
Indiana, made his acquaintance with the musical trade in the house 
of Baldwin & Co. He came to Durand, Wisconsin, in 1877, and 
was for a time engaged as a steamboat clerk, his health having 
become impaired by too close attention to ofiice work. Soon after 
he came to Wabasha county, as bookkeeper for Drury & Kirns, 
lumbermen at this place and St. Louis, and still manages their aftairs 
at this point, his ofiice being in the rear of the drug and music 
store. 

F. H. BuRDicK, agent for Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Rail- 
way Company at this point since 1876. From 1876 to 1879, the 
first three years of Mr. Burdick's agency at this place, he was without 
an assistant, performing the work of ticket-seller, freight agent and 
depot superintendent alone. Since then, particularly since the com- 
pletion of the Wabasha and Chippewa Valley divisions of the road, 
the increase of business at this point has become so marked and 
rapid that a force of eight persons is required to perform the work 
of this office and the branch station at East Wabasha. Mr. Burdick 
is a native of Rock county, Wisconsin. He received a common and 
high school education in his native state, and commenced service as 
a railway agent and telegraph operator at Castalia, Iowa, in 1870, 
and was for five years at Cresco, Iowa, in charge of the company's 
business at that point, before coming to this city in 1876. Mr. Bur- 
dick married Miss L. J. Niles, of Cresco, Iowa, November 28, 1875. 



1214 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

They have three children, two born in this city : Adin, born Sep- 
tember 25, 1876 ; Niles, born September 25, 187S ; Francis, born 
1882. 

Fred C. Loucks, well driller, is a son of AVilliam and Susan L. 
Loiicks, of New York, and was born in South Grove, Walworth 
county, Wisconsin, April 20, 1853. In 1865 his father removed to 
Fillmore county, in this state, and still resides there. Here Fred 
was reared on a farm, and received a good common-school education. 
In 1876 he began the business of drilling wells and dealing in 
pumps, making his headquarters at Spring Valley. In 1877 he re- 
moved to Mazeppa, and is now engaged in the sale of windmills and 
pumps. He has recently ])urchased ninety-five acres of land \ying 
near the village, in Zumbrota and Chester townships, but continues 
to reside in Mazeppa. On September 18, 1879, he was married to 
Carrie, daughter of Jacob Stull, of Mazeppa. They have one 
daughter, christened Edith Pearl, born July 1, 1882. Mr. Loucks' 
religion is the golden rule. His political principles are those of the 
republican party. 

Anthony Casper, merchant, was born near Strasbourg, in Alsace, 
April 6, 1811, and came with his parents to Buffalo, New York, 
when eleven years old. Here he attended the English common 
schools about six months in all, his early years being mostly de- 
voted to toil. After reaching maturity he earned one hundred and 
fifty dollars, which he invested in cows, and started his parents in 
the dairy business, still conducted by his mother there, his father 
having died. In 1865 he opened a grocery store in Buffalo, with a 
capital of three hundred dollars. A year later he took in a partner. 
In 1870 he bought out his partner, and continued the business six 
years alone. He became a resident of Chester in the spring of 1877, 
at that time purchasing one hundred acres of land on the northwest 
quarter of section 4. On this he erected the large hotel and store 
that he occupies, witli barns and other outbuildings. He sells over fif- 
teen thousand dollars' worth of goods per year, and his trade is steadily 
increasing. He has added forty acres to his landed domain, and 
now tills the whole with the assistance of his sons. Through his 
efforts a postoffice was secured at Belle Chester, and he was ap- 
pointed to its charge, his commission dating April 30, 1879. Up to 
July 1, 1881, he carried the mail from Lake City, and after that the 
government supplied the office. He has also served as justice of the 
peace for four years, and is still incumbent of the office. Mr. Casper 



OTHER IMPOETAi^T PERSONAGES. 1215 

visited this state in 1870, and was so pleased with it that he deter- 
mined to remove thither as soon as possible. He is an enthusiastic 
democrat. Himself and family are communicants of Belle Chester 
Catholic church. He was married in 1865, to Eva Eeding, boi-n in 
Sheldon, New York. Their children were christened respectively, 
Anthony M., Joseph H., Edward Louis, Mary O., John T., Martha 
M., Eva Antoinette. Two beside the sib6ve named died in infancy. 

Peter Musty, farmer, is a native of Belgium, born in 1831. 
His father was John and his mother Barbara (Schmidt) Musty. In 
1846 all left their native land, and settled in Wyoming county, New 
York, where the mother soon died. This subject remained on the 
farm with his father till 1868. He was married in December, 1856, 
to Ann Reding, a native of New York, of German parentage. In 
the spring of 1877 he came with his family to Wabasha county, and 
bought two hundred and forty acres of land in Chester, where his 
home is now, on sections 21 and 28. He has a beautiful farm on 
which he built a large and handsome house in 1881. Large barns 
were on it at the time of his purchase. He is a democrat, and the 
family is enrolled in Belle Chester Roman Catholic church. There 
are ten living children, as follows: Lena (Mrs. John Schuler, Ches- 
ter); rest at home, viz: Catharine, Mary A., Nicholas, Anthony J., 
John, Barbara, Henry, Michael J. and Hubert S. 

Peter Hall, merchant, was born in Jutland, Denmark, July 25, 
1845. He was the second of six children born to Loren and Anna 
M. Hall. His youth was passed on his father's farm, receiving a 
good common school education, and attending two years the Aarhnus 
Latin School of Aarhnus. In 1867 he left his native land and came 
to Milwaukee. A year later he went to La Crosse, and shortly after 
bought a farm in Otter Tail county, Minnesota. The next six years 
he spent traveling about the western country, and in 1877 he located 
at Theilmauton, erecting the business room referred to elsewhere, 
and has since been doing a prosperous and promising business in 
general merchandise. He was the first to locate at Theilmanton, 
and has a good stock, valued at about four thousand dollars. He 
was appointed postmaster in 1878, which position he now holds. 
In 1869 his parents followed him to this country, and have since 
been living in Otter Tail county, this state. July 30, 1876, he mar- 
ried Matilda N. Harncane, a native of Pennsylvania. To this union 
have been born three children, James M., Ann Eliza (deceased) 
and Ann Eliza. Is a republican. He was elected justice of the 



1216 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

peace in 1879, holding the office till the spring of 1883. He belongs 
to Kellogg Lodge, No. 122, F.A.M. 

J. E. Young, head miller, Wabasha, since 1877. Mr. Young 
is a native of Indiana, and was bred to the milling business in Spencer, 
in that state. He came to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1860, and was 
in the mills there until coming to this city in 1877. Four years of 
that time he was second miller in the mill of Eastman & Gibson, 
and was for another period of four years head stoneman in the 
Empire and in the Pillsbury B. mills. Mr. Young was married at 
Minneapolis February 22, 1869, to Miss B. L. Cyphers, of that city. 
They have one child Susie A. Young, born April 17, 1871. 

J. H. Lakey, superintendent ot the Chippewa Valley and the 
Wabasha divisions of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway, 
general offices at the Union depot on the main line of the road at 
Wabasha. Mr. Lakey was superintendent of construction of the 
Wabasha division, and has had charge of its management since 
gromid was broken for its construction in October, 1877. He was 
appointed superintendent of the Chippewa Valley division Novem- 
ber 15, 18S2. Mr. Lakey is descended from an old central New 
York family, who settled in Palmyra, Wayne county, in that state, 
over one hundred years ago. Mr. Lakey learned his trade as a 
blacksmith, at Lyons, the county seat of his native county, and com- 
ing to Chicago in 1848, was there employed in making car-springs 
for the cars of the old Galena road, the first that were ever made in 
Chicago. In the following year, 1819, Mr. Lakey was in the employ 
of Baltimore & Ohio railroad, at Cumberland, Maryland, which was 
at that time the western terminus of the road. In February, 1854, 
Mr. Lakey returned to Chicago, and entered the service of the Ga- 
lena & Chicago railroad, then operating a road from Chicago to 
Scales Mound, one hundred and forty-two miles westward from the 
lake. This road subsequently became a branch of the Chicago & 
Northwestern system, and in the employ of that company Mr. Lakey 
continued twenty-three years, at Turner Junction, where the road 
branches from the old Galena route, and running westward crosses 
the Mississippi at Clinton, Iowa, and traversing that state reaches 
the Missouri at Council Bluffs. Mr. Lakey was in charge of the 
shops of tne company at Turner Junction, and had general care of 
the rolling stock along the line. The old engine "Pioneer," which 
so recently attracted the notice of all visitors at the railway exposi- 
tion in Chicago, was the first engine to run out of Chicago, in 1848, 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1217 

and appeared at that city in 1882, substantially as she was built in 
1836 for the New York Central Railway Company, by Balwin, of 
Philadelphia. She was doing duty between Rochester and Buffalo, 
New York, when Martin Van Buren and Daniel Webster made their 
first trip westward, and drew the train that brought them over the 
road. Mr. Lakey remained in charge of the shops at Turner Junc- 
tion until he came to Wabasha in the fall of 1877 to superintend the 
construction of what was then known as the Midland railroad, now 
the Wabasha division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. 

M. ScHRAM, proprietor and publisher of the "Mazeppa Tribune," 
is a native of Prussia, Germany. In 1853, when ten years of age, he 
came with his parents to America and settled in Chicago, when he 
went to learn the printer's trade of Jule Hays. Before his appren- 
ticeship was completed the war of the rebellion broke out, and in 
1862 he enlisted in Co. C, 3d Board of Trade regt., when he served 
his adopted country three years. On being mustered out in 1865^ 
he returned to his case and completed his apprenticeship. In 1868, 
for the purpose of gaining extended information in connection with 
his profession, he commenced his travels, which continued through a 
number of years. In 1877 he came to Mazeppa (with his family), 
arriving on October 28, with a determination of making it his home 
and establishing a permanent business ; having, at the time of arrival, 
a cash capital of three dollars, and a much used outfit for a printing 
office, which he had purchased inRipon, Wisconsin, for one hundred 
and twelve dollars, and the whole of which could be carried in an 
ordinary sized grip. One can easily imagine the trials and difficul- 
ties besetting a person in the endeavor to establish a business with 
three dollars, that requires cash or credit to a considerable amount. 
But his case, like innumerable others, proved the old adage : Where 
there's a will there's a way. Mr. Schram now has a neat and as well 
an appointed office as can be found in any village. His paper is full 
of news items, and his selections exhibit care, judgment and a 
thorough knowledge of the requirements of his patrons. On JSTovem- 
ber 11, 1870, Mr. Sclti-am was married to Miss Anna Lundlinger, of 
Chicago, by whom he has had five children, three of whom are living, 
Anna Cary, Michael John and Laura. Mrs. Schram carries on the 
millinery business and enjoys a good trade. Mr. Schram is mar- 
shal and constable of the village of Mazeppa. 

Abbot E, Smith, attorney, Lake City, was born in West Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, September 20, 1855. His father, Samuel 



1218 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTV. 

Abbot Smith, is descended from a Scotch family that emigrated to 
Massachusetts about 1700. The ancestors of Maria Edes, who was 
espoused by S. A. Smith, came from England and settled at Charles- 
town ])revious to that time. The Abbots, paternal progenitors of 
S. A. Smith, came in 1636. The latter, who was a Unitarian 
minister, died in 1865. His son had every educational advantage. 
In 1877 A. E. Smith graduated irom Harvard University with the 
degree of A.B. The following year he located in Lake City and 
o])oned a loan office. In April, 1883, he was admitted to practice 
before the state supreme court, and is now giving attention to law, 
loan and collections. He is a member of the Plii-Beta-Kappa 
society, of the Unitarian cliurch, and of the great republican party. 

Milton D. Smith was born in Chautauqua county, New York, 
June 6, 1834. His father, Milo Smith, removed his family to 
Michigan in 1839, and the following year to St. Joseph county, 
Indiana. Here Milton had the advantages of a country school, and 
spent his youth. In the autumn of 1855 he came west in search of 
.a place to build him a new home and fortune. He found the desired 
:spot in a quarter-section of Minnesota fertile lands, viz: the N.W. 
^ of Sec. 35 in the township of Plainview, and hastened back to his 
old Indiana home to acquaint the lady of his choice, and make 
arrangements for the removal of his personal effects hither in the 
spring. January 6, 1856, he was married to Margaret Leininger, 
daughter of a St. Joseph county farmer, and as soon as spring 
opened, with his young wife, came to resume possession of his new 
liome. From the first, prosperity attended the life of the young 
pioneer and his bride. His fortune grew apace, and in 1879 he 
bought the E. B. Eddy place, one of the finest residences in the 
neighboring village of Plainview, and removed to town. His broad 
acres now aggregate seven hundred and twenty, situate on sections 
25, 26 and 35, all in the township of Plainview. Mr. Smith has 
been the recipient of local public honors, is a member of the Masonic 
fraternity, and a republican in politics. Six children have been born 
to him, as follows, viz : Helen (Mrs. F. Leinifiger), of Plainview ; 
"William H. (in the grocery and cigar business), Plainview ; Martha 
E. (Mrs. Fred. McArthur), of Ordway, Dakota Territory ; and Harry 
D., Irving and Bessie, living at home. 

Florence Sullivan, Mazeppa, was born in Madison county, New 
York, June 25, 1853, and was but three years old when he came to 
Minnesota. His education was furnished hj the common schools, 



OTHKE IMPOKTANT PERSONAGES. 1219 

and lie remained on the farm till of age. He was married in 1878^ 
to Eachael Woy, born in Jo Daviess county, Illinois. Mrs. Sulli- 
van's father, Enos Woy, was one of the pioneers of Wabasha county, 
and now resides at Providence, this state. Mr. Sullivan was 
engaged in farming till 1881, when he settled in this village. He 
is a member of Mazeppa lodge, I.O.O.F., and in politics is a demo- 
crat. He was reared in the Koman Catholic church, but does not 
now give allegiance to that sect. Two children have been born to 
him, christened as follows : January 19, 1879, Lillian ; January 17, 
1883, Frances. Mr. Sullivan's father, Michael, was born in the 
Parish of Dinmaer, County Kerry, Ireland, in 1830. When of age 
he came to New York, and was there married in 1852, to Ann 
Hogan, a native of County Carlow, Ireland. He settled near 
Mazeppa in 1856. He subsequently removed to Chester, where he 
now lives. 

Andrew D. Yan Buren, farmer. Lake City, is a son of William 
and Elizabeth Kose Yan Buren, and was born at Kingston, Ulster 
county, New York, in 1820. His parents and grandparents were 
also born and buried there. He is a lineal descendant of the same 
illustrious Holland ancestor as was the statesman Martin Yan Buren. 
Though he disclaims to any honor won for the name by that eminent 
personage, yet is proud of him as a distant relative. Early in life 
he learned the trade of blacksmith and followed the same till his 
removal to Wisconsin in 1854. There he settled on a farm near 
Madison and engaged in farming till the outbreak of the war of the 
rebellion, when he enlisted in Co. B, 11th Wis. Yol. Inf., and 
served till the close of the war. Soon after the charge on Fort 
Blakely he was discharged and returned home. In 1869 he removed 
to Pepin, Wisconsin, where he bought a farm, on which he resided 
till 1877, when he sold, came to Lake City and purchased his 
present home near the lower end of Oak street. Besides his resi- 
dence here he owns a farm in the township of Lake. He was mar- 
ried in 1841, at Kingston, New York, to Miss Abbie S. Dresser, a 
native of Stockbridge, Berkshire county, Massachusetts. They have 
two children, L. Augusta, wife of G. W. Sanford, of Middleton, 
Wisconsin, and Mary E., wife of James E. Sweet. Mr. Sweet was 
born in Chautauqua county. New York, in 1844. In 1856 he came 
with his parents to Dane county, Wisconsin, and in 1866, on April 
9, was married to Miss Mary E. Yan Buren. In 1868 he removed 
to Pepin, where he purchased a farm and engaged in agricultural 



1220 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY, 

pursuits. In 1879 he purchased a pleasant little home on the shore 
of the beautitul Lake Pepin, near the lower end of Oak street, and 
has a fair prospect for a pleasant life. 

William E. Reuscii, merchant, Lake City, was born in Hanover, 
Germany, June 14, 1845. Wlien he was but nine years old, his 
father, Josepli Reusch, died, leaving to be reared on a farm by his 
mother. He received a good common-school education in his native 
language, to which he has added, by reading and observation, a 
comprehensive knowledge of the English in this country. He was 
married February 6, 1870, to Miss Emma F. Miller, who was born 
in the city of Hamburg, September 8, 1837. She was also left an 
orphan at the age of four years, by the death of her father, and was 
raised in Lutheran Protestant hospital. On February 17, 1875, he 
sailed from the city of Hamburg on board the steamship Pomerania, 
commanded by Capt. Swenson, for New York, where they arrived 
on March 2. He came direct to Minnesota, and settled in 
Frontinac, where he engaged in trade till October, 1876, when he 
removed to Lake City. Here he opened a grocery store and con- 
ducted a successful business till the great tire of April, 1882, when 
his property was consumed, though partially insured. On the 22d 
of the same month he purchased a two-story brick store, in size 
20 X 82 feet, in block 25, fronting on Center street, and at once put 
in a stock of groceries and liquors, where he is now doing a fair 
business. Early in the spring of 1882 he sent to the old country 
for his brother, Joseph C. Reusch and family, who had arrived and 
took up quarters with him the night of the tire, thus losing all their 
household goods, and leaving them destitute of everything but 
friends in a strange land, Mr, Reusch is a fair dealing man and 
merits a fair share of the public ])atronage. 

Gabriel Chalmers, farmer, is a native of Dumfriesshire, Scot- 
land, where he was born November 11, 1828. His parents were 
Gabriel and Margaret (Mundle) Chalmers, to whom were born 
twelve children, Gabriel being the eleventh. "When he was ten 
years of age he accompanied his parents to Lanark county, Ontario, 
where he lived with his parents until twentj^-one, when he went to 
Oswego county, New York, Here he learned the carpenter's trade, 
and followed it there eight years, returned to Canada and ]:)ursued 
his calling until his removal westward. Li 1878 he located on the 
farm in West Albany, wliicli he now occui)ies, being known since 
the early settlement of the township as the "Lone Tree" quarter- 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1221 

section. He was married July 4, 1853, to Mary Morris, of Somer- 
setshire. Seven children have been the fruit of this union, four ol 
whom are living: Edward J., John M., Charles H., William H. 
Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers are Presbyterians. In politics he is repub- 
lican. He is a prosperous farmer and an intelligent citizen. 

Ezra Feller, the genial proprietor of the only hotel in Plain- 
view, was born in Duchess county, Kew York, where he lived until 
at eleven years of age his parents removed with him to Wayne 
county, Indiana. In 1860 he went to Oconomowoc, Waukesha 
county, Wisconsin, and employed his time from 1869 to 1878 at 
farming. For two years next succeeding he started and ran success- 
fully the Plainview Livery Stable, which he removed to its present 
site in the rear on assuming the position, for which he is so admi- 
rably adapted, as proprietor of the hotel, which he purchased of A. 
Y. Felton, March 1, 1881. The house is quadrangular in form, 
measures 100x300 feet, and is noted for its scrupulous cleanliness 
and painstaking, businesslike attention of all interested in its 
management. Uncle Ez., as Mr. Feller is familiarly called, has had 
two wives ; the second still living proves an invaluable auxiliary in 
the inner working of the liotel, and is admired for her particular 
care in the welfare of her partner, and in his success in business. 

John Behrns, Millville's enterprising landlord, and agent for 
the "Piano" reapers and mowers, was born in Germany, in 1830, 
the third son of Gabriel Behrns. An eighteen-year-old lad, Mr. 
Behrns spent four years in Chicago as his first struggle with the 
world. Four years after he left Chicago he came to Wabasha county, 
and became one of Oakwood's first settlers. About 1870 he founded 
Bremen. From this time on he was buying, selling and trading in 
land until 1878, when he came to Millville^and started his present 
hotel. It is nicely situated near the depot, and was one of the ear- 
liest business places in Millville. In 1882 he took the agency for 
the "Piano" twine binder. He has always been one of the leading 
men of the township, and held its principal offices, of which mention 
is made in the general history. He kept one of Millville's early 
stores. He has been a member of the Odd-Fellows. He married 
Ludiwika Koping, a native of Germany, in 1856. They have five 
children. 

A. J. Myers, agent Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, 
Mazeppa, was born in Cattaraugus county, New York State, in October, 
1851. At two years of age he came west with his parents, to Wis- 



1222 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

consin, where he lived two years. His parents then moved to the 
State of Minnesota, stopping for a time at Saratoga, from which 
phice they went to Lake Slieteck, Minnesota. Here they were 
driven from their home by the Indians, during the Indian outbreak 
of 1862, and fled for safety to Mankato. Shortly after reaching 
Mankato, his mother died from the effects of exposure, consequent 
on their flight from the Indians. This was a sad epoch in the life 
of young Myers, as his father had lost everything by the Indian out- 
break, and had no means of providing for his family but his bare 
hands, and threw him almost wholly on Ins own resources. He 
proved equal to the occasion, however, as, though but eleven years 
of age^ he commenced fighting the battle of life on his own account. 
For a number of years he made his way by working on farms in 
Minnesota and Wisconsin. At the age of eighteen years he went 
to learn the trade of furniture finisher. He then worked at the 
jewelry business two years, but the confinement not agreeing with 
his health, he was compelled to quit it. Up to this time of his life his 
advantages for schooling had been so limited, that they were hardly 
worthy of note. But he was of that kind not to be kept down, and 
while working at the jewelry business he devoted his spare time to 
study and improving his mind by midnight oil. In this way he 
fitted himself for business, and became so proficient with the pen, 
that subsequently he taught writing and penmanship several terms. 
After quitting the jewelry business he engaged in selling sewing 
machines and organs, and ultimatel}^ engaged in the insurance busi- 
ness, but having married and settled in life, his almost continual 
absence from home was unpleasant, and he determined to enter 
some other field ; accordingly in 1878 he made application for the 
position he now fills ; but here he was beset with difficulties. He 
had sufficient education, was a fine penman, but was without experi- 
ence. He believed, however, he had capacity for the position. In 
an interview with Mr. Lakey, the superintendent, he frankly stated 
all these facts, and was accepted. During his first year as agent 
he learned the art of telegraphing from an operator employed at his 
expense, since which time he has been independent and competent 
in every department. Mr. Myers is a member of the Masonic 
order, and is junior warden of the lodge. In December, 1878, he 
was married to Miss Minnie E. Buell, of Hyde Park, whose father 
was one of the earliest settlers of Wabasha county. They have two 
children, Frederick B. and Arthur L. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1223 

Commercial Hotel, corner of Main and Bailly streets, H. Oswald, 
proprietor. This house, the pro])erty of Lucas Kuehn, was about 
one-half its present size when Mr. Oswald took possession, in 1879, 
with the understanding that it should be immediately enlarged and 
the whole put in first-class condition. As it now stands, the hotel 
fronts one hundred and twenty feet on Main street, seventy feet on 
Bailly, with ample office, billiard room, bar, sample-rooms, kitchen, 
dining-rooms, parlors and family rooms on the first floor, and well- 
arranged guest rooms on the second ; of these latter tliere are 
thirty-two. The dining-room facing on Bailly street is 30x40 feet, 
and the table and service such as befit a first-class hotel. The situa- 
tion of the house is pleasant, at the east end of the principal street 
of the city, with a charming river view, and such gorgeous sunsets 
as the sun dips behind the bluffs in the west, as are seldom seen in 
any land. All the appointments of the house are first-class, and the 
popularity of the management is evidenced by the ftict that the house 
is always full, and cots a nightly necessity. A good omnibus line runs 
to all the trains and day-boats, and travelers arriving in the city at any 
hour find no difficulty in reaching the hotel. The business of the house 
is thirty per cent in advance of corresponding period of 1882. Mr. 
Oswald is a native of Saxony ; came to America in 1866, and three 
years later settled in Duluth, where he was engaged in tobacco 
manufacture. He was living at Red Wing for three years, before 
coming to this city, in 1879, to assume charge of the Commercial 
Hotel. Mr. Oswald married Miss Selma Beckert the year before he 
left Europe for America. They have but one child living, Brunhilda, 
born in this city October 5, 1882. 

Orlo B. Munger, merchant, is a native of Addison county, 
Vermont, but nearly all his life has been spent in Minnesota. He 
was born in Orwell,' September 28, 1855. His fiither, J. M. Munger, 
was a native of the same state, and his mother (Mai vina L. Beldin) was 
born in Johnstown, Wisconsin. In 1857 J. M. Munger settled in 
Washington county, this state, on a farm. Here this subject was 
raised, attending the common school till fifteen years old, when he 
began firing on a railroad engine. Three years later took up mill- 
wright work. In June, 1881^ he was employed on the Mazeppa mill, 
and again in September, 1882. While here he formed the acquaint- 
ance of Miss Isabel Taft, to whom he was married December 27, 
1881. In March, 1883, he bought an interest in the stove and hard- 
ware stock here, and is now manager of the business of Taft & 



122-i HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Miinger, his partner being A. J. Taft elsewhere sketched in this 
work. He has one son, Walter Lawrence, born October 7, 1S82. 
He is a republican, and a member of the Masonic order. 

J. T. McGovERN, county attorney, office on Main street, over 
Swartz's store. Mr. McGovern is a native of Amboy, Illinois ; from 
1873 to 1876 pursued his studies at St. Michael's College, Toronto, 
Ontario, and also at St. Joseph's College, in Dubuque, Iowa. He 
read law in the office of Allison (now United States senator from 
Iowa) & Crane, of Dubuque, and entering the law department of 
the Iowa State University, graduated from that institution, class of 
1880, and was admitted to practice in the circuit court at Dubuque. 
Mr. McGovern then entered the office of Pollock & McKulty, of 
that city, to acquire practice in the drafting of instruments and papers, 
and remaining there until his removal to this city in August, 1881. 
Here he entered into practice as a member of the law firm of Van Horn 
& McGovern, which continued until Mr. Van Horn's removal to Da- 
kota, in 1882. In the fall of 1882 Mr. McGovern was nominated by 
the democratic county convention as their candidate for county 
attorney, and duly elected. His term of office exjiires December 
31, 1885. 

Ed. a. Paradis, editor and proprietor of the Plain view " News," 
though not one of the pioneers of Wabasha county, is nevertheless 
in some respects a pioneer, having done pioneer newspaper work in 
Illinois in 1870 and in Kansas in 1873. Mr. Paradis was the son 
of J. B. Paradis, a contractor and builder, whose father was a 
wealthy landed proprietor and manufacturer of Lacadie, Canada, 
where he was born on July 6, 1850. The family soon after removed 
to Kankakee county, Illinois. Ed. being the youngest of the family 
of thirteen children, was deprived of tlie educational advantages 
enjoyed by his brothers, by the financial failure of his father in 
1857. At the age of nine he was cast upon the world to earn his 
own living. This he did by doing farm work at first. At the age 
of sixteen he adopted his father's trade, that of a carpenter. He 
soon found employment with the American Bridge Co., of Chicago, 
and remained with it until 1870, when he joined liis brother, J. B. 
Paradis, in establishing the Momence (Illinois) "Reporter," their 
capital stock being, all told, forty dollars. This venture was a suc- 
cess, and in August, 1873, he joined J. S. Paradis, another brother, 
in a similar enterprise at Clyde, Kansas, where they started the 
Clyde " Local Reporter." Owing to grasshopper raids success did 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1225 

not attend this undertaking, and in April, 1875, with an empty 
purse, Mr. Paradis found himself an humble compositor in St. Paul. 
In the fall of 1876 he found himself once more on his feet, and 
became one of the proprietors of the "National," a French and 
English newspaper. Financial reverses again came upon him, and 
the following August he came to Plain view. In August, 1878, he 
became a half owner of the Plainview "News," and bought the 
remaining half-interest of his partner, H. J. Bjron, April 1, 1882, 
since which time he has continued sole proprietor of the sheet. In 
religious matters Mr. Paradis may be set down as a Freethinker. He 
was married to Miss Jennie Hammil in St. Paul, October 9, 1877. 

J. P. Waste, M.D., came to Plainview in September, 1865, 
from Ohio. Previous to this he served as assistant surgeon in the 
193d Ohio Inf. for eight months. After attending two full courses 
of lectures from 1860-4 at the Michigan University, he graduated 
at the Cleveland Medical College. Dr. Waste was born at Green- 
wich, Washington county, New York, February 17, 1837. He 
received the advantage of an early public school and academic edu- 
cation. He is a Freemason of high standing, and is also a member 
of the I.O.O.F., having held the position of noble grand for one 
term, and financial secretary for two years. During the year 
1871-2 he was elected state senator on the republican ticket. He 
is a member of both state and county medical societies. In 1867 he 
was married to Miss Helen S. Higgins, of Mayfield, Ohio, who sub- 
sequently presented him with two sons and two daughters. One 
son, Willie, is deceased and buried in Plainview Cemetery. The 
doctor is a gentleman high in the esteem of the community, having 
for several years officiated as trustee of the Methodist church. 

Hon. William Edward Wording, banker, Plainview, Minne- 
sota, was born in Castine, Maine, January 21, 1812. In 1836 he 
graduated from Colb}^ University, and the same year became pro- 
fessor of Greek and Latin in the Hampton Literary and Theological 
Institute, which position he occupied till 1841, when he went to 
South Carolina and accepted the principalship of the Chersaw high 
school. While residing in Chersaw he read law and was admitted 
to the bar in 1845, and practiced there for two years. In 1847 he 
removed to Racine, Wisconsin, and opened a law office. From 1850 
to 1862 he was judge of the Racine county court. From 1862 to 
1870 Judge Wording was one of the commissioners appointed under 
the act of congress, approved June 7, 1862, entitled "An act for 



1226 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the collection of direct taxes in insurrectionary districts within the 
United States, and for other purposes " ; and under its provisions 
and the instructions of President Lincoln, dated September 16, 1863, 
besides selling to soldiers and sailors in the army and navy of the 
United States, as well as civilians, many tracts and parcels of land, 
bid in by the United States for the non-payment of the direct taxes 
assessed upon them under said act, in conjunction with his colleagues, 
assigned homesteads at the nominal ])rice of one dollar and a half 
per acre, to twenty-five hundred heads of families of the African 
race, and set apart a large number of plantations to be rented for 
the support of schools ; which last-named lands, under a subsequent 
act of congress, were sold and the proceeds invested in government 
bonds for the same purpose. The title of the government under the 
original tax sales of course was contested after the war by the former 
owners, but the same was finally confirmed by the Supreme Court of 
the United. States. (See case of De Keville vs. Small, 98 U. S. 
Reports, page 517.) Of course it is not the place here to discuss the 
policy of these acts, but it may be remarked, nevertheless, that upon 
the abolition of serfdom in Russia not only was provision made for 
schools among the serfs, but homestead lands were also assigned 
them at a low price, and the wisdom of such policy is now apparent 
in the results : vagrancy is almost actually unknown there. Since 
July, 1880, Judge Wording has been connected with the Plainview 
Bank, and has made Plainview his home. His matrimonial life 
dates from July 17, 1839, when he espoused Catharine Lawrence, of 
Laconia, New Hampshire. 

John P. Wagner, merchant, was born in Sheldon, Wyoming 
county. New York, March 8, 1853. His parents, John and. Mary 
Wagner, were born in Belgium and Luxemburg respectively. 
They settled in Goodhue county, this state, when this subject was 
but five years old. He was reared on a farm and attended the com- 
mon schools. In 1880 he engaged as clerk in a general store at Lake 
City. In the summer of 1883, in partnership with John Weimar, 
he built and stocked a store at Belle Chester. He is a member of 
Belle Chester Catholic church, and a democrat. May 22, 1883, he 
was married to Maggie Tuck, born in New York. 

John M. Weimar, merchant, has been a resident of Minnesota 
since lie was two years old. His parents, John and Lucy Weimar, 
now reside at Red "^ing, where they located at that time. He was 
born near Cobleatz, Germany, December 4, 1854. His early life 



OTHER IMPOKTAJSTT PEESONAGES. 1227 

was spent on a farm near Red Wing, his education being completed 
by a year at College in Milwaukee, In 1875 be opened a general 
store, with a partner, at Eed Wing ; subsequently spent three years 
on a farm. In 1883 built a store at Belle Chester in partnership 
with J. P. Wagner. He was married December 20, 1879, to 
Josephine Tuck, native of New York, of French descent. They 
have two sons, born as follows : John N.,, March 2, 1882 ; Albert, 
June 15, 1883. All are communicants in Belle Chester Catholic 
church. Mr. Weimar is a democrat ; was six years clerk of his 
school district while a resident of Belvidere. 

JoKN AsHER, farmer, was born in Banffshire, October 18, 1835, 
being the second of four childi-en born to Alexander and Jane 
Findlay-Asher, both of whom died in Scotland. The elder Asher 
was a farmer, and our subject lived on the homestead till 1880, when 
he came with his family to West Albany township, and located on 
the farm of two hundred acres which he now owns. He was married 
December 4, 1863, to Margaret Asher, of Aberdeenshire. To this 
union have been born eleven children, of whom nine are living, 
viz : Alexander, William L., Isabella J., George W., James I., 
Margaret A., Mary D. D., Bathia P., Janett W. Mr. Asher is a 
republican, and, with his wife, belongs to the United Presbyterian 
church. 

F. Ferris, train dispatcher, and A. A. S. for Chippewa Yalley 
and Wabasha divisions of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Eail- 
way Company's lines. Mr. Ferris is a native of Elmira, New York, 
and commenced his work as a railway telegraph operator and agent 
on the line of the Northern Central, between Baltimore and Elmira, 
in 1867. He came west in 1870, and was on the line of the North 
Missouri, now known as the Wabash road. In 1882 he came into 
Wisconsin, for the purpose of farming on lands owned by him a short 
distance from the city of Eau Claire, but finding his health insufficient 
* for such work he accepted a situation as assistant in the office of W. 
R. Sill, of Eau Claire, chief engineer of the Chippeway Yalley 
branch of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway, then in pro- 
cess of construction. Upon the completion of the road Mr. Ferris 
came to this city, November, 1882, to accept the position now 
occupied in the general office of this division of the Chicago, Mil- 
waukee & St. Paul railway. Mr. Ferris was married September 15, 
1876, to Miss Yan Buskirk, of Chicago. They have one child, 
William Emil Ferris, born in this city July 28, 1883. 



1228 HISTOKY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Rev. Patrick B. Murray, Catholic priest of the Highland 
church, was born in Ireland in 1823. He received a good primary 
education in Ireland and emigrated to America in 1844. He after- 
ward attended several prominent educational institutions both in 
the United States and Canada. His first mission was at Mackinaw, 
Michigan, about the year 1855. While stationed here he learned to 
speak the Indian dialect. , Soon after the Mormon settlement on Bea- 
ver island was broken up he took charge of a Catholic mission on the 
island and became familiar with the true history of the famous 
King Strang and the Mormon church at that point. He has also 
presided over the Sheboygan, Michigan, church, and more recently 
was pastor of the Kalamazoo Catholic society, in the same state. 
Owing to ill health, retiuiring a change of climate, he came to High- 
land in the spring of 1883. 

David Walker, liveryman, Lake City, was born in Montgom- 
ery county, New York, May 1, 1825. His father, Simon Walker, 
was a farmer and reared his son to the same industry, affording him 
the advantages of a few months each winter in a subscription school. 
Mr. Walker occupied his time in farming in the old Empire State till 
1865, when he came to Minnesota and settled on alarm in Goodhue 
county, which he improved and occupied till 1880, when he sold out 
and removed to Lake City, and embarked in the livery business in 
Y. R. Lee's, on stand on Wasliington street. Mr. Walker was 
married in 1856, to Miss Julia Ilerrington, of Madison county. New 
York, and has two children, Hattie, who still resides with her 
parents, and Nettie, now Mrs. D. H. Williams, residing at Crooks- 
ton, Minnesota. Mr. Walker is a, member of the I.O.O.F., the 
Encampment and of the Equitable Aid Union. He is one of Lake 
City's worthy though unassuming citizens. 

Rev. Thomas B. Killiam, pastor Methodist Episcopal church. 
Lake City, is a native of the State of Delaware, and was born March 
IT, 1837. He was educated principally in high schools of Wihning- 
ton, and licensed to preach in 1859. In ISGO he was admitted to the 
Philadelphia conference on trial, and in 1864 was ordained older 
and received into full connection. He remained in the Philadelphia 
conference till its division in 1868, when he was assigned to the 
new created (Wilmington) conference. In 1880 he came west and 
joined the west Wisconsin conference, and in 1881 was transferred 
to the Minnesota conference and stationed at Lake City. The 
Methodist Episcopal church of this city has been on the ascendancy 



OTHER IJIPORTANT PERSONAGES. 



1229 



during his three years' pastoral charge of the same. He was mar- 
ried in 1866, to Miss Maria C. Hitch, of Dehaware, and has four 
cliikh-en, one son and three daughters. 

Rev. John Wesley Horner, pastor Congregational church, Lake 
City, was born at Lanesville, Harrison county, Indiana, September 




CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 



6, 1852, and is a son of Jacob Horner, a prominent physician. At 
the age of fifteen he entered the state university at Bloomington, 
Indiana, where he diligently pursued his preparatory course four 
years. At the age of twenty-one he entered the Yale Theological 



1230 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Seminary, at New Haven, Connecticut, from wliicli he graduated in 
May, 1876. He soon after entered upon his ministerial labors at 
Bloomfield, Iowa, where he was ordained October 9, 1876. While 
on this charge he was married to Miss Orpha Morgan, on May 10, 
1877, and who died May 27, 1878, while he was in charge of the 
church at Keosauqua, Iowa. Soon after this sad event in his life 
ill health com})elled him to resign the ministry till the spring of 
1880, when he went to Coral, Michigan, and resumed his clerical 
labors. • After two years spent in the work here and Otsego, Michi- 
gan, he came to Lake City in May, 1882, and so acceptably supplied 
the pulpit of the Congregational church in this city up till the winter 
of 1884 that he M^as unanimously called by his congregation. His 
second marriage was on September 22, 1881, to Miss Kate Gertrude 
Clarke, a daughter of Robert L. Clarke, Esq., private secretary of 
Gov. Sherman, of Iowa. Mr. Horner has two children, Charles 
Sumner, by his deceased wife, and Hazel May, by his present 
wife. 

Joseph Mekritt Underwood, of the Jewell Nursery Co., was 
born in Wayne county, New York, November 10, 1845, and is a son 
of Daniel and Chloe (Durfee) Underwood, natives of the State of 
New York. In 1854 his parents removed to Illinois, and settled on 
a farm near Morris in Gi'undy county, where he passed from child- 
hood to manhood under the influences of good educational as well 
industrial advantages. He came to Lake City in 1868 with his 
brother-in-law, Dr. P. A. Jewell, who about that time started in the 
nursery business, which was superintended by Mr. Underwood up to 
the time of the doctor's death, in 1878, when it became the propert}' 
of the superintendent. In this business enterprise Mr. Underwood 
has demonstrated a higher order of intelligence and executive ability 
than is usually found among the business men of the time. To him 
is largely due the credit of building uj) to its present prosperous 
standing the "Jewell Nursery," and to his strict business principles 
and honest integrity is due his high standing among his fellow men. 
He was married May 4, 1871, at Winona, Minnesota, to Miss Anna B. 
Sargeant, a daiighter of M. Wheeler Sargeant, prominently connected 
with and well known in the early settlement of Winona, She was 
born in Hampton, New York, December 9, 1847. They have but 
one child living, lioy, born August 15, 1867. Mr. Underwood's 
parents sold their farm in Illinois in 1873, and came to Lake City, 
where the former died in 1881, aged seventy-nine years. The latter. 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1231 

though feeble in health, is in the seventy-sixth year of her age, and 
is tenderly cared for by her son above named. 

Hon Sloan M. Emery, also of the Jevrell Nursery Co., is another 
of the self-made men of this new and prosperous state. He was 
born at Columbus, Texas, in 1848, and within nine weeks both of 
his parents died of yellow fever, leaving him an orphan in infancy. 
Soon after his bereavement he was taken to Mississippi by a 
relative, and, some years subsequently, to Pennsylvania. His next 
move was to Memphis, Tennessee, where he remained till his 
twentieth year. Up to this time his educational interests had not 
received the desired attention, although the study of the lower 
branches had been pursued with due diligence as opportunity 
afforded. At that time he entered the collegiate institute at 
Yalparaiso, Indiana, and there completed a three years' course. He 
was married there in 1870, to Miss Julia H. Haas, a daughter of 
Samuel G. Haas, Esq., well known in that state. In 1871 he. came 
to Minnesota, permanently locating in Lake City, and the next year 
entered the private banking-house of Joel Fletcher. He was a 
moving spirit in the organization of the Lake City bank in the fall 
ol 1873, was its first vice-president, one of the board of directors, and 
is the only one (except J. W. Ray) of the original incorporators now 
connected with it. In 1879 he resigned the vice-presidency and 
associated himself with J. M. Underwood in the nursery, farming 
and live-stock business. For a more particular account of this 
enterprise reference may be had to the history of the Jewell Nursery 
in another chapter. Mr. Emery, although comparatively a young 
man and by no means an early settler, has evinced to his friends 
and associates, and the general public, that high order of intelligence 
and executive ability which has won for him the seat which he now 
fills in the state legislature. On him this honor was conferred in the 
fall of 1882, from this (twenty-third) district. Mr. and Mrs. Emery 
are members of the Presbyterian church. 

John Coleman Doughty, of the Jewell Nursery Co., Lake City, 
was born in Rockaway, Long Island, July 1, 1816, and is a son of 
Samuel Doughty, a banker of Lake City, whose personal history ap- 
pears elsewhere in this work. As the parents of J. Coleman entered 
on a pioneer life in Minnesota when he was scarcely nine years 
old, his educational advantages were not very fiattering ; this dis- 
advantage, however, compensated for by a two years' course at 
Oberlin College, and one year at Bryant & Stratton's Business Col- 
75 



1232 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

lege. He first started in business for himself as a contractor in 
bridge building, which he followed about five years. He then 
bought into the hardware business with E. Hac-ket, at Lake City, 
whom he in time bought out, and continued the business alone till 
May, 1882, when he associated with himself in trade Mr. W. H. 
Hobbs, a worthy young man of this city. Mr. Doughty had built 
up and conducted a prosperous trade, and the addition of the new 
man to the business was the addition of still more life and activity, 
so that when they sold out to Anson Pierce, on February 4, 1884, it 
was said to be one of the best mercantile houses in the city. On 
February 26, 1884, Mr. Doughty, with Mr. J. M. Underwood and S. 
M. Emery, organized and had incorporated the Jewell Nursery 
Company, each taking one-third of its stock. A history of this 
enterprise will be found in the chapter on Lake City. Mr. Doughty 
was married, March 21, 1869, to Miss Mary C. Herron, a native of 
Crawford sville, Indiana, who died in 1874. His second marriage 
was on September 17, 1878, with Miss Mary F. Brill, who was born 
in Fillmore county, Minnesota, July 12, 1855. He has three chil- 
dren, Mary and Katie by his first wife, and Jesse E. by his present 
one. He is a member of the Masonic fraternities of this city. 

Major L. S. Van Vliet. The Van Vliets in America are all 
descendants of four brothers Van Vliet, who came from Holland 
about two hundred and fifty years since, and settled in New York 
and New England. Major Van Vliet is a scion of the New England 
branch, and was born in Chittenden county, Vermont, May 26, 
1830. When he was nine years of age the family removed to Racine 
county, Wisconsin, which was thenceforth his home until he removed 
to this city, in 1867. Young Van Vliet's education was received in 
the schools of his native and adopted states, principally in Vermont, 
to which he returned for, that purpose, taking an academic course. 
He was engaged in farming and stock raising until the second year 
of the war, when he was commissioned captain U. S. Vols., by 
President Lincoln, and assigned to duty with the army of the Ten- 
nessee as adjutant quartermaster, in which capacity he rendered effi- 
cient service to the department, and received promotion as well as 
honorable mention in the dispatches and reports. He was in charge 
of Gen. Grant's ammunition train, when the unsuccessful movement 
around the rear of Vicksbui-g was made, and was at Holly Springs, 
then occupied by about sixteen hundred Union soldiers, when raided 
by Van Dorn. Here he succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1233 

rebel general, and also in saving the funds of the department, then 
in his hands. Of the sixteen hundred troops all were captured save 
Maj. Van Yliet and two other officers. His principal service, how- 
ever, was as adjutant quartermaster, at Memphis, Tennessee, in 
charge of river transportation, which responsible, onerous post he 
held for three years, furnishing transportation to Gen. Grant's 
army in its successful movement down the river against Yicksburg, 
and actively engaged in the important movements along the Missis- 
sippi. His efficient services were recognized at Washington, and 
he was four times honorably mentioned in the quartermaster's 
reports to the secretary of war. Declining the recommendations 
proffered him for appointment to the regular army, Maj. Van Vliet 
remained at Memphis until the summer of 1866, when he was mus- 
tered out of the United States service, and returned to Wisconsin. 
The following year (1867) he removed with his family to this 
city, and three years later (18Y0) organized the First National Bank^ 
became its cashier, and so continues. His financial standing and 
ability are fully recognized, and his influence in local affairs is evi- 
denced in the history of county and city events. September 23, 
1856, L. S. Van Vliet was married, at Racine, Wisconsin, to Miss 
M. L. Russell, also a native of Vermont, born May 2, 183tt. Their 
children are : Mattie S., wife of E. A. Patton, M.D., of Minneapo- 
lis ; Jennie A. and Jessie S. attending Lake City High School, the 
former a member of the present senior class. The major has never 
lost his taste for fine stock. He is still an enthusiastic horseman, 
and owns some of the best bred trotting stock in the Northwest. 

Charles Wise, dealer in farm machinery, Lake City, was born in 
Baden, Germany, January 28, 1843, and is the son of Charles and 
Magdalena (Lehman) Wise, who were also natives of Baden. In 
1851 he, with his mother and other members of the family, came to 
America, and joined his father, who had preceded them in 1847. 
One year was spent in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, after which 
they removed to Tioga county. New York, and thence to Minnesota, 
disembarking at Read's Landing, on April 26, 1856. The family at 
this time consisted of father, mother, five brothers and one married 
sister. After prospecting a short time a location was made on gov- 
ernment land in the town of West Alban}^, where they entered upon 
the arduous task of making a farm under all the disadvantages of a 
new and unsettled country. As the word "failure" is rarely ever 
written on the page of a German's history, so it was in this case, and 



1234 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

tlie words "abundant success" may be used to signify wliat was 
accomplished in eleven years' faithful labor by this industrious 
family ; a farm of nearlj' six hundred acres was paid for, and 
thoroughly improved. In 1867 this farm was sold, and they removed 
to Lake township, where a large amount of land was bought, and 
where some of the family now live. The fethcr died in 1877, and 
the mother in 1869. Charles, with two of his brothers, removed to 
Lake City, and purchased a brewery of John Minges in 1870, and in 
1876 became the sole owner ; sold out a few 3^ears later, and with 
liis brother Ed., in the spring of 1884 embarked in the sale of farm 
machinery. For the purpose of carrying on this business they built 
a two-story brick-veneered store and salesroom, with iron front, in 
size 20x60 feet, on Center, between Main and High streets, and 
opened up to the farmers a first-class stock of the best implements 
made. Besides his interest in Lake Cit}', Mr. Wise owns in the town 
of Lake two hundred and eighty acres of land, eighty acres in West 
Albany, and three quarter-sectiv^ns in this state, out of the county. 
He was married November 28, 1869, to Miss Katie Kaspere, also a 
native of Germany. In 1873 he visited the Baden, and spent several 
months reviewing tlie scenes of his childhood. He has a family of five 
-children, whose names, in the order of their birth, are : Ferdinand, 
Jose})li, Charles, Katie and Martin. 

Martin Johns (deceased) was born in Lancaster county, Penn- 
sylvania, July 9, 1826, and was reared on a farm, where he received 
a common-school education. Early in life he entered the boot and 
shoe house of his brother-in-law as an apprentice, and with him 
completed the trade. He was married in 1853, to Miss Mary A. 
Frantz, and in 1857 came to Minnesota, landing at Lake City on 
April 9. He soon after engaged in the manufacture of boots and 
shoes, and later opened up a store for the purpose of dealing more 
largely in that branch of merchandise. This he continued up till a 
short time before his death, which occurred July 17, 1866. Mrs. 
Johns was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and is the 
daughter of Jacob Frantz, who was born on his father's farm, and 
was the son and only child of John Frantz, of whom he inherited a 
large estate in lands and mills. He was the father of ten children, 
six of whom are still living, and died early in life. Mr. Johns left, 
besides his widow, three sons, who are worthily perpetuating their 
father's good name. The eldest, Horace Frantz Johns, is now in this 
city, and is the junior member of the manufticturing fii-m of Neal, 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 



1235 



Johns & Co. ; William is merchandising in Hastings, Minnesota, 
and Walter is engaged in business in St. Paul. ' Mrs. Johns' second 
marriage was on August 8, 1872, to Mr. A. W. Detmars, who died 
in this city November 6, 1882. He was a native of the State of New 
York, and was born in 1822. Much of his life was spent as a 
traveling salesman, though his latter years were passed in this city. 
During his residence here he was an enthusiastic supporter of all 
measures or enterprises which had in view the building up and 
advancement ot the city's prosperity. Mrs. Detmars still resides in 
this her adopted city, in her pleasant and elegant residence on Lyon 
avenue, and is an active member ol the Episcopal church. 

John R. Goodenough, broom manufacturer, mason and stone- 
cutter, Lake City, is a native of McHenry county, Illinois. He is 
the son of Stillman and Angeline (Wood) Goodenough, and was born 
April 5, .1839. His parents were natives of the State of New York, 
and were married in Illinois, where the former had settled in 1833. 
In 1848 the family removed to Dodge county, Wisconsin, where the 
mother died in 1852. The father, after spending over three years in 
the war of the rebellion as a member of the 19th Wis. Vol. Inf., and 
participating in all the severe marches and trying campaigns and 
battles of that brave regiment, returned to his home, and some years 
later removed to Washington county, Kansas, where he still lives 
actively engaged in stock raising and dealing in real estate. He is 
a son of Christopher Goodenough, one of eleven brothers who se- 
creted themselves on shipboard and took their departure from the 
unbearable tyranny of despotic Russia prior to the American revo- 
lution, five of them taking an active part in that war on the colonial 
side. From those brothers, it is believed, descended all bearing that 
name in this country, many of whom have distinguished themselves 
and are prominently connected with our American institutions as 
disciples of Blackstone, doctors, medicine and divinity, as well as 
politicians. Our subject, John R., came to Lake City in August, 
1861, and the same fall established a broom factory. His was the 
first machine ever brought to this city, and his broom handles could 
be obtained at no nearer point than Milwaukee. In August, 1862, he 
enlisted in Co. G, 8th Minn. Yol. Inf., in which he served as a 
faithful soldier three years (see 8th Minn.), when he was honorably 
discharged, and returned to Lake City. Here he at once resumed 
the manufacture of brooms, but the following spring was burnt out, 
and then removed to Florence, a little farther up the lake, and some 



1236 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

time later returned to Lake City. Besides his broom business, he also 
devotes much of his time to masonwork and stonecutting, giving 
especial attention to country contracts. He is a thorough mechanic, 
and master of all his trades. He was married in Lake City, in 1866, 
to Elizabeth Korthfield, a native of Cambridge, England, who came 
to America with her parents, John W. and Slisan (Littlechild) North- 
field, in infancy. Three promising children bless this homo, whose 
names in the order of their birth are: Ada A., Olive R. and Effie. 
Mr. Goodenough and wife ai-e members of the Methodist Episcopal 
church, and he is a substantial member of the republican party. 

Ephraim Wildes (deceased) was one of the earliest settlers in 
Greenfield. He was born in Phippsburg, Maine, in 1794, and died 
in Cook's Valley in April, 1860. Judith Blaisdell, to whom he was 
married at Bath, was born in the same state in 1800. For many 
years they dwelt in Bath, and Mr. Wildes commanded a schooner 
engaged in the coasting trade. Li 1854 he came to Greenfield, and 
took up the northeast quarter of section 34. Next year he moved to 
section 30, where he put up the first framed house in the township. 
He was the father of nine children, the eldest, Ephraim Madison, 
being fatally shot here in a claim dispute. Esther (Norton) resides 
in Maine. Zina died in New Orleans, and Silas in California. Asa 
was shot in some border trouble in Nevada. Annie (Mrs. S. A. 
Kempe) dwells in Red Wing, and Francis H. in Aurora county, 
Nevada ; Merinda (Steele), at Maiden Rock, Wisconsin. A sketch 
of the youngest is hereunto appended. 

Andrew J. Wildes was born in Bath, Maine, July 23, 1840. 
He was very early taken upon summer voyages by his father, and 
received most of his education in the schools of Greenfield and 
Wabasha after coming here. On January 4, 1862, he entered the 
United States army, in Co. G, 5tli Minn. Vols., and served in the 
western army; was a participator in the battles at second Corinth 
and luka. Was discharged on account of illness in September, 
1863, and returned home. Having recovered his health in the 
northern climate, he re-enlisted in December of the latter year as a 
recruit in the 1st Minn, regt., and served in garrison duty on the 
Potomac till the close of the war. Since his return home he has 
been employed as a carpenter and laborer. He is a member of the 
I.O.G.T., and in religious faith is inclined toward the Episcopals. 
Republicanism represents his political ideas. August 22, 1872, A. 
J. Wildes and Miss Hattie Swift were made one in the bonds of 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1237 

wedlock. They have three children, christened Katy May, Charles 
Francis and William Henry. Mrs. Wildes was born in Burrville, 
Jefferson county, New York. 

Samuel H. Bell, collector. Lake City, is the able representative 
of the McCormick Harvester Corapan3^ Like many other citizens 
of Lake City, he is a native of Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, born in 
Milroy township, April 18, 1S4L His father, George Bell, was of 
English descent, and Eosannah Mitchell, the wife and mother, de- 
scended from Scotch people, and were born in Pennsylvania. George 
Bell served the United States as a soldier in the war of 1812, and 
afterward settled on a farm in Milroy. Here the early life of Samuel 
was passed, and after a rudimentary course in the common schools 
he spent two years in Tuscarora Academy. In November, 1864, he 
became a resident of Lake City, and spent eight years as clerk in a 
store. He then entered the service of the Champion Eeaping Machine 
Company, in the sale of machinerj^, and was so successful that his 
services were sought by other similar manufacturers. After seven 
years of toil in the interest of the Champion, he was employed in 
his present capacity of collector, and is constantly traveling over a 
large portion of this state and Wisconsin. December 19, 1867, he 
was united in marriage to Miss Anna Bryant, step-daughter of Elijah 
Porter, whose biography is found in this work. Sereno Bryant, Mrs. 
Bell's father (now deceased), came of the same stock as the poet W. C. 
Bryant. One child, a daughter, was given to Mr. and Mrs. Bell 
May 24, 1869, and christened Maggie May. The family attends the 
Presbyterian church, and in political matters Mr. Bell affiliates with 
the deraocrac3\ 

Wilson W. Cassidy, lumberman. Read's Landing, is one of the 
self-made men of Wabasha county. John Cassidy, his father, was a 
native of L-eland, and his mother, Jane Blair, was born in Pennsyl- 
vania. Wilson W. Cassidy was born in March, 1832, at Bellfont, 
Center county, in his mother's native state. When he was ten years 
old his parents moved to Lee county, Iowa, where he was brought 
up on a farm, and received a common-school education. At eighteen 
he was apprenticed to a carpenter, and followed this trade two years. 
In the fall of 1854 he went to Menomonee, Wisconsin, and entered 
the employ of Knapp, Stout & Co., heavy lumber manufacturers of 
that state, and has ever since been engaged witli them. His first two 
years were spent as a common hand in the woods and on the river, 
but his sterling character and executive ability were not long con- 



123S HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

cealecl from his employers. In the fall of 1857 he was placed in 
charge of their retail lumber-yard at Read's Landing, where his 
headquarters still remain. The lumber-yard was closed long ago, 
and Mr. Cassid}^ now has charge of the rafting on the Chippewa and 
Mississippi rivers of the immense lumber fleets of the "Kna])p, 
Stout & Co. Company " ; is also engaged in forwarding supplies up 
the rivers. By his industry and successful business management, 
Mr. Cassid}^ has made himself indispensable to the company's busi- 
ness, and has also secured for himself a line home at Read's, beside 
one hundred and thirty acres of farming land in Pepin township. 
On December 8, 1857, he was united in marriage to Miss Eliza Kyle, 
a native of New Brunswick, of Irish descent. All save the eldest 
of their four children are now at home. They were christened : 
George K., Mabel and William. Jennie (now Mrs. Edward Bivins) 
resides at Stephen, Minnesota. While he has taken no part in the 
administration of public affairs, Mr. Cassidy has always been a faith- 
ful and consistent republican. 

Joseph Ley, farmer, Watopa, is a native of Luxemburg, Ger- 
many, born July 1, 1850. Peter and Mary Ley, his parents, came 
to America in 1852, and after a residence of three years in Illinois 
came to Glasgow, this county. Here Mrs. Ley died February 24, 
1856, and the father afterward married Catharine Fisch, under whose 
care our subject was brought up. He attended school a very little 
after he was eleven years of age, and assisted his father on the farm. 
The latter now resides at Brownsville, Houston county this state. 
In 1871 Joseph Ley and Eliza Shearts were united in marriage. 
Mrs. Ley is a native of Bohemia, and of about the same age as her 
husband. Their children were christened Mary, Frank, Joseph, 
John, Peter and Bertha. In 1871 Mr. Ley purchased a farm of 
eighty acres in the town of Pepin, which he tilled till 1877. He 
then sold and bought his present farm, embracing one-fourth of sec- 
tion 18. All are communicants in Highland Catholic church. Mr. 
Ley affiliates with the democratic party in politics. 

John Kennedy, one of Watopa's representative farmers, has 
gained that position by his energy and enterprise. He was born in 
the parish of Drumailey, County Leitrim, Ireland, April 30, 1836. 
He received a fair common-school education, and assisted his father 
in the management of a farm and store. When only eighteen years 
old he left home and kindred and set out for the poor man's asylum, 
America. The first vessel on which he took passage from Liverpool, 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1239 

the Guiding Star, was wrecked on the Irish coast and drifted into 
the harbor of Belfast. He then went on board the American and 
landed at New York three months after the first outset from Liver- 
pool, January 16, 1854. For some time he was employed in a brick- 
yard near ISTew York city, and subsequently took charge of a farm 
at Fall River, Massachusetts, several years. He visited Minnesota 
in the summer of 1856 and returned to Fall River. On October 20, 
this year, he was married to Miss Ann Flanagan, who was born in 
County Monahan, Ireland, and is about her husband's age. In July, 
1860, he took up permanent residence in Minnesota, having already 
acquired landed interests in Watopa. He took up the northwest 
quarter of section 7, where he still resides, and also purchased an 
adjoining claim. He now has three hundred and sixty acres, of 
which one hundred and eighty acres have been cleared by him of 
grub and trees. In 1883 his crops were : wheat, fifteen hundred 
bushels ; barley, six hundred and thirty-three ; oats, nine hundred 
and eighteen. Mr. Kennedy's executive ability was soon recognized 
by his fellow citizens, and nearly every year since his residence here 
he has been chosen to fill some town ofiice. He was supervisor in 
1867-8-9, and was chairman of the board in 1872-3-4-5, and in 
1879-80-81. He has also served as justice of the peace, and has 
been clerk of his school district nearly ever since its organization. 
He is recognized as one of the leading democratic politicians of the 
county. The Roman Catholic church claims the whole family. 
There are seven children. Tlie eldest, John F., is preparing for 
the priestliood in St. Francis Seminary at Milwaukee. The next 
two, James Edward and Constantine, are in mercantile business at 
Durban, Dakota. The rest, at home, are christened, in order of 
birth, Sarah M., William Joseph, Matthias and Ellen Elizabeth. 
Mr. Kennedy served a year in the United States army, entering Co. 
D, 3d Minn, regt., in October, 1864. He served in Sherman's 
march to the sea, but was in no active engagements. 

Peter Puetz, Watopa, farmer, is the eldest son of Peter and 
Katrina (Schulters) Puetz, all born in the village of Bruch, Luxem- 
burg, Germany ; this subject on February 27, 1826. In 1856 the 
family set sail from Antwerp on the barque Livei-pool, and landed in 
New Y^ork after a voyage of fifty-five days. After a short residence 
at Kenosha, Wisconsin, they proceeded to Dubuque county, Iowa, 
and came thence to Watopa in 1S63. This subject made a purchase 
on section 19, where he now resides and tills a farm of two hundred 



1240 HISTORY OF WABASHA COCnSTTY. 

and niiiety-five acres, of which two hundred acres are improved. 
He began his career as a farmer with a quarter-section, and his par- 
ents dwelt with him till their death ; the father January 24, ls68, 
and the mother on August 13, same year. Two other sons, Hubert 
and Matthias, settled near by and are now deceased, their families 
still dwelling there. All are Roman Catholics. Peter Piietz always 
adheres to the democratic party. His only public service has been 
in the capacity of school treasurer, which office he has filled for the 
past two years. He was married in 1861, the bride being Miss 
Margaret Henkels, who was born October 28, 1842, in the village 
of Buse, Luxemburg, and came to America when three years old. 
Her parents now reside in Dubuque county, Iowa. Six children 
were given to Mr. and Mrs. Puetz, and christened in the same order : 
Peter, Margaret, Matthias, Angeline, John and Mary. Peter, the 
eldest, now twenty -one years old, is several inches over six feet in 
height. 

Peter Schilling, Watopa, farmer, is a native of Germany, 
Ballendorf, Prussia, being the place, and November 11, 1843, the 
time, of his birth. His early life was that of a German farmer's 
son, and he left school at the age of twelve. When seventeen years 
old he set out alone for America, and was two months between 
Antwerp and New York on the sailing vessel Elizabeth Hamilton. 
The first winter was spent on a stock farm near Buffalo, and next 
spring went to Sauk county, Wisconsin, engaging in farm labor. In 
1866 he came to Minnesota, and during the following winter pur- 
chased one-fourth of section 30, where his home has been ever since. 
He now owns one-half of the section, and the same spirit of enter- 
prise that prompted him to set out for a strange continent in youth 
still actuates him. He has cleared one hundred and eighty acres of 
his land of its natural growth of grubs, and is engaged in grain- 
raising. He has been four times elected town supervisor, serving 
as chairman in 1882-3. His political afliliations are with the demo- 
cratic party, and all the members of the family are included in the 
Highland Catholic church. In 1867 he married Elizabeth Howe, 
a sister of George Howe, whose parentage and nativity are else- 
where given in this work. Their children are christened in order ot 
birth, as follows : Mary, John, Margaret, Peter, Anthony, Jacob 
and Matthias. 

John C. Enright, farmei-, Watopa, was born in the parish of 
Newton, County Kerry, Ireland, June 24, 1834. His mother died 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 1241 

in her native land, and the father on the way to America on ship- 
board. With his brothers, Mr. Enright, in liis twentieth year, 
arrived at Wabasha, April 5, 1854. Some years had been previ- 
ously spent in Westchester and Chenango counties. New York. His 
first claim in Minnesota was near the site of Tepeeotah, in Green- 
field townships, where he was engaged for some time in supplying 
steamboats with wood. He subsequently spent some years in the 
mines and cattle ranches of Montana, Colorado and Kansas. Re- 
turning to Watopa in 1870, he settled on his present farm of four 
hundred acres, his residence being on section 27, in Indian Creek 
valley. He is chiefly engaged in grain raising. Is a life-long 
democrat, and all his family are communicants in the Roman 
Catholic church. In 1870 Mr. Enright married Maria Fitzgerald, 
born Quigley, in County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1839. By her first 
marriage, Mrs. Enright has two sons, James, now in Washington 
Territory, and Thomas, in Kellogg. Mr. Enright's children are 
John A., Stephen W., Joseph E. and Ellen M., all at home. 

Nels Peter TBurman, farmer, Watopa, is among the most en- 
lightened and progressive citizens of the township. He has been 
town clerk four years, and also served as constable. He was born 
in the northern part of Sweden, January 5, 1849, and was reared on 
a farm there, receiving the common-school education of that country. 
He came to the United States when nineteen years old, and was em- 
ployed for some years in mining and railroad construction in Wis- 
consin and Michigan. He became a resident of Watopa in 1873, 
and next year purchased the farm on which he resides, on section 
29. He has two hundred and eighty acres Of land, and is chiefly 
engaged in grain raising. He is a firm adherent of republican 
political principles, and a Lutheran. In 1875 he married Maria 
Charlotte Johnson, who was born in southern Sweden, six years 
later than her husband. Two sons, each christened Charles, have 
been taken from them by death. Those living are : Johanna Eliza- 
beth and Charles Oscar. 

John F. Rose, farmer, was among the early settlers of Glasgow 
township, having settled on the eastern border, in Cook's valley, in 
1857. He was born in Guernsey county, Ohio, November 12, 1823, 
and was reared there. His parents were George and Nancy Rose. 
He assisted his father on the farm and as clerk in a store till he 
reached maturity. January 8, 1843, he was united in marriage to 
Miss Mary, daughter of Edmund and Mary (Moser) Johnson. Mrs. 



1242 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Rose was born July 16, 1823. Both are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal church. Mr. Rose served some years as a member of the 
Glasgow town board, and was elected county treasurer by the repub- 
licans in 1862, and re-elected in 1864, serving four successive years. 
There are five children of this family ; mention of the eldest is given 
below ; Nannie M., the second, dwells in San Francisco, California; 
Clara J., at Kellogg. William J. was born June 12, 1853, in the 
same locality as his father ; attended school at Wabasha, and has 
tauglit three terms ; is now engaged in farming ; married Sarah A. 
Metzgar, May 5, 1874, and has five children, christened Mary Jane, 
Edith May, Floyd, Minnesota and Alice. Mary Alice, the youngest, 
is the wife of Horace Higgins, whose home is at Tower City, 
Dakota. 

Justus G. Rose, eldest son of above subject, was born at 
Seneca ville, Guernsey county, Ohio, February 7, 1846. Since 
eleven years of age most of his life has been passed on Minnesota 
farms. Besides a fair common-school training liere, he spent six 
months in Eastman's business colleges at Poughkeepsie and Chicago. 
August 27, 1864, he entered the Union army, being then in his nine- 
teenth year, and served till the close of the civil war, as a recruit in 
Co. C, 4th Minn. Yols. He bore a part in Sherman's march to the 
sea and to Richmond, but was in no heavy engagements. He parti- 
cipated in several skirmishes, and witnessed the burning of 
Columbia, South Carolina. He was discharged in June, 1865, and 
returned to Minnesota. September 23, 1873, he married Mary A., 
daughter of Daniel Metzgar, whose history is elsewhere given in this 
work. Two sons and a like number of daughters have blessed this 
union, and are called CliiFord Homer, William Clyde, Mattie May 
and Nannie Maud. Mr. Rose has always upheld the principles of 
the republican party, and subscribes to the faith of the Methodist 
Episcopal church. 

James P. Davis, M.D., Kellogg, is a son of John and Maria 
Davis, all born in Monmouthshire, England ; our subject ii> July, 
1843. When the latter was about two years of age his parents 
settled near Pomeroy, Ohio, where they died within a few years. 
Young Davies received instruction in public and private schools and 
an academy ; he also spent three years in the schools of Covington, 
Kentucky, and Cincinnati. The coyipletion of his eighteenth year 
found him engaged in active warfare in the service of the United 
States, 4th Ya. Inf. He served in West Yirginia in 1861-2, partici- 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. • 1243 

pating in the battles of Cliarlestown and Bush Creek, besides some 
skirmishing with busliwhackers. From January, 1863, to March, 
1861, lie was in the army of the Tennessee, and was an actor at the 
attack on Haynes Bluff, Yazoo River campaign, siege and capture of 
Yicksburg, campaign against Jackson, Mississippi (July, 1863), 
campaign to relieve Chattanooga and Mission Ridge, and the 
skirmish with Forrest's cavalry near Tuscumbia, Alabama. He 
served in the Shenandoah valley in 1864, taking part in the battle 
of Piedmont in June. On account of poor health lie was soon a,fter 
discharged. From the fall of 1864 to the close of the civil war he 
was employed on a United States picket boat on the Mississippi. 
After the struggle was ended he went to St. Louis and pursued a 
course of medical study in the Missouri Medical College, from which 
institution he graduated. In the spring and summer of 1873, he 
traveled through this state in search of health, and settled at 
Kellogg in 1875, continuing a good practice to the present time. He 
is a member of the county and state medical societies. Was reared 
in the Presbyterian church, and is a supporter of the Christian faith. 
He is married, and has one son, William F., now in business at St. 
Paul. 

Michael Quigley (deceased) was an early resident of Green- 
field, settling in 1856 on section 24, where he died seventeen years 
later, at the age of sixty-six. His wife died in 18T3. This couple 
was born in the town of Xanagh, Count}' Tipperary, Ireland, as 
were all their children, Mrs. Quigley's maiden name being Judith 
O'Donoghue. After his marriage, Mr. Quigley served J. J. Kil- 
kelly as steward for his estate, near the city of ll^anagh, twenty- 
two years. The family came to America in 1853, and lived in the 
State of New York until coming here. All were reared in and 
adhered to the Roman Catholic church. Following are the names 
and residence of the children in the order of tlieir birth : Ellen 
(Mrs. John Starr), Watopa ; John, Idaho ; Martin and Michael H., 
Greenfield ; Philip, Cameron Junction, Missouri ; Maria (Mrs. 
John Euright), Watopa ; Jeremiah and Edward, Denver, Colorado ; 
Cornelius J ., see below. 

Michael H. Quigley, farmer, is now about forty-eight years of 
age, and was therefore twenty when he came to Greenfield. He 
now occupies his father's first claim, with some additions, his 
domain embracing three hundred and forty acres. About sixty acres 
are under the plow, and he is largely engaged in raising horses and 



1244 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

grade cattle. In early life he was employed on the river, and spent 
a year in 1864-5 in Colorado. On February 22, 1860, he espoused 
for life Catharine, daughter of Thomas Ryan, now resident with 
Mr. Quigley. This lady is a native of the State of Illinois. Eight 
children have been given her, and christened as follows : Maria 
Teresa, Philip Henry, Thomas Edward, Katy, John, Michael, Ellen 
and Julia. Mr. Quigley is a believer in education, and four of his 
children are now in school at Wabasha. He was elected the first 
collector in the town, and was town clerk in 1860-1-2 and part of 
1 864 ; was several years chairman of the town board, and has served 
for the last ten years as assessor. During the war Mr. Quigley was 
elected captain of Co. E, 7th Minn, state militia, but did not go 
into active service. 

Cornelius F. Quigley came to this county when eight years 
old and has dwelt here continuously since. He now occupies a fine 
stock farm of one hundred and sixty acres on section 14, Greenfield. 
For three years he owned and tilled a fai*m in Watopa, and then 
settled on his present location. He received a fair common-school 
education during the winter intervals of farm work, and is an intel- 
ligent and progressive citizen. In 1879 and 1880 he was elected 
a member of the town board. Like his brother, above sketched, 
he works in the interests of the democratic party in political con- 
tests. In August, 1870, he was united in marriage to Miss Ellen, 
daughter of Timothy Enright, one of the ])ioneers of this township. 
Mrs. Quigley was born at Norwich, New York, in 1850. They 
have lost four children, Edward, William and Neal dying with 
diphtheria in June, 1881, and Kitty died at two years of age. The 
living ones are christened Michael, John, Julia, Irene and Cor- 
nelius. 

Philip Quigley, above mentioned, served through the war of the 
rebellion in Co. G, 3d Minn. Yols., entering as private, and rising 
to the rank of first lieutenant. His brother Edward also served 
three years in the same company. 

John Gage, farmer, Watopa, is one of those men who were born 
to lead. His paternal grandparents were Benjamin Gage and 
Susannah Johnson, ot old New England families. His father was 
christened James Shepard, and married Nancy Currier, of similar 
lineage. While the latter couple was living at Enfield, New Hamp- 
shire, on February 10, 1825, John Gage was bom to them. They 
subsequently removed to Waterloo, New York, where James Gage 



OTHER IMPOKTANT PERSONAGES. 1245 

Still lives, aged eighty-six years. The latter was a farmer, and also 
a heavy railroad contractor. Finding that his son — the subject of 
this paragraph — had no taste for school, he placed him at the early 
age of twelve years in charge of a gang of ten men on railroad 
construction. He was found equal to this task, and became his 
father's most valuable assistant. After attaining his majority young 
Gage went into the Alleghany mountains, and spent six years in 
lumbering operations. Here his all was swept away by fire, and he 
decided to go west. In the summer of 1855 he came to Minnesota, 
and located in the fall of that year on the site of his present home 
in the beautiful Whitewater Kiver valley, on section 36, Watopa. 
Since his residence here he has carried through some heavy railroad 
work. One piece, a short distance above La Crosse, contains some 
of the most difiicult work expended in the construction of the 
Chicago & St. Paul railroad. Another severe piece of work carried 
through by Mr. Gage on this line is a short distance below Lake 
City. When the narrow-gauge railway, following the Zumbro valley, 
was built in 1877-8, Mr. Gage fulfilled some large contracts in its 
construction, and suffered heavy losses thereby. He has about one 
thousand acres lying along the Whitewater river, and is now giving 
his attention to farming and stock-raising. In 1883 he produced 
. three thousand bushels of wheat and four hundred tons of hay. In 
1873 he manufactured brick for the construction of his elegant resi- 
dence, and next year erected it, personally supervising the laying of 
every brick. It has hollow brick walls, including the partitions, from 
cellar floor to garret. Every room, from cellar to garret, has com- 
munication with a chimney. In completing the cellar floor thirty 
barrels of cement were used, with two feet in depth of cobblestones. 
The walls of the cellars are lined with brick, and the whole edifice 
contains one hundred and thirty-two thousand five hundred of these 
cubes. They are of superior quality, and the massive walls of the 
mansion present a tine appearance. Mr. Gage has been -active in 
political aff'airs, and his power is still strongly felt among his fellow- 
citizens, although approaching age has compelled him to retire. In 
the fall of 1869 he was elected by the republicans to the state legis- 
lature, and served with dignity and discretion through the following 
winter session. In the spring of 1860 a malicious charge of theft 
was brought against him by enemies, but his vindication on trial 
was complete. While his case was pending the spring election came 
on, and he was elected justice of the peace by thirty-four out of 



1246 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

forty -four votes. The case was therefore taken to Minneiska for 
trial, with the result above noted. Mr. Gage has been several times 
chosen a member of the town board of supervisors, and has served 
in various town offices. In religious matters his sympathies are with 
Universalism. On November 5, 1846, he was wedded to Miss 
Eleanor Probaseo, who is still his intelligent helpmeet and adviser. 
Mrs. Gage was born January 15, 1826, in Sanderston, New Jersey. 
Her parents, Joseph and Maria (Quick) Probaseo, were also natives 
of that state. Three sons, Warren Claude, Wells Eugene and 
Albert Guy, the youngest of the family, still dwell with their 
parents ; Eleanor Amanda, the eldest, now Mrs. John Mannings, 
lives in Chicago ; Edward is in Fargo, and Charles A. and Ilattie 
Maria (Mrs. Frank Towne) are in Elsbury, Dakota. 

iVARON F(^x, postmaster at Minneiska, the subject of our sketch, 
is a son of Abner and Delana Fox, and was born at Mentor, Ohio, in 
1833. After receiving a common-school education he removed to 
Lake county, Illinois. At the end of four years he felt a hungering 
and thirsting for a better education. Acting upon his impulses, he 
took a three years' course at Kirtland Seminary, one of the best 
seminaries in Ohio at that time. After this we find him on the farm 
in Lake county again till 1856, when he came to Minneiska. For 
some time he traded with the Indians, detding princi]^ally in furs, 
but tiring of this, he dealt in wheat, and at present is postmaster, 
and also deals in groceries ; has served as assessor and constable 
several terms. He is a member of the Masonic order. His politics 
ai-e republican. Married Mary Jane Hawkins, of Illiuois, and have 
two children : Jessie F., now Mrs. Geoi-ge H. Bagley, living in 
Missouri, and Ernest, living at Ojata, Minnesota. 

D. H. Ingalls, hardware, Minneiska, son of Daniel and Mercey, 
was born iij Kingsborough, Massachusetts, in 1820. His parents 
were natives of the same state. He received his education in the 
common "schools and at Peperill Academy, attending the latter sev- 
eral terms. During the spring of 1842 he came to Lake county, 
Illinois, and engaged in merchandise, remaining till 1859, when he 
removed to Plainview. Here he opened up a farm, but at the end 
of a year became tired of farming and sold out, removing to differ- 
ent parts of Kansas and Illinois during the next year ; but like all 
eastern men who once see the west, was dissatisfied with anything 
but the far west, so in 1861 he removed to Minneiska. Here he 
opened up a lumber-yard, and at difi'erent times bought wheat and 





Tnf'irESStU i S,r^23S^claScS'T 



OTHER IMPORTANT PERSONAGES. 124:7 

transacted other business, until finally he opened up a store eon. 
sisting of hardware and furniture, which he still owns. During the 
early part of the rebellion he was drafted, but on account of consti- 
tutional disability was given a life certificate of dismissal. For the 
last sixteen years he has held the offices of town clerk and justice of 
the peace during most of the time. His politics are republican. In 
1879 he was married to Mary F. Kay, of Massachusetts, a lady of 
refinement and a high order of intelligence. 

William H. Ingalls, farmer, was born at Nashua, New Hamp- 
shire, April 23, 1834. When nine years of age he came with his 
parents to northern Illinois. After attending the common schools 
for some time, he became a student of Salem Academy. But in a 
short time he left school, removing to Jacksonville, Iowa, about the 
year 1856. At the end of two years removed to this state, opening 
up a farm near Plainview, where he resided twelve years. At this 
juncture he made another move, going to Murray county, where he 
again opened up a large farm, living there till 1882, when he came 
to Minneiska. He married Caroline Walker, of Illinois. They 
have six children: Arsa F., now at Windom, Minnesota; Ida C, 
now Mrs. Geo. Darling, living in Missouri ; William D., a teacher 
in Otter Tail county ; and Alma A., Mabel I. and Leroy, at home. 
He is a member of the Masonic order. In politics a republican. 

H. S. Sumner, bookkeeper, son of Timothy and Mary Sumner, 
was born at Killiugly, Connecticut, in 1852. His early life was 
that of a farmer boy, working on the farm summers, and attending 
district school winters, till eighteen years of age. At this time he 
visited Providence, Khode Island, and on becoming engaged in 
business, remained till 1881, when he became possessed of the idea, 
^'Go west, young man" ; so he came west as far as Winona, Minne- 
sota. Since then he has lived in different portions of the state, and 
has made one short stay in Rhode Island. At present he is in the 
employ of D. F. Brooks & Co. In politics he is a straight repub- 
lican. Is a member of the I.O.G.T. 

William McKinney, bookkeeper, Minneiska, was born in 1859. 
His parents' names were Charles and Caroline McKinney, and were 
living at Bedfield, Oswego county. New Fork, at that time. His 
education was received at the common schools. In 1877 went to 
New York city, remaining nine months, then came to Minneiska. 
Since that time has resided in Plainview, Fergus Falls, and other 
portions of the state, but at present is in the employ of Brooks 
7G 



1248 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Bros., as head bookkeeper. In religion he leans toward the Con- 
gregational church. Married Mattie A. Burchard, of Plainview. 
Have one child, Nellie. Mr. McKinney is a man well fitted for the 
important position which he now fills. 

John Wear, proprietor of Trout Glen Farm, Mount Pleasant, is 
a son of English parents, Robert and Mary (Lawton) Wear, and was 
born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, January 6, 1837. AVhen he was 
seven years old his father moved to Schellsburg, Wisconsin, and 
engaged in mining. In 1850 he bought a farm in Jo Daviess 
county, Illinois, and from that time the life of our subject has been 
passed on a farm. His only educational facilities outside of self- 
culture were supplied by six months in the common school after he 
was thirteen years old. On reaching the age of fifteen he left the 
home farm, where his parents still reside, and has ever since cared 
for himself. In 1854 he came to Wacouta, on Lake Pepin, and soon 
after took up land on section 32, in the town of Florence, about four 
miles west of his present home. This claim was tilled by him until 
1868, when he went to Lake City. For two years he engaged in 
the Hour and feed trade there. He settled on his present farm (the 
northwest quarter of section 1) in 1877. Until quite recently he has 
engaged almost exclusively in grain-raising, but is: now turning his 
attention to breeding Jersey cattle and sheep. At this writing 
(March, 1884) he is preparing to erect a private creamery on the 
large spring near his door. This spring supplies abimdant water 
for driving churn, grindstone, etc., and is inhabited by trout. In 
the summer of 1883 the butter-producing powers of a three-fourths 
grade Jersey cow on Mr. Wear's farm was tested by a committee 
consisting of the editor of the Lake City " Sentinel " and the county 
superintendent of schools. For a week these gentlemen visited 
Trout Glen Farm each day, and weighed the milk, cream and butter 
from this animal. At the end of that period the butter produced at 
fourteen sittings on the milking-stool was found to weigh twenty- 
seven and one-fourth pounds. The weight of the milk was two hun- 
dred and ninety-three pounds. This is related as an example of the 
results easily attainable in Minnesota, with good water, pasturage 
and the right kind of cows. Mr. AVear is a member of the Masonic 
lodge and chapter at Lake City ; is a consistent republican, and both 
himself and wife joined a Presbyterian church in Goodhue county, 
and still cherish the faith of that sect. During his residence in 
Florence Mr. Wear served as town supervisor. His marriage 



OTHEK IMPORTANT PEESONAGES. 1249" 

occurred in 1857, the bride being Miss Emily, daughter of Joseph 
Saunders and Eliza (Owen) Pingrey, of Yermont and New York. 
Mrs. Wear was born near Madison, Indiana, in 1838. No children 
having been given this couple, they adopted a daughter, christened 
Minnie. 

KoYAL MoREY, farmer, Lake City, is a native of Orange county, 
Yermont, and was born in 1823. His parents, Joshua and Lucinda 
(Pennock) Morey, were representative New England families, 
and descendants of Scotch ancestors. They were principally farmers, 
though some of their scions have chosen the professions. Mr. Morey 
(our subject) was reared a farmer, and has made it his life business. 
He was married in his native state, January 1, 1850, to Miss Jen- 
nette Ellen Felton, a daughter of Amos Felton, born in Orange 
county, Yermont, in 1828. In 1861 they came to Minnesota, land- 
ing at Lake City on October 4, and at once settled on a farm in the 
town of Chester. Here they resided three years, during which time 
their home w^as frequently visited by marauding bands of Indians, 
who delighted in terrorizing Mrs. Morey and her defenseless chil- 
dren, as well as appropriating to their own use every article of food 
in the house. He then removed to Lake City, for the purpose of 
educating his children, whose names in the order ot their birth are: 
Charles Anson (whose sketch follows); Edith E., wife of Joseph B. 
Peterson, of Sioux Falls, Dakota; Bertha C, now Mrs. John A. 
Leonard, of Lake City ; Florence M., a graduate of the State Normal, 
and engaged in teaching; and Jennette E., at home. Mr. Morey 
and wife are now residing on their farm, within and adjoining the 
city limits, and enjoying the blessings of an honorable family, and 
an industrious and well spent life. 

Charles Anson Morey was born August 9, 1851, and hved the 
life of a farmer boy until nineteen years of age, when he was 
engaged to teach the school at Gopher prairie, near Lake City. So 
successful was he in this new field of operations, that the next year 
(1871) he came to Winona, and entered the State Normal School to 
prepare himself more thoroughly for that work. He graduated at 
the head of his class, May 22, 18T2, and was at once selected by 
the authorities of the school, and instructed to proceed with his 
preparations to take charge of the new department of natural sci- 
ences about to be established in the school. Accordingly, in Septem- 
ber of that year, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology in Boston, as a special student in the scientific departments. 



1250 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

In the next two years he passed through the entire laboratory 
course of that advanced and practical institution. During the latter 
part of the last year he worked in company with Prof. A, Graham 
Bell, the inventor of the telephone. At the close of the year he 
read a paper before the society of arts and sciences of the institute, 
describing and illustrating his improvements upon the phonanto- 
graph, an important acoustical instrument. The ])aper was pub- 
lished in the "American Journal of Science,'' and the improve- 
ments upon the familiar piece of apparatus have been generally 
adopted. He was, in the spring of 1874, elected professor of natural, 
science in the State Normal School at Winona, and at once entered 
upon his duties. Under his direction laboratories were established, 
and the new experimental method of teaching the sciences put in 
full operation. A large amount of valuable apparatus was made on 
the spot by himself, and by pupils under his direction. Upon the 
resignation of Prof. William F. Phelps in 1876, Mr. Morey was 
appointed principal of the school. Under his administration the 
curriculum, took many decided steps in advance. The course of 
study was rearranged upon the basis of a year instead of a terra. 
The advanced course and the professional course for graduates of 
colleges and high schools were established. By his economical 
management of the affairs of the school, the authorities were 
enabled to supply the funds necessary to fit up and furnish the 
extensive museum and art gallery of the institution, which was 
done under his direction. He had, however, since a boy, deter- 
mined to eventually make the law his profession, and had employed 
his leisure accordingly. In 1879 he resigned the principalship, was 
admitted to the bar, and immediately entered upon the practice of 
law at Winona, as a member of the firm of Berry tfe Morey. 
He was married November 28, 1877, to Kate Louise Berry, 
daughter of Gen. 0. H. Berry. They have two children, Janette 
and Charles Berry. Mr. Morey is a member of the school board, 
a director of the Merchants Bank, of the board of trade, and is 
secretary of the Winona Building and Loan Association, and politi- 
cally afiiliates with the republican party. 



CHAPTEK XCYII. 

The following pages consist of materials that have been delayed from 
various causes and consequently could not be placed in the position originally 
intended. Much of the matter, it will be seen, is of a highly important and 
interesting nature. — [Ed. 

PLAINVIEW TOWNSHIP. 

The township of Plain view is a complete geographical township, 
bounded on the north by the townships of Oakwood and Highland, 
on the east by Winona county, on the south by Olmsted county and 
on the west by the township of Elgin. The first settlements in this 
township were made in 1854 by two families of Norwegians, named 
respectively Halgerson and Olson, These people occupied dugouts 
on the claims which the}^ made in the northeastern part of the town- 
ship. The Halgersons are still residents of the township, while 
the Nelsons (or Olsons) now own farms in the adjoining town of 
Highland, all highly esteemed and well-to-do farmers. Early the 
following spring there came several enterprising Yankees, and 
located claims near the central part of the township. The leading 
spirits of the new comers were G. A. T. Sharp, E. B. Eddy, Wm. 
Boatman, Mr. Geising, Mr. Todd, Mr. Lock, A. P. Foster and Ben- 
jamin Lawrence. The first five named gentlemen were the founders 
of the short-lived town of Greenville. When the first pioneers 
arrived upon Greenwood prairie they found themselves in the very 
heart of a veritable paradise of luxuriant verdure, carpeting a gently 
undulating prairie soil, dotted here and there by small groves of 
oak, and all spread out beneath a clear sky and a drj' and invigo- 
rating atmosphere. Is it any wonder that they were charmed with 
the scene which gave assurance that the dreams of their ante-pioneer 
days were about to be realized? They were content to pitch their 
tents here and begin the work of building homes and carving out 
fortunes. How well they have succeeded a ride over Greenwood 
prairie today will enable you to judge, — beautiful farms of many 
broad acres stretch away on every hand, pleasant and commodious 
farm-buildings are found, frequently sequestered by groves of stately 
trees, and a cheerful greeting meets you whithersoever you turn. A 



1252 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

thrifty town stands in the midst of all this world of agricultural 
wealth, good feeling pervades the entire community and the com- 
bined ctlect of all this will convince the most skeptical that the lives 
of the old pioneers of Plain view were cast in pleasant places and 
success has attended their labors. 

The spring of 1856 saw a large number of new ftimilies estab- 
lishing themselves in various parts of the township. In the south- 
east settled the Smiths, Hiram and Milton ; the Sylvesters, George, 
Charles and Caleb ; George S. Evans, Solomon Fox, Johnathan 
Ingalls, Hiram Lindsey, Isaac Bancroft, Senica Carewell and Edwin 
Ball. The summer of 1857 AVoodland postoffice was established at 
the house of George W. Sylvester, on the S.E. ^ of Sec. 25, with 
Mr. Sylvester as postmaster. 

In northeast Plainview we find the MelleTidies, Thomas Smith, 
the Carpenters ; in the vicinity of Plainview the Halls, Thompsons, 
Smiths and Browns, T. A. Thompson, Wilcox, Blackwell, Rittenhouse, 
Chapman, Wiley, Yale, Ackley, Bigham, Ormsby ; and farther south, 
where S. L. McCarty settled in 1855, there located in the spring of 1856 
John Hitchcock, Samuel Bowen, Ruben Brooks, Mr. Griffin, T. Mills, 
Huslow Struck, Tyem, Ames, Weather, Bn.wn, Churchill, Perry. 
The gentlemen were chiefly from the eastern states, a few from Wis- 
consin, and one or two from Iowa ; all were restless palefaces, with 
good, true Yankee blood flowing in their veins. A volume might be 
written describing the makeshifts to which they were obliged to resort 
during the first few weeks or months of their sojourn here for habita- 
tions. Some of these pioneer families used their wagon-boxes for 
liouses, and others dwelt under boards that were leaned against a 
ridgepole. He who was so fortunate as to own a domicile that bore 
any resemblance in shape and appointments to a house, was fre- 
quently called upon to extend the hospitality characteristic of the 
pioneer, to dozens of people, and sometimes entire families, be- 
neath his humble roof. But with all these inconveniences, the hearts 
of these people were bouyant with hope and bright prospects, and in 
these days they look back to those early times and say, that "those 
were the hajipiest days of all." The sunshine in their souls kept 
them warm, despite the blasts of the northern winter that besieged 
their shanty homes, and shot his icy arrows through a thousand 
unchinked crevices ; despite the rough food, insufficient in quantity, 
and despite attenuated wardrobes. 



PLAINVIEW TOWNSHIP. 1253 



The soil for the most part is very rich and free from stone ; it is 
not so heavy as that found in the adjacent timber regions, but is 
quite as productive, easier to till, and apparently as inexhaustible. 
Natural growths of scrub-oak were interspersed, but the ax of the 
pioneer was called into requisition only to provide fuel. The surface 
is gently undulating, appi-oaching to the level in the northeast and 
slightly broken in the southeast along the White Water river, which 
enters the township from Elgin on section 30, and flows east for 
about three miles, then takes a southerly course, passing out through 
section 33, and again in the eastern part, where a diminutive branch 
of the White Water flows through a bluffy vale. 

THE PRODUCTS. 

Wheat was the chief product of this fertile region for a score of 
years. Upon this important cereal the prosperity of the farmer 
chiefly depended, and he gave no attention to other branches of 
husbandry, until the wheat-producing qualities of the soil were 
impaired by excessive cropping, and a series of unfavorable seasons 
conspired to greatly reduce the lai'ge yields, upon which he had for 
so many years safely relied. From thirty and forty bushels to the 
acre to five and ten, despite the most skillful husbandry, was the 
result. But the dauntless spirit of the old pioneer was not subdued 
by these discouragements, and Jie sought relief in stock-raising, 
which, during the last few years, has developed into no insignificant 
proportions. The raising of corn for the fattening of hogs perhaps 
receives the largest share of attention, but fine grades of cattle and 
blooded horses are also specialties. Dairying is a branch of farm 
industry that is coming rapidly into favor among the farmers of 
this section, and several fine herds of Jerseys and Shorthorns are to be 
found. The Greenwood Creamery, located at Plainview, and suc- 
cessfully operated by Hon. A. Y. Felton, is a prosperous enterprise, 
that leads and encourages the dairy interests of this prairie. Grain 
raising has not been wholly abandoned, but large quantities of 
wheat, oats and barley, as well as corn, are produced every year, and 
wheat culture may be said to hold at least the second place in agri- 
cultural industry today. 

THE FIRST HABITATIONS 

were the buildings erected by E. B. Eddy and Wm. Boatman. The 
building occupied by Eddy was on the proposed site of Greenville, 



1254: HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

and was the conjoint product of A, P, Foster, A. T. Sharpe and Mr. 
Eddy, all of whom contributed to the fund of muscle and money 
required in its construction. Mrs. Eddy, being the only woman of 
this party, was installed as housekeeper over this first palace of the 
prairie. Mrs. Wm. Boatman and Mrs. Eddy were the first white 
ladies who came to Greenwood prairie, coining in the same ])arty. 
During the summer of 1855, Mr. Sharpe took charge of the affairs of 
the new town, Greenville, afterward called Greenwood, which was 
located about two miles east of the present village of Plainview. 
Mr. Sharpe was a gentleman of good address, and was full of 
ambitious notions concerning this new pioneer burg, whicli was 
promptly platted by its proprietors, and its lots put upon the mar- 
ket. All fair and rational means were employed to attract settlers 
to this new Eldorado, that these enterprising people could devise. 
Eastern capitalists were besought to invest their money here, and 
letters filled with glowing descriptions of the country, and setting 
forth the advantages which the new town offered, were sent them. 
And not infrequently did these zealous town boomers overstep the 
bounds of strict veracity, and sometimes resorted to tricks to deceive 
the incredulous. As a sample we will here mention an incident 
that has been rendered historical by the clever pen of Dr. N. F. 
Teff't, of Plainview, himself one of the early settlers in Wabasha 
county, and a witness of all that he has related in the form of a 
drama which was produced at the "old settlers' meeting," February 
13, 1 884, and may be properly styled 

THE DRY WELL. 

One of the most serious problems which the citizens of Green- 
ville had to solve was the procuring of water. There was no kindly 
stream nearer than the Whitewater, four miles south. Of lakes 
there were none, not even a good old-fashioned mud-hole, and the 
water supply must be found in the bosom of mother earth, if at all. 
Consequently the digging of a well for the use of the town was at 
once undertaken. A depth of eighteen or twenty feet had been 
reached witiiout indication of water, when tlie arrival of an eastern 
capitalist was announced by mail a day in advance. What was to be 
done with the well and the earth which had been taken from it and 
heaped into a telltale mound near by. A happy thought came to 
the wily Sharpe, and he caused the well to be supplied with watei 
from the river before the arrival of the capitalist. When the latter 



PLAmVIEW TOWNSHIP. 1255 

came Mr. Sharpe took him in tow and escorted him over the town 
site, pointing out the interesting features of the new town and expa- 
tiating upon its admirable location and advantages. The unsophis- 
ticated stranger was advised of a proposed railroad line that had 
been surveyed through the village all the way from Dubuque on 
section lines, indicated the spot where in a few months was to be 
erected a "female brick seminary," loftily declared the existence of 
a beautiful lake near the Melendy place, and spoke in tones of assur- 
ance of the fine supply of water which the new well afforded , into the 
depths of which the visitor was invited to look that he might dispel 
any doubt previously entertained on that score. It happened that 
the water which the cunning citizens had put into the well had leaked 
out and the deception was thus uncovered ; the well was dry. 

The lack of water was not the only drawback that Greenwood 
had. A far more serious menace to her success was found in the fact 
that she was located within the half-breed tract, which included all 
that portion of Plainview township lying northeast of a line drawn 
from the northwest corner of the township southeast to a point near 
the center of the N.E. J of the N.W. J of Sec. 24. 

The title to all lands contained in this reservation was in question 
for years, and was not determined until the tate of Greenville was 
forever sealed. 

GREENVILLE 

in her palmiest day was never more than a "four corners"; a 
hotel, a store, a blacksmith-shop and a schoolhouse were the sum 
total of her business and public places. Today there is but one 
building standing that once contributed to her fated glory, and that 
one building is used on the T. G. Bdton place for a sheep-shed. 
T. J. Wadleigh, furniture dealer of Plainview, was the last one to 
abandon her and transfer his business to her rival. The first school 
in the township was established by the citizens of Greenville, in the 
fall of 1856. The boards for the schoolhouse were prepared by Mr. 
Boatman, its builder, with a whip-saw. Miss Annie M. White (now 
Mrs. Furlong, of Rochester, Minnesota)»was the first teacher. 

SIOUX HALF-BREED TRACT. 

A portion of the township of Plainview, as heretofore mentioned, 
was embraced in the half-breed reservation. That portion was the 
northern and eastern. The questionable title which those who 
settled on this Indian territory obtained of their lands occasioned 



1256 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

them much uneasiness and trouble. The Indians were ultimately- 
induced to relinquish their claims to this tract, in lieu of which the 
United States government granted them certain valuable land-script, 
each Indian receiving enough of this script to enable him to locate 
therewith four hundred and eighty acres of land, regardless of 
squatters' rights. This script was not assignable, but Yankee wit 
found a way to circumvent the law, and for a valuable consideration 
prevailed u])on the dusky owners of the script to invest their white 
brother with the power of attorney, requisite to enable him to buy 
the script in the owner's name, and also to transfer the title to the 
land thus acquired to others. This scheme ])roved successful, and 
those possessing the necessary means soon secured control of large 
tracts of land, and, in some instances for a reasonable and in others 
for an exorbitant consideration, perfected the squatter-claimants' 
title. These titles thus acquired were afterward disputed, and 
resulted in a closely-contested suit, in which A. P. Foster was made 
defendant. The titles were, however, confirmed by the supreme 
court, and the matter forever put at rest thereby. While the mat- 
ter of title was thus in abeyance, it had a tendency to delay 
improvements, and the development of the country aifected was 
temporarily suspended. 

The organization of the township of Plainview was effected in 
1858. The first town-meeting was held in Plainview, May 11, of 
that year. Prior to this there had been an imperfect attempt at 
organization under the territorial government as early as 1856, 
during which year we find that John W. Burnham exercised 
the functions of a justice of the peace. His official docket, which 
is still extant, contains recoi'ds of judicial proceedings in several 
cases. The first election in the township resulted in the selection 
of the following-named persons: John Yale, chairman board of 
supervisors ; Hiram Smith and J. P. Robbins, supervisors ; S. H. 
Gaylord, town clerk ; John W. Burnham and H. H. Butts, justices 
of the peace ; David Ackley and Wm. F. Collins, constables ; 
James Brown, assessor ; Bepjamin Lawrence, overseer of the ])oor. 
The number of ballots cast at this election was seventy-eight. 

thp: first road. 

On March 26, the board of supervisors convened to consider the 
matter of public highways. Up to this time the travel had been 
unconfined in its selection of routes, save that here and there might 



PLAINVIEW TOWNSHIP. 



1257 



be found the restraining fence of some exclusive settler, and wagon- 
roads threaded the prairie in all directions, regardless of section- 
lines. A survey had been duly made ot a road from the township- 
line in the west, at the section-stake between sections six and seven, 
due east through the township. This survey was adopted by the 
board, and the first road ordered to be opened thereon. 

The roads that now traverse the township are chiefly located on 
section-lines, and are kept in excellent condition. Those mainly 
traveled are known as the Wabasha road, and the extension east 
and west of Broadway, the main street of Plain view village. 

FENCES. 

The custom of fencing farms in vogue in the east was introduced 
by the early settlers, and put tliose occupying prairie land to a large 
expense to haul the rails necessary from the timber lands often many 
miles distant, but the more sensible practice of requiring each farmer 
to fence in his stock rather than his crops, resulted in the speedy 
disappearance of fences, which are almost wholly unnecessary in a 
country exclusively devoted to grain-raising. The introduction of 
stock-raising on an extensive scale, is, however, calling for the 
restoration of fences. The old Virginia rail fence has had its day, 
however, and wire is being successfully substituted. 

THE INHABITANTS 

are chiefly Yankees, with a small percentage of German and Irish 
interspersed. There is a strong tendency toward independent and 
atheistic notions in religious matters, while the prevailing religious 
sentiment (so called) is Protestant. A few Catholic families are, 
however, to be found, and a Catholic society is in process of 
crystallization in the village of Plainview. There is a manifest dis- 
position on the part of the majority of the people to cultivate and 
foster a wholesome and practical literary taste. With this end in 
view the children are given the advantages ofltered by good 

SCHOOLS. 

Outside of the village there are seven school districts bearing the 
following numbers: 59, 61, 62, 62^, 63, 71 and 95. Each has a 
suitable school-building, and much care is exercised in the selection 
of good and competent instructors. The village school district No. 
60, is provided with an able corps of instructors, and the high 
school connected therewith receives each year many pupils from the 
neighboring rural districts. 



1258 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 



is the incubus that haunts the sweet dream of prosperity that other- 
wise were a briglit reality for PLainview. In a moment of generosity 
she issued her bond to tlie amount of fifty thousand dolhirs to aid 
the Plainview & Eyota Railroad Company to construct their road 
from Eyota to Plainview. This was in the spring of 1878, March 30. 
Prior to their issue, in accordance with a permissive act of the legis- 
lature, a petition had been circulated among the taxpayers of the 
township, and the signatures of a majority thereof had been thus 
obtained. This by the terms of the said act was sufficient authority 
to warrant the board of supervisors to issue the bonds. The opposi- 
tion to this move made itself apparent at the spring election for the 
year 1S78, and two tickets were put into the field on that issue, the 
one composed of men pledged to issue the bonds, and the other of 
men pledged to the opposite course. The election resulted in the 
choice of the bond men. The village of Plainview surrendered its. 
corporate existence, in order to enable the voters residing therein to 
vote upon this issue, and has never been reincorporated. The 
validity of the bonds issued in this manner were called in question, 
and a test case reached the highest tribunal of the state, where the 
act authorizing the proceedings preliminary to the issuing of the 
bonds, was pronounced unconstitutional, and the town was enjoined 
from levying a tax for the collection of the funds for payment of 
said bonds or the interest thereon. The bonds were held by non- 
residents, who at once brought suit against the township to recover 
the interest as it became due, in the district court of the United 
States. This tribunal pronounced the bonds valid, and issued a 
mandamus to compel tlife town authorities to levy the requisite tax 
therefor. Between these two conflicting forces the town is in a 
dilemma, and the people know not in which direction their best 
interests lie. They, however, are daily assured by the arrival and 
departure of trains, that the railroad for which the bonds were issued 
has been constructed, and is being operated in accordance with the 
terms of contract made with the Plainview & Eyota company. 

THE ELGIN CYCLONE OF 1883, 

which swept with such a destructive force over the fair and fertile 
fields of the sister town in the west, and all but annihilated the 
thrifty little rural village of Elgin, exhausted its dying powers in 
doing some slight damage to the property of Plainview farmers in 



PLAIN VIEW TOWNSHIP. 1259 

the southern part of the township as it passed on its way to the Mis- 
sissippi. 

OLD settlers' society. 

An informal meeting of old settlers of the southern part of 
Wabasha county was held in Flainview on February 6, 1877, which 
resulted in the organization of the Old Settlers' Association. II. P. 
Willson was elected chairman, and S. B. Evans secretary. On Feb- 
ruary 28, they held what they were pleased to designate their first 
regular meeting at Schoolhouse Hall in Flainview, adopted a con- 
stitution and by-laws, and elected the following oflicers, viz : Dr. N. 
S. Tefft, president; George Farrer, of Elgin, vice-president; T. A. 
Thompson, secretary; E. B. Eddy, treasurer. 

SECRET SOCIETIES. 

Flainview Lodge, No. 16, 1. 0. O.F., was organized December 
29, 1866. The charter members, David Van Wert, Wm. L. Cleave- 
land, W. W. Case, and Ferdinand Trace, and the first oflicers were : 
W. A. Allen, N.G.; John Simpson, Y.G.; D. Yan Wert, secretary; 
S. N. Wright, treasurer ; W. L. Cleaveland, constable ; W. W. Case, 
warden; E. B. Eddy, K.S.KG.; W. H. Stone, L.S.KG.; F. 
Trace, I.G.; J. Huntoon, O.G.; John Valentine, RS.Y.G.; A. 
Pomeroy, L.S.Y.G.; T. A. Thompson, K.S.S.; J. J. Butts, L.S.S. 
The Past Grands at present members, and in good standing, are : 
John Simpson, W. L. Cleaveland, Wm. Donaldson, T. A. Thomp- 
son, Jas. D. Knights, J. J. Butts, N. S. Tefft, J. P. Waste, D. K. 
Sweezey, Gqo. C. French, G. C. Kichmond, F. H. Roberts, D. Z. 
Taylor, D. C. Clark, S. O. Seymour, Jacob Haessig, John McArthur, 
A. Y. Felton, John Springer, Ed. A. Paradis, Wm. F. Pvobinson. 
The present officers are: R. R. Damoude, N.G.; D. R. French, 
Y.G.; G. C. French, secretary; J. Haessig, treasurer; Ed. A. Par- 
adis, constable; D. C. Clark, warder; F. H. Roberts, R.S.KG.; S. 
O. Seymour, L.S.N.G.; D. Z. Taylor, R.S.Y.G.; J. H. Robinson, 
L.S.Y.G.; A. E. Thom, I.G.; S. H. Gaylord, O.G.; James McGee, 
R.S.S.; C. W. Donaldson, L.S.S. Meetings are held every Satur- 
day evening, in the hall over F. J. CornwelFs store. 

Illustrious Lodge, Wo. 63, was chartered October 23, 1867, 
the following being charter members : F. A. W&lls, H. A. Wells, 
James Lynch, Augustus Smith, S. N. Wright, E. C. Gearey, 1. B. 
Pope, D. McCarty, A. Clawson, C. G. Dawley and F. Trace. The 
first oflicers were": F. A. Wells, W.M. ; H. A. Wells, S.W. ; James 



1260. HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Lynch, J.W. ; Augustus Smith, Treas. ; E. S. Case, Sec. ; E. C. 
Gearey, S.D. ; I. B. Pope, J.D. ; Jas. McHench, S.S. ; C. O. Lan- 
don, J.S. ; D. Van Wert, Tyler. The Masters since organization 
have been : F. A. Wells, E. C. Geary, D. D. Brown, E. S. Case, 
Augustus Smith, Jas. McIIench, H. A. Wells, H. R. Gearey and 
J. F. Pope. The present officers are : J. F. Pope, W.M. ; G. R. 
Hall, S.W. ; Wni. S. Baxter, J.W. ; C. O. Landon, Treas. ; L. D. 
Colby, Sec; H. D. Wedge, S.D.; Fred. Wahler, J.D.; F. F. Fed- 
der, S.S. ; Geo. C. Landon, J.S. ; E. B. DePny, Tyler. The present 
membership is seventy-six, and nights of meeting first and third 
Fridays of each month, in the hall over F. J. CornwelFs store. 

Plainview Chapter^ No. 36., was organized October 18, 1882, 
with the following charter members: H. C. Woodruff, Augustus 
Smith. C. E. Daniels, F. A. Wells, Jas. W. McCarty, D. McCarty, 
Ezra Fellar, T. L. Meachum, Robt. Wahler, and the following as 
first officers: H. C. Woodruff, M.E.H.P.; Aug. Smith, E.K.; C. 

E. Daniels, E.S.; Milton Smith, Treas.; E. C. Gearey, Sec; H. D. 
Wedge, C.PL; D. McCarty, B.A.C.; F. A. Wells, P.S.; E. R Corn- 
well, M. of 1st Veil ; Jas. McCarty, M. of 2d A^eil ; F. L. Meachum, 
M. of 3d Veil ; Robt. Vickery, Sentinel. The following have been 
elected to fill the office of high priest : II. C. Woodrufi' and F. A. 
AVells. The present officers are : F. A. AVells, H.P.; D. McCarty, 
K. ; H. R. Gearey, S. ; Milton Smith, Treas.; S. A. Foster, Sec; 

G. R. Hall, C.H.'; E. R. Cornwell, R.A.C.; A. J. Carroll, ; 

John Bryant, M. of Ist Veil ; G. W. Harrington, M. of 2d Veil ; 

F. L. Meachum, M. of 3d Veil ; D. D. Harrington, Sentinel. 
Nights of meeting are second and fourth Fridays in each month. 



CHAPTER XCVIII. 
WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 

Owing to the roughness of its contour, this section was not as 
earl}' settled as the rest of the county. In fact, some portions of this 
township have not been cleared of their native growth of shrubs and 
opened to cultivation until within the past ten years. Indian Creek 
valley extends across the town from east to west, the stream entering 
on section 31 and leaving on 24. North of this is Snake creek, whose 
head is near the west side of the town, flowing about due east, and 
joining the Zumbro on section 12. The Whitewater river crosses 
the southeastern portion, and thus the town is composed of alternate 
ridges and valleys. The ridge between the Whitewater and Indian 
creek is quite broad, and is known as " Hoosier Ridge." Those on 
eiHier side of Snake creek are narrow, and have no distinctive appel- 
lation. Nearly all the people are Irish, these people wholly occu- 
pying Snake Creek valley, and the ridges on either side and at its 
head. They are industrious, and have cleared and made fertile what 
seemed unpromising to the prospector. In the southwestern portion 
are several German families, who are making "the wilderness to 
blossom as the rose." Among the earliest residents were Frank and 
John Gage, who settled in the Whitewater valley in 1855. During 
the same year Nels Westling and Andrew Johnson, Swedes, located 
in the valley of Indian creek. In the following year came Olaf 
Paulson, James and Daniel Gow, John Feddelson, and George and 
William Christie. Daniel Gow, a bachelor, still lives on his claim, 
alone, in a hole in the ground, covered with loose boards. Perhaps 
it is not proper to say he lives alone, as his chickens inhabit the den 
with him. Of those above mentioned, besides Gow, AVestling, 
Johnson and John Gage still reside here. In 1857 John Hickey 
and John Keating settled on Snake creek. In 1858 Dr. L. D. 
Holmes settled on Indian creek, and J. B. Haines became his 
neighbor next year. These were eastern people, and a spirit of 
enterprise and advancement came with them. In ] 859 a log school- 
house was put up through the efforts of those last above named, and 



1262 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

a school taught by Mrs. William Welds. The husband of the latter 
was a preacher of the Baptist denomination, and he held religious 
services in J. B. Haines' house as early as May or June, 1860. In 
December of this year Rev. D. B. Gleason, a Methodist, preached 
at the same place, and about this time Mr. Haines attempted to 
organize a Sunday school, but found so little cooperation that he was 
compelled to give it up. Rev. Harvey Webb succeeded Mr. Gleason 
as pastor of the Read's Landing circuitin 1S61, and held services here. 
This was about the last attempt at preaching in the town. An effort 
was made, not long ago, to organize a sabbath school in the same 
locality, but was abandoned. In this connection it may be noted 
that neither church edifice nor saloon have ever been opened in the 
town. Were the question of licensing a saloon submitted to a vote 
of the people, it would no doubt receive a large majority. 

The earliest effort to educate the youth of the town was inaugu- 
rated in the fail of 1858. A log tenement-house on the farm of 
John Gage had been vacated, and Mrs. Timothy Young ])roposed to 
open school in it. She proceeded to scrub out the house, in jjrepara- 
tion for this use of it, and fell dead while thus engaged. This was 
undoubtedly the first death to occur in the town, and was caused by 
heart-disease. The school was, however, conducted, Josiah Porter 
being the teacher. 

There are now five districts, with the same number of school- 
houses. The best and largest is that in district No. 34, the first 
regularly organized district. This is a neatly-painted frame building, 
in Snake Creek valley, on section 11. When the first building was 
put up there were few pupils, but the number on the school register 
at one time reached ninety. The first house stood partly on land 
now included in the right of way of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
Paul railway, on the southeast quarter of section 11, Creek valley. 
The second was erected on the present site, and was burned in June, 
1878. The first teacher employed in this district was Dora CXeil, 
but when it was found that she was a Protestant the peo]>le decided 
that she was no.t capable of teaching their children. Miss Sylvia 
Tiffany then took the little flock in charge, and managed its instruc- 
tion with satisfaction to the patrons. 

Cupid kept away from the locality for some time, according to 
the memories of early Inhabitants. The first residents of the town 
to be united in marriage were William Ryan and Margaret Hickey. 
This wedding was celebrated at Wabasha, February 16, 1863. 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1263 

On September 7, 1856, a son was born to John and Eleanor 
Gage, He was christened Burton Wallace, and died January 25, 
1859. During the latter year a daughter was born to Charles Simp- 
son, but is now deceased. These are the earliest births of which any 
knowledge can be found. 

The political town of Watopa was organized May 11, 1858. The 
earliest records of election and public acts have been destroyed, but 
this much has been learned in regard to that election from early set- 
tlers : The Indian name, "Watopa, was adopted, after considerable 
discussion of other titles. The supervisors chosen were William 
Abbott, chairman, John Gage and Henry Wagner. Charles Simp- 
son was made town clerk, Daniel Seymour, justice of the peace, and 
John Grain, constable. The affidavit and bond of Justice Seymour's 
first case was filed July 28, 1858. Suit was brought by Philip Smith 
to recover possession of a horse, valued at one hundred dollars, un- 
lawfully held by Valentine Jacob. After due trial, the case was 
decided in favor of the plaintiff, and costs of eight dollars and seventy- 
four cents assessed against defendant. To cover this, the constable 
levied on three thousand brick in possession of Jacob ; but after be- 
ing twice advertised for sale no buyers appeared, and the brick were 
not utilized in satisfying just demands of the minions of the 
law. 

A good deal of amusement was created in the spring of 1860, 
by a suit brought against John Gage for stealing corn. Before the 
case came to trial. Gage was elected justice of the peace, and offered 
to go on with the trial. To this neither the law nor the mind of the 
plaintifl's attorney would assent, and the case was therefore taken to 
Minneiska for trial. The judgment of his fellow-citizens in electing 
him justice was there justified by his acquittal. At another time. 
Gage's enemies sought to annoy him by bringing suit against him, 
during high water, on Sand prairie. The defendant proceeded 
quietly to secure possession of all the boats in the neighborhood, 
and proceeded to the scene of trial. Of course the case went in his 
favor, by default of his opponents. 

1859 the town officers elected were : supervisors, Garrett Fitz- 
gerald, George A. Layes and John Keating ; town clerk, William 
Abbott ; assessor, John Hickey ; collector, George C. Curtis ; over- 
seer of poor, Alois Holtzer. 

From 1860 to 1871, inclusive, J. B. Haines was town clerk. For 
those years only the supervisors are given in the following list. 
77 



1264 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Thereafter, the fourth name is that of the clerk, in every ease the 
chairman of supervisors being given first. John B. Mullins has 
been treasurer for the last ten years, and assessor for many years, 
still holding ^he latter office. 

1860. Daniel Seymour, G. A. Layes, Olaf Paulson. 

1861. William Abbott, G. Fitzgerald, John Schaling. 

1862. J. B. Mullins, G. Fitzgerald, John Feddelson. 

1863. Charles Jencks, G. Fitzgerald, John Feddelson. 

1864. J. B. Mullins, G. Fitzgerald, Charles Jencks. 

1865. John Feddelson, G. Fitzgerald, Henry Wagner. 

1866. J. B. Mullins, Lewis Martin, E. T. Lawrence. 

1867. J. B. Mullins, John Kennedy, William Putnam. 

1868. No record kept. 

1869. J. R. Hamlin, lohn Kennedy, John Gage. 

1870. J. R. Hamlin, Timothy Young, Dennis McCarthy. 

1871. Same as 1870. 

1872. John Kennedy, Patrick Hickey, George Ropert, J. B. Mullins. 

1873. John Kennedy, P. Hickey, E. W. Hurd, J. K. Hamlin. 

1874. Same as 1873. 

1875. J. Kennedy, J. Gage, William Fitzgerald, J. R. Hamlin. 

1876. Dennis McCarthy, James Brown, Matthias Webber, J. R. Hamlin . 

1877. D. McCarthy, John Starr, M. Webber, J. B. Mullins. 

1878. Patrick Drury, Peter Schilling, James Lamy, N. P. Burman. 

1879. J. Kennedy, E. W. Hurd, Peter Schilling, N. P. Burman. 

1880. J. Kennedy, James Lamy, William Putnam, Robert H. Wood. 

1881. J.Kennedy, E. W. Hurd, P. Hickey, R. H. Wood. 

1882. Peter Schilling, Peter Jacoby, Pat. Hickey, N. P. Burman. 

1883. Same supervisors as 1882, R. H. Wood. On account of the death of 
the latter, N. P. Burman was appointed clerk in April. 

1884. Patrick Shea, P. Schilling, Robert White, N. P. Burman. Assessor, 
J. B. iMullins ; treasurer, Thomas Wood, Jr. ; justices, John Gage, N. P. Burman ; 
constable, James Gray. 

At the presidential election in November, 1S60, the republican 
electors received thirty-two votes, and the democratic twenty. 
Twelve years later, when U. S. Grant was made president of the 
United States, his electors received twenty-two votes in Watopa, 
while his opponent had forty-three. In 1880 the democratic 
electors had a majority of twenty out of one hundred and fourteen 
ballots. AVhen a state governor was chosen, in 1883, the republican 
candidate received twenty-two votes, to his opponent's seventy-one. 
On most of the county officers the vote stood twenty-eight to sixty- 
five, the latter figures illustrating the political sentiment of the 
town. 

At the town meeting, in 1861, only thirty-seven votes were cast. 
Next year there were twenty-nine. In 1863 but twenty-five voters 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1265 

turned out, which was probably about all then in town, but next 
year the number was raised to forty-one. Since then the number of 
voters has largely increased. 

The population of the town in 1860 was three hundred and 
seven. Ten years later it increased to four hundred and sixty. 
Probably the number is little more at this time than in 1870. In 
the last census Watopa and Minneiska were taken together, reach- 
ing one thousand and twenty-three. The last-named town included 
three hundred and ninety-four in 1870, and has grown some since, . 
so it is probable that Watopa about held its own. 

The number of acres of farming-land assessed in Watopa in 
1860, was 6,420, valued at $25,776. Personal property was assessed 
$755, and the total basis of taxation thus became $26,531. At the 
last assessment the number of acres taxed liad more than trebled, 
reaching 21,775. Their average valuation was $5.58, making an 
aggregate of $121,576, nearly five times that of 1860. Personal 
property in 1883 was rated $19,215, and taxes were therefore * 
assessed on $140,791 of property. 

During the war of the rebellion, the number of able-bodied men 
in the town was very small, and one man was drafted three times. 
No tax for bounties was ever raised. A subscription was made for 
this purpose, but much of it was never paid. As other towns were 
offering large bounties for volunteers, many citizens of Watopa, 
who enlisted in the United States service, were credited to other 
towns. 

When the question of issuing state bonds to the amount of five 
million dollars, to assist railroad construction, was submitted to the 
people in April, 1858, this town was in a precinct with part of 
Winona county. Only one vote favoring the proposition was cast 
in the precinct. 

The following circumstances are related as showing the experi- 
ences of Minnesota pioneers : As late as 1859, flour was difficult to 
procure in the spring and early summer, after the long winter had 
exhausted the supply brouglit by boats in the previous fall. On one 
occasion Mrs. J. B. Haines and Charles Jencks set out for Minne-. 
sota City to procure flour, and had nothing for lunch on the way 
save some green cucumbers. At noon they turned out the oxen to 
feed, and sat down by a spring to eat their lunch. On reaching 
their destination, they succeeded in securing fifty pounds of flour, 
which was to feed several families in the valley. When Mr. Haines 



1266 HISTORY OF WABASHA CODNTi'. 

had raised a crop of wheat, lie engaged men to thresh it. The din- 
ner provided for the liungry workmen was devoid of bread or pastry, 
because their materials could not be procured, yet seemed a feast to 
them. Butter and cream were plenty, and also tea and coffee. 
Trout, which was easily caught in Indian creek at that time, furnished 
the flesh, and squash the vegetable portion. For dessert, sweetened 
stewed pumpkin was supplied, sugar being easily obtainable. 
Despite the hardships then endured, people declare they were happier 
in the pioneer times than in these days of form and etiquette. 

WEAVER VILLAGE. 

Weaver village was laid out in 1871. William Weaver and a 
man by the name of Dodge were the proprietors. The town was 
named after the former gentleman, and stands on sections 29 and 30 
of Minneiska township. 

In the summer of 1851 Andrew Olson emigrated to this section 
^ with his family, took a claim and erected a house, the first in this 
vicinity. Soon after two brothers, George and Christopher Abbott, 
and in 1857 William Weaver arrived from New York State and 
opened up a farm, on the north side of which a part of the town now 
stands. As soon as the village was laid out a postoffice was estab- 
lished, with W. H. Hopkins as postmaster. At present writing 
Weaver contains a store, hotel, butcher-shop, blacksmith-shop and 
two warehouses. 

The store is a handsome brick block, 44x65 feet, and is owned 
by W. II. Hopkins, who keeps a stpck of general merchandise and 
farm machinery. The hotel is a large brick structure, and was 
erected by AVilliam Weaver, at a cost of nine thousand dollars. In 
1880 he sold out, and is at present engaged in farming near Cassel- 
ton, Dakota. Mr. James White is now keeping the hotel. The 
warehouses are in charge of Brooks Bros., of Minneiska, well known 
throughout the state as dealers in wheat and lumber. The present 
school was built in 1872, and answers the double purpose of school- 
house and church, the Methodists and Norwegian Lutherans, alter- 
nating in their services. The population of Weaver is now about 
one hundred. 

Michael Callohan, telegraph oj^erator. Weaver, was born at 
Sandy Creek, New York, in 1858. His parents, John and IMary 
Callohan, were natives of Ireland, and emigrated to America in 
1837, settling where our subject was born. When a young man he 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1267 

tried living in several towns, among which were Kochester, in New 
York, and Niagara Falls, but finally concluded to visit St. Paul, 
which he did in 1880. Liking the west so well led him to locate in 
Winona for a year, and again he moved, this time to Weaver, where 
he now resides, being in the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee & 
St. Paul railroad, as agent and operator. Mr. Callohan is a member 
of the Catholic church, and also of the Winona State Military 
Guards. He married Eliza Hitchcock, of Weaver. They have one 
child, Mary Agnes. 

SOCIETIES OF ZUMBRO TOWNSHIP. 

Greenwood Wesley an Methodist Church. — This was the second 
society organized in the township, and the second by this sect in the 
state. The first has already been alluded to, and the circuit was 
known as South Troy circuit. Greenwood church derives its name 
from the location of its first headquarters, on Greenwood prairie, in 
Farmington township, Olmsted county. The class was first formed 
February 7, 1869, and included the following gentlemen and their 
wives : A. J. Jenkins, Sidney Corp, James Henry, Thomas Bailey, 
Christ Hope ; also Louis Warnic, Joel Pugh, George Baile}^, Jane, 
Joseph and Mary Roberts, James Sweeney and Elisha and William 
Perkins. Before the end of March the following has united with 
this organization : James Arnold and Lyman Wilson, with their 
wives, and Thomas Wilson, Ezra Pugh, Charles Roberts and John 
Potter, Jr. Soon after its inception the society became identified 
with Zumbro township, and this became its home. In 1882 a 
church edifice was begun on section 36 (Range 14), and was com- 
pleted during the second winter following. No indebtedness was 
incurred, and the building was completed as means could be found. 
It is a handsome frame structure, 42x26 feet in size, surmounted 
by proportionate belfi-y, and neatly painted. Its cost as completed 
was one thousand dollars. The society now includes forty-six mem- 
bers, under the pastorate of Rev. Charles Cox. A Sunday school 
was organized early, by Mrs. Sidney Corp. The school now in- 
cludes sixty-eight pupils, with seven teachers and oflicers. O. H. 
Tucker is superintendent. The several pastors have served for the 
number of years set opposite their names below. The first was the 
organizer of this and the South Troy societies : H. E. Walker, 3 ; 
George Pegler, 3 ; H. E. Walker, 2 ; M. R. Baldridge, 1 ; Thomas 
Hartley, 2 ; C. H. Norton, 1 ; Charles Cox, 3. 



1268 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

South Troy Wesleijan Methodist Church. — As early as 1866, 
Almond and Mary A. Martin and William Perkins covenanted 
together as Wesleyan Methodists. Next year a society was formed, 
March 24, with ten members. There are now about twice that num- 
ber. Since 1868 services have been kept up quite regularly by this 
society, and by the Methodist Episcopal church at the South Troy 
and "Red" schoolhouses. This class holds stated services in the 
South Troy schoolhouse at this time. 

Pleasant Prairie Grange, Mo. 56. — This lodge of the Patrons 
of Husbandry was organized in 1870 at what is known as the 
Dale schoolhouse. The first officers of the grange were as 
follows : Thomas Fryer, master ; James Henry, secretary ; O. H. 
Tucker, lecturer ; Pratt Drinkwalter, overseer ; A. E. Pandall and 
George Everett, stewards ; L. M. Howard, chaplain ; D. F. Wyatt, 
treasurer ; Mrs. Wyatt, pomona ; Mrs. Tucker, flora ; Mrs. Henry, 
ceres ; Mrs. Anderson, lady assistant steward. The membership 
reached about thirty, and meetings were kept up until February, 
1876. 

There is a German Lutheran church on section 36 (range 15), 
and an Allbright German church on section 28, in the village of 
Hammond's Ford. 

MATERIALS OUT OF WHICH PIONEERS ARE MADE. 

The material of which the pioneers of AVabasha county was con- 
structed is illustrated in the following item of fact which was related 
to Mr. F. Talbot by the actor, as also to other parties, thus making 
strong proof of the truth of the narrative. 

When Mr. Alexis Bailly was about nineteen years of age, and 
while attending school at Montreal, Canada East, Lady Selkirk, fear- 
ing some conspiracy was brewing by which the life of the earl was 
in danger, sought in vain for some days the means of communicat- 
ing with her husband. A thousand miles in midwinter was a 
formidable journey which no one seemed willing to attempt. The 
gallant heart of youth, who was not without the love of adventure, 
and who knew from former experience the route to Detroit, Michi- 
gan, offered his services to the lady and gave her such assurance of 
his readiness and ability to communicate with the earl, if anybody 
could succeed, that she gave him carte blanche for an outfit. 

Securing the services of two hardy Frenchmen, grizzly old 
voyageurs, and getting together a good dog team, with such provi- 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1269 

sions as were requisite for men and beasts, and not forgetting the 
little bags of ground parched corn, with its proper sprinkling of 
sugar and an ample supply of blankets for emergency, he turned his 
heel to the civilization of the French metropolis and took up his 
line of march for the wilderness and the earl, whose headquarters 
he reached in due time without accident or adventure worthy of 
note. 

The earl complimented him for his bravery and hardihood in 
undertaking and accomplishing so perilous a journey in winter, and 
detaining him until thoroughly recruited, supplied his train for the 
return trip, and entrusted him not only with letters to Lady Selkirk, 
but with other important documents. 

On the return trip a beclouded sun for some days brought afflic- 
tion and almost disaster to the party. The long detour from the 
right path of their journey almost exhausted their provisions, and 
for eight days their only subsistence was one of the little sacks of 
parched corn. The Frenchmen were determined to kill and eat the 
dogs, and it was only from the fact Mr. Bailly, youth as he was, 
resisted sound sleep and with pistol in hand watched not the dogs 
but the voyageurs. While at Fort William with Earl Selkirk he 
learned that an employe of the Hudson Bay Company had deserted, 
and there was a rumor that he was in a certain location trapping. 
As good fortune proved, such was the fact, and Mr. Bailly and his 
party made their way to his camp, where they feasted for some days 
on venison alone, for the hunter had no other provisions. From his 
camp, supplied with sufficient venison to prevent suffering, he led 
his train in safety back to the metropolis, to be received by Lady 
Selkirk not alone with verbal expressions of a grateful heart, but 
with a kiss of joyful approval. The trip was performed about the 
year 1819. 

We again hear from this young man, who was to be no incon- 
spicuous mover in the settlement of Wabasha county. 

The following is from a record of Mrs. Yan Cleve : "Early in 
August, 1821, a young Frenchman, Alexis Bailly, afterward a 
member of the legislature of the territory, left the cantonment with 
the first drove of cattle for the Selkirk colony, and returned the fol- 
lowing winter." 

The cantonment was the embryo of Fort Snelling. Those who 
now make the trip in well-warmed cars, with a dining-car attached, 
know little of the courage and hardihood demanded of that under- 



1270 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

taking. Mr. Baillj and liis son Henry were among the original 
proprietors of the city of Hastings, 

A LOYAL INDIAN. 

The picture of Tah-mali-haw, the friend of Gen. Pike, together 
with a commission as a chief from Gen. Clark, of Missouri, dated in 
tlie year 1814, are in the possession of the old Indian's friends in 
Wabasha. Tah-mah-haw was called by the old French voyageurs the 
"Old Priest," because he was a great talker on all occasions. In 
the war of 1812 he rendered important service to the government, 
and it was his boast that he was the only American in his tribe. At 
one time while carrying dispatches from Prairie du Chien to Fort 
Snelling he was pursued by a party of Sacs and Foxes. Being hard 
pressed, he noticed a log cabin at some distance, and on getting to it 
rushed in. The family, it appeared, had just abandoned the house 
and left the fire burning. Tah-mah-haw, on looking around for a 
place to secrete himself, thought of the chimney, and up it he rushed. 
His enemies coming up soon after, entered the house, but not think- 
ing of the chimney did not stay long. After waiting awhile until 
the coast was clear Tah-mah-haw got down and took the other trail. 
Another time he was surprised by a war party of the same nation, 
and being on the bank of the river when it was full of running ice, 
he jumped in, and by diving managed to escape to the other shore. 
The old man was taken away from here at the outbreak of the Sioux 
war in 1862, and died at the San tee Agency, Nebraska. 

AN EARLY RELIGIOUS IMPRESSION. 

Many amusing anecdotes might be told of early times in 
Wabasha, among which to the writer occurs his first experience in 
attending church. On a Saturday in March, 1856, he arrived in 
Wabasha and ])ut up at what was then known as Harrold's hotel. 
In the morning inquiry was made if there was religious services in 
the place that day, and was coolly informed that he believed that 
there was an '-'old Methodist minister that did some kind of howl- 
ing up at Hays' hall, " so at the proper time the writer wended his 
way to the hall. There was quite a congregation assembled and 
religious services commenced. The room below the hall was occu- 
pied as a saloon. In that was fiddling and dancing. Very soon a 
free fight was organized below, when every man, except the preacher 
and the writer, rushed out to see the fight, and the women present 
crowded to the windows to overlook the fight. Between the cursing 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1271 

and swearing of the belligerents below and the screams of the women 
above as some of their friends would be knocked out of time, it 
seemed as though pandemonium had broke loose. The fight soon 
ended by all hands repairing to the saloon and taking a drink. 
Reverential thoughts were driven from the minds of the congrega- 
tion, and they quietly departed without waiting for the benediction. 

IRISH WAR. 

In the spring of 1856 a feud existed between two disciples of 
Esculapius, one residing in the town of Greenfield, the other at 
Wabasha, both of Irish descent. It happened one day that the 
learned doctor from Greenfield was met in the street at Wabasha by 
his brother of the pill-bags, when the latter drew his pistol and com- 
menced firing at the former. A running fight ensued, the doctor 
from Greenfield making quick time for what is now Kurd's hotel, 
the doctor from Wabasha following up and firing his pistol at inter- 
vals until his rival was safely ensconced in the hotel. Five shots 
were fired, three of which penetrated the clothing of the Greenfield 
doctor, and one slightly wounding him in the back. The learned 
doctor was so badly frightened that he dare not leave the hotel, and 
sent word to his friends to come to his relief. The next day the quiet 
citizens of Wabasha were astonished to see a regularly organized 
company of Irishmen, about thirty in number, march into town 
with colors flying and drums beating, all heavily armed. They 
marched to the hotel where their comrade was hidden and soon had 
him mounted on horseback, when, with more zeal than discretion, 
and much more valiant than on the former day, now that he was 
surrounded by his friends, he began to make threats to raid, to kill, 
murder and hang the citizens, especially the rival doctor ; but better 
counsel prevailed, especially when he observed that quite a number 
of the citizens were congregating at Harrold's hotel and arming them- 
selves for the pending affray. The Irish legion quietly marched out 
of town, no blood being spilled and no one injured except the old 
man Augustin Rocque, an old French trader and Indian scout, who 
had seen service and was anxious for a fight, who in flourishing his 
small sword accidentally wounded himself in the arm, from which 
wound he soon after died. 

A SURVIVOR OF BAD AXE. 

The last survivor of the Sioux Indians who fought with the 
Americans against the Sacs and Foxes at the battle of Bad Axe lives 



1272 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in liis little cabin a short distance below the city of "Wabasha. 
Mah-Kah-Kee-dah, "Burnt Land," such is the name of the old man, 
who belonged to Wah-pah-sha's band, and distinguished himself 
during the Black-Hawk war. When Wah-pah-sha was at his village, 
where Winona now stands, called at that time Wah-pa-sha Prairie, 
Gen. Dodge called on the chief, and requested him to take part in 
battle against their old enemies the Sacs and Foxes. Wah-pa-sha, 
after consulting with Wah-kuh-tah, who was chief of the band on 
the lake, told the general that when white people went to war they 
provided for their families, but that Indians had to trust to luck. 
Gen, Dodge took the hint, and ordered the captain of the steamboat 
to roll off a number of barrels of flour and pork, to be distributed to 
the different Indians. Wah-kuh-tah was here a few years ago visiting 
his relatives, and told the writer about those stirring times. 

Many wonderful stories are handed down from generation to 
generation by the Indians, and the more wonderful the better appre- 
ciated. Wah-kuh-tah, whose village stood at the head of Lake 
Pepin, told the writer that a long time ago an immense fish was found 
on the shore of the lake. One of the Indians took his bow and 
measured across the head four lengths, and that the body was long 
in pro])ortion. Tlie fish had the make of a catfish, and when found 
it was dead. Another story is told of a snake having been seen in a 
crevice of the rocks near Maiden Rock, that probabl}^ belonged to 
Donnelly's Age of Fire and Gravel. His snakeship, according to 
the tradition, must have been sixty or seventy feet long, and about a 
bow's length across the face. The Indians who saw him were afraid 
to go near it, as they said that his eyes shot forth fire. He was 
probably the last of his race, and no doubt his remains will be found 
by some scientist embedded among the rocks of the beautiful lake. 

ONE OF THE TWO EARLIEST. 

Oliver Rosicot (pronounced Rosico) went to Mendota in the year 
1831, and ranks next to Oliver Cratte as being the oldest resident of 
the state. Mr. Rosicot was sent about 1841 as blacksmith by the 
government to the foot of the lake to attend to the wants of the Red 
Wing band of Indians. He is now in his seventy-sixth year, and 
has lived at his old home ever since. His place is in the town of 
Pepuj, and directly opposite the town of Pepin in Wisconsi^i. Like 
Mr. Cratte, Mr. Rosicot has seen the rapid changes that have taken 
place in half a century throughout the state. 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1273 

WAH-PA-SHA. 

The picture of Wali-pa-sha was taken from a painting in the 
possession of the family of Alexis Baillj, Esq., now deceased. This 
is the cliief the place was named after. He was a noted man in his 
day, and was recognized as head chief of the River bands of Sioux. 
During the troubles with the Winnebago Indians, at Prairie du Chien, 
at an early day, Wah-pah-sha was invited by them to a council. 
After listening to the Winnebago chiefs, and what they proposed 
doing to the whites, Wah-pah-sha arose, and, pulling a hair from his 
head, blew it away, telling the council that if they harmed a white 
man he would blow them from the face of the earth as he had blown 
the hair. The chief with his band made their summer residence on 
what is now called "Sand Prairie," or, as it was called by the old 
voyageurs, "La Prairie au Cypre." 

LEAD MINING. 

About the year 1841 Macey, the United States geologist, while 
exploring the mineral resources of this country, found a vein of lead 
on the Zumbro river. In his report to the government he stated 
" that it was an east and west crevice, and lay deep in the magnesia 
limestone." Mr. Macey stopped with Mr. Oliver Cratte during his 
stay in this vicinity, and showed Mr. Cratte pieces of lead that he 
broke off the rocks in the crevice. Nothing was done about the ' ' find " 
at the time, as Mr. Cratte said since that there were no white men 
in the country to^work it, and besides, the Indians would have ob- 
jected. When Mr. Francis Talbot came here in 1853, allusions 
were made to the lead on the Zumbro every once in a while. As 
the exact location of the crevice was not given by the geologist, no 
definite idea of the place could be fixed upon. During the war, when 
things were "flush," he conceived the idea of forming a company 
to make explorations and find the mineral if possible. The com- 
pany consisted of W. T. Dugan, S. S. Kepler, W. S. Jackson, A. 
G. Remondivo, with F. Talbot as president, and S. S. Kepler, sec- 
retary. An old river man and ex-galena miner, by the name of J. 
Morrison, was employed to "test" the ground, and if possible 
"catch on " to the vein. After working all winter, nothing was 
found that would warrant a larger outlay, so the enterprise was aban- 
doned, although good specimens of lead were found. Another com- 
pany was formed in the year 1866, of which Mr. Wm. Wetherbee 
(now deceased) was president. Mr. Wetherbee's company, called 



1274 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the "Zumbro Lead Mining Company," met with no better success, 
and they too had to give up the search. There is no doubt, how- 
ever, about there being lead on the Zumbro, as Macey's report is 
positive and clear on the subject. Mr. Cratte stated that the lead 
was discovered about nine or ten miles from this place, but in wliat 
direction he could not say. 

A GOOD RUNNER. 

Among the great hunters of the northwest at an early day, Jos. 
Kocque, of this place, was the most noted. When Joe was a young 
man, and before he gained any reputation as a hunter, his father 
killed a deer, and told his son that when he went hunting to bring 
back something like that. Joe said notliing, but waiting his oppor- 
tunity started out one morning with nothing but the ramrod of his 
rifle, and finding a deer followed it, and actually ran the animal down 
and drove it home. Going to his father he said, "Father, when 
you go hunting, bring home a deer on foot, and save your powder." 
The poor animal was so used up by the long chase, that its flesh 
could not be eaten. After that exploit Joe's reputation was soon 
established, and numerous stories lia\e been told of his achievements 
in the chase. Louis Rocque, a brother of Joe's, when a boy, was 
sent to the mission school at Mackinaw, and recollected John Jacob 
Astor, when that gentleman was there looking after the interests of 
the American Fur Company. In after-life Louis acted as guide for 
Gen. Fremont and Nicollet, when they visited this locality. 

BIOGRAPHICAL. 

Ira O. Seeley, retired farmer, was the first to make a claim 
and build a house in Mazeppa township. Mr. Seeley's parents 
were of Vermont birth. His father was christened Ajax T., 
and his mother, born Painter, was called Delight. In 1815 
this couple lived in the town of Luzerne, New York, at which 
time and place the subject was born. While he was yet an 
infant, the family removed to Ashtabula county, Ohio, where 
he was reared on a farm till sixteen years old, receiving a limited 
education at the log schoolhouse of that new region. From the age 
above named till he came to this state he followed carpenter work. 
After six years' residence at Berlin, Wisconsin, he came with his 
'family to this county, in 1853. In June, 1854, he set out with three 
companions to explore the western portion of the county. In the 
fall of this year he made a claim on the present site of Mazeppa, and 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1275 

built a log pen to signify a claim. During the winter he piloted 
several exploring parties to the new region, and built a log house, to 
which he removed his family in April following. This was the first 
actual settlement in the township, and was not made on his original 
choice, but on section 5, on the bank of Trout brook, where Daniel 
Mack now dwells. In 1869 this place was exchanged for one at 
that time owned by Mr. Mack, in Zumbrota township, near Mazeppa. 
In 1881 Mr. Seeley removed to Appleton, Minnesota, his present 
home, where most of his children live. He was elected to the first • 
state legislature by the republicans, and also served several years as 
chairman of Mazeppa town board. He was a democrat up to the open- 
ing of the civil war. His marriage occurred in 1836, the bride being 
Miss Sarah Loveland, a native of Ashtabula. She died in 1868, 
leaving eight children, who still survive. The eldest will be spoken 
of below. The fifth, Emma, married F. L. Bonney and resides in 
Smyrna, Kew York. The sixth, Nellie (Mrs. John McClellan), lives 
at Mazeppa. She was the first girl born in the town. All the 
others, named in order below, reside in Appleton : Elizabeth A. 
(Mrs. O. F. Davis), Kobert, Elvira (Mrs. Winfield Greenleaf), 
Albert and Elmer C. Albert is postmaster at Appleton. 

Major Francis W. Seeley, postmaster at Lake City, is the 
eldest son of I. O. Seeley, born at Ashtabula, Ohio, April 12, 1837, 
and was, therefore, but sixteen years old when he came with his 
parents to Wabasha. His educational privileges had been limited, 
but after joining the regular army he prepared himself by assiduous 
study for the life of a useful soldier and citizen. He enlisted in 
February, 1855, in Sherman's battery, 3d Art., then stationed at 
Fort Snelling, and served till the opening of the civil war, as a non- 
commissioned officer, on the western frontier. On September 19, 
1860, he was breveted second lieutenant by President Buchanan, 
and on February 4 following was made second lieutenant in 
the 4tli Art. ; May 14 thereafter he was promoted to first 
lieutenant, and served as adjutant-general of the department of 
Florida, where he was then stationed. July 11, 1863, he was made 
captain, 4th Art. He is the only oflicer, below the grade of 
field officer, mentioned by Greeley in his history of the rebellion. 
May 30, 1863, he was promoted to be a brevet captain, and July 2 
following major, for "gallant conduct in the battles of Chancellors- 
ville and Gettysburg." Both promotions were confirmed by the 
senate. In the first-named memorable battle his batterv fired the 



1276 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 

last Union shot, and he retired, under orders, with lieavy loss in 
both men and horses. 

At the conclusion of the battle (Chancellorsville) of Sunday, Captain 
F. W. Seeley's battery, which was the last battery that fired a shot in that 
battle, had one oflicer and forty enlisted men killed and wounded, and in the 
neighborhood of sixty horses killed or disabled ; but being a soldier of great 
pride and ambition, and not wishing to leave any of his material in the hands 
of the enemy, he withdrew so entirely at his leisure that he carried off all his 
wounded men and even the accoutrements from his dead and disabled 
horses! — See Vol. 1, page 9. Report of the committee on the conduct of the 
war, 1865. 

In his official report of the battle of Gettysburg, Maj.-Gen. 
A. A. IIumphre3's says : '"Seeley's battery, 'K, 4th U, S. Art.,' was 
placed at my disposal. * * * The firing of Seeley's battery was 
splendid, and excited my admiration, as well as that of every officer 
who beheld it. His loss in men and horses was heav}^, including 
himself, twice severely wounded." Maj. Seeley was'twice wounded 
on this occasion, and was ultimately forced by the effects ot his 
injuries and exposure to resign his commission, which he did on 
August 31, 1864. Besides the battles above named, ho participated 
in the following engagements : Battle of Santa Rosa Islands, Florida ; 
bombardment of Forts McRae and Barrancas, Florida ; siege of 
Yorktown ; battles of Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg and 
others. After leaving the army he returned to Wabasha county and 
engaged in farming for three j^ears, but was forced to give it up on 
account of physical disability, the result of his wounds. He was 
elected to the legislature in 1868. In March, 1873, he was 
appointed by President Grant to the charge of Lake City postoffice, 
and has continued to serve the people in that capacity since. He 
was one of the original members of the Odd-Fellows lodge here. In 
theological matters he is very liberal. August 5, 1863, he espoused 
Miss Emily C. Loveland, of Ashtabula. They were given a daughter 
in 1866, and christened her Frances E. 

Hon. Hugh P. Willson, of Grand Forks, Dakota Territory, was 
one of the first settlers in Wabasha county, whither he came in the 
fall of 1854, from Crawford county, Pennsylvania. Mr. Willson 
was born December 3, 1819. His parents were Hugh and Hannah 
(Allen) Willson. His educational advantages were very limited ; he 
attended school but about fourteen months all told, but being of a 
studious disposition he early began the self-imposed task of educat- 
ing himself without the assistance of teachers. In this he was 



WATOPA TOWNSHIP. 1277 

remarkably successful as gaining a fair knowledge not only of the 
common branches, but also of the higher sciences, history and litera- 
ture. He engaged in farming in his native county until 1854, 
when, in the fall of that year, he came to Wabasha county and took 
a claim near Kellogg. Here he remained until the spring of "J 857, 
when he came to Greenwood prairie, and located a pre-emption 
claim on section 11, in Elgin township, the place now owned by 
Eussel Marshall. The next fall he bought land in Plainview village, 
which he afterward platted, as an addition to the village, as East 
Plainview. Mr. "Willson was justice of the peace for six years, 
during which time he acquired a taste for legal studies ; in 1866 was 
admitted to the bar, opened a law office in Plainview, and con- 
tinued the practice of law here until February, 1881, when he left 
Plainview, and went to Grand Forks, Dakota Territory, where he 
engaged in the real-estate and loaning business. Judge Willson 
was the first judge of probate for Wabasha county. In politics is a 
democrat. He was married. May 22, 1851, to Sarah E. Cole, in 
Pennsylvania, who died January 23, 1873, leaving two children, 
namely, Frank A., of Pembina county, Dakota Territory, and 
Mary, of Grand Forks. Frank Willson was the first white child 
born in Wabasha county, south of the Zumbro river. 

Capt. John Samuel Walker was born in New Albany, Indiana, 
January 4, 1832, of American parents. He left Indiana in the fall 
of 1844, and went to St. Louis, Missouri, and remained about ten 
years, engaged in various employments. He then came direct to 
Wabasha, and engaged in the lumber business as a laborer first, 
then, in the year of 1856, commenced piloting on the Mississippi 
and Chippewa rivers, and has continued in same business even 
since with good success. His education was obtained mostly after 
he came to Wabasha, from a private teacher, Jno. McKee. He 
was elected constable, and has served as deputy sherifi" of the 
county. He is a member of the I.O.O.F. in his own town, and 
also of the Oi-ient Encampment in Wabasha. He was married in 
the spring of 1855, first to Miss Therice Campbell, second to Elizabeth 
Birtch, May 6, 1856. They are the parents of twelve cliildren, seven 
of whom are living. Mr. Walker is one of the oldest if not the oldest 
pioneer in Bead's Landing, and if his biography was thoroughly 
written up, including his travels and experiences while "roughing 
it" on the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers, from the almost 
uncivilized times of 1856 to the present day, it would fill a large 



1278 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

volume indeed, and we regret that we are compelled to condense it 
into this brief space. 

Charles Frederick Rogers, mayor of Lake City, is descended 
from an English family that settled in Virginia about two hundred 
years ago. He was born at Barnstead Parade, TsTew Hampshire, 
November 17, 1831. Charles Harris Rogers, the father of this 
subject, was a native of New Jersey, and married Abigail S., 
daughter of Robert Copp, of New Hampshire. The father was 
two terms a member of the New Hampshire state senate. In 1849 
Charles F. Rogers set out to carve his fortune, having been fitted 
for the battle of life by a common-school education. After seven 
years spent as clerk and bookkeeper at Lowell, Massachusetts, he 
went into the clothing trade in Boston. Subsequently he spent two 
years in business in Nashua, New Hampshire. In the spring of 
1857 he came west and occupied three years as a clerk in Columbus, 
Wisconsin. On November 1, 1860, at the latter point, he was 
united in matrimony to Miss Alice R., daughter of Horace C. and 
Julia A. Cooper. In August of that year he opened a drygoods 
store in Lake City, in partnership with Mrs. Rogers' father. In the 
year 1862 he went into the agricultural implement business in con- 
nection with the drygoods business. He conducted a successful 
business here in this line for thirteen years, but kept the implement 
business up until 1880, and retired to engage in other and lucrative 
pursuits. He is at present a stockholder and director of the First 
National Bank, and is well known for business integrity and acumen. 
Also stockholder in the First National Bank of Wabasha, and vice- 
president. He was elected mayor of the city in 1883 ; was the 
candidate of the republican party for state legislator in 1878. He 
was one of the original members of the Masonic lodge here, having 
become connected with that order in Columbus, Wisconsin ; is a 
regular supporter of the Congregational church, of which Mrs. 
Rogers is a member. The latter is an accomplished lady, and a 
leader in social and church affairs. Three daughters have been 
given to grace the handsome home of Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, and 
christened Helen Julia, Alice Josie and Etta May. They are all 
becoming musicians. 

OziAs Wilcox, born in 1824, died January 1, 1876. Mr. Wil- 
cox' father was a harnessmaker, and resided at Crown Point, New 
York, where our subject was born and spent his earlier years. 
When he was about fifteen he went to Perry, Lake county, Ohio, 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1279 

and became a sailor on the lakes. From 1852 to 1854 he was in Cali- 
fornia, from which country he returned with a small capital, which he 
invested in the forwarding business, with headquarters atFairport, in 
copartnership with his brother, B. O. Wilcox. Owing to ill health, he 
soon resumed the life of a sailor, in charge of one of his own ships. 
After a year of lake life he found his health still greatly impaired, 
and pursuant to the advice of his physician came to Minnesota. 
This was in the spring of 1856. He bought forty acres of Hugh 
Wiley, along the eastern side of the southeast quarter of section 8, in 
Plainview, and erected a store and dwelling in one building (the 
same is now used by the Plainview Bank), and also took up a 
homestead-claim south of the village. Mr. Wilcox at once assumed 
a leadership in the affairs ot the new town, and up to the time of his 
death exerted a beneficial influence in all public matters touching 
the interests of Plainview, where he engaged successfully in the 
mercantile business until the close of his life. In his early life Mr. 
Wilcox had few educational advantages, and acquired but a poor 
common-school education ; he, however, had studious tastes, and 
aspired to gain a broader knowledge of literature and science than 
the masses find suflicient. All the leading literary periodicals and 
journals of the day were his constant i-eading. He was married to 
Martha Stearns, daughter of Asaph Sterns, of northern Ohio, 
December 15, 1854. This lady, who survives her husband, was 
born in St. Lawrence county, New York, February 18, 1828, and now 
resides in Minneapolis. Four children are now living : Helen J. 
(wife of Dr. G. E. Pucker), Northfield ; Asa F., medical student in 
Philadelphia; Cassius C, Aberdeen, Dakota Territory, and Fran- 
ces L., attending school in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Amzi Bralnaed Watts Norton, of Plainview, was born in Che- 
nango county, New York, October 30, 1818. His father, Amzi 
Norton, was of Connecticut origin, and though a blacksmith by 
trade, was of a decidedly literary turn of mind, and established quite 
a local celebrity as a poet. His poetical efforts were chiefly of a 
religious character, and were put forth to further the Millerite 
cause, in which Mr. Norton was a firm believer. Our subject's 
mother was nee Huldah Barstow, whose lineage dates back to some 
of the old troopers of the revolution. The family removed to Tioga 
county. New York, while Amzi was yet a child, and here he spent 
his youth and received a common-school education. At the age of 
fourteen he became a clerk in John Stedman's store, at Kichford. 



1280 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

He afterward bought out Stedman and ran the store for a time alone, 
then sold out and accepted the management of a store at West Dry- 
den, New York, then a year each in West Virgil and New Jersey. 
His next move was westward," to McHenry county, Illinois, where 
in 1847 he and Josiah Dwight opened a general store at Woodstock. 
Here he continued in business until the spring of 1857, when he 
came to Wabaslia county and opened a store in Plainview, in con- 
junction with William Kimbedy. In 1859 lie built the store now 
occupied by Cornwell c^ Son for a hardware store, and took his 
brother in as partner. He was deputy postmaster under postmaster 
Yale, and postmaster four years under President Johnson's admini- 
stration. He went out of the mercantile business in 1870, and has 
since devoted the most of his attention to the collection business and 
the official duties of justice of the peace, which position he has 
filled almost continuously for the past twenty years. Mr. Norton 
has been thrice married, his first wife being a Miss Clara Church, of 
Castile, New York, by whom he had two children, namely, Clara- 
belle (Mrs. E. A. Pomeroy), of Plainview, and Edith. In 1864 
Miss Sarah Sanchfield became his second wife, by whom he had one 
child, Grant, a student in the Rochester Commercial School. 

William Clark, farmer, of Plainview township, was born 
in the Allegheny mountains. Hardy county, in the State of 
Virginia, April 23, 1825. His father, Hendricks Clark, owned 
a mill and distillery. In 1835 the family removed to Canton, 
Ohio, and engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 1844, when in his 
twentieth year, our subject went to Indiana, where for eight years 
lie did farm work summers and taught school winters near Goshen. 
In 1852 Mr. Clark crossed the plains to (valifornia, performing the 
entire journey from Omaha to Sacramento on foot. He tarried in 
the mining-camps of Downieville, on the Yuba river, for one year, 
and spent another year farming near Benicia before returning to the 
states. On May 12, 1856, he located his claim on section 18 in 
Plainview. To his original quarter-section he has made additions 
and now owns four hundred acres of fine land just west of Plainview 
village. Mr. Clark's father was a Quaker, and sought to bring up his 
children in the way they should go. but his son William was not 
always the most tractable boy, and when ten or twelve years old used 
to devote more time to hunting, fishing and nutting than to Sunday 
scliools ; but notwithstanding his wildness there was no innate 
wickedness in his heart, while his mind was endowed with those 
literary tastes which rendered him a fine student. 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1281 

Edward Franklin Hopkins was born at Manchester, Maine, 
September 3, 1849. At the age of five years his parents, Wm. H. 
Hopkins and Rhoda M. moved to Readlield, Maine, where in 1858 
his father died, leaving a good property to the widow and the two 
small children, of which Edward was the younger. The following 
year the mother moved with the family to Boston, Massachusetts, 
where for two years the children received the benefits of a tine 
school. In April, 1860, they came to Minnesota, arriving at Lake 
City late in the evening. The following morning Mrs. Hopkins 
became Mrs. Standish, by being joined in wedlock to Rev, E. A. 
Standish, of Mazeppa, the wedding taking place at the residence ot 
DeWitt C. Sterry. Edward A. Standish was a Methodist clergy- 
man, and a direct descendant of Capt. Miles Standish, of the May- 
Flower. Mrs. Hopkins had not seen Mr. Standish for about twenty 
years, until the arrival in Lake City. They had known each other 
in their earlier days. They came at once to Mazeppa and occupied 
the Standish homestead. The war breaking out soon after this, Mr. 
Standish's sons, Merit G. and Miles E. joined the 1st and 3d regi- 
ments respectively, Minn. Yols., leaving Edward, the only remain- 
ing boy, at home to work the farm. Several years of hard labor for 
Edward followed. At the close of the war he was placed in school 
at Red Wing, and afterward at Hamline University. He rapidly 
developed a taste for learning. He afterward went to Rockford^ 
Illinois, and took a full course in a commercial school at that place. 
After this he went to Lake City and clerked for C. F. Young, and 
has followed this business ever since, being at the present writing 
engaged with E. L. Ford & Co., of Mazeppa. On December 20, 
1875, he was married to Josephine Sutherland. They have two chil- 
dren, Hattie and James Shirley. Besides his duties in the store, he 
has also an insurance business, and is notary public. He has also 
been engaged for several years in breeding and raising for market 
fine hogs. His sales of fine animals during 1882-3 amounted to 
over fifteen hundred dollars. 

Patrick McDonough died in the town of Greenfield, March 19, 
1883, aged seventy-eight. He was born inTiernay, County Galway, 
Ireland, and married Ann Lee, of the same parish, who died there. 
S.he was the mother of nine children, two of whom are living. Mr. 
McDonough afterward married Nappy Sullivan, who died in Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, in 1851, three years after the removal of the family to 
America. Three children were given to the second Mrs. McDonough, 



1282 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

but all are now deceased. After some years' residence in Cincinnati, 
and two years on a farm in Mason (bounty, Kentucky, Mr. 
McDonougli came to Greenfield, and settled on section 31, where he 
continued to dwell during the remainder of his life. Himself and 
family were all reared in the Roman Catholic church. The youngest 
child, Mar}', is now the wife of Larry Calhoun, and resides in 
Wabasha. 

Miles McDonougii, son (^f Patrick, whose sketch appears above, 
was born in the same parish in 1832. His education was supplied 
by the parish school before he came to America with his father. He 
was four years employed on Ohio and Mississippi river steamboats, 
most of the time as watchman. He came to Greenfield with his 
father, and was his most valuable assistant. Is now the proprietor 
of six hundred and eighty acres of land, of which three hundred are 
improved. His products are diversified, embracing both grain and 
domestic animals. In 1SS3 his crops included eighteen hundred and 
twenty-five bushels of wheat, eight hundred and fifty of barley, 
eight hundred of oats, and forty tons of ha}'. In 1867 a large and 
handsome frame house was built, and is now occupied by the family. 
Mr. M. has been five years school director, and was elected town 
supervisor in 1879-80-1-2. Ann Flaherty, to whom he was wedded 
in 1857, is a native of Lettermullin, same county as her husband. 
The}^ have nine children living. Mary Ann, the eldest, is now Mrs. 
Edward Drury, and dwells in Wabasha ; Nora, Agnes, Edward, 
Maggie, Katie, Michael, Lydia and Maud are at home. Patrick 
Henry, the third child, died at St. Francis' Seminary, Milwaukee, 
October 13, 1879. This was a youth of great promise, and had 
nearly completed the third year of his study for the priesthood at the 
time of his demise. He was born February 7, 1862, and his early 
life was passed on his father's farm, and the rudiments of his educa- 
tion were acquired at the common school. He soon developed a 
rarely intellectual character, and his life was early set apart for the 
holy calling from which death snatched him. He was a very studious 
youth, and was a leader in all his classes, and his death was univer- 
sally regretted by the church in this country. 

Patrick McCarthy (deceased) became a permanent i-esident of 
Greenfield in 1855, and died there in 1870, aged fifty-six years. 
Mr. McCarthy was born in the parish of Castle-Connell, County 
Limerick, Ireland, and was reared on a farm there. On reaching 
manhood he set out for America, and spent some years in railroad 



BIOGRArHICAL. 1283 

work in New York and at Galena, Illinois. He came up the 
Mississippi in the spring of 1854, and took up land near what is now 
Lake City. This he sold in a few weeks, and went back to Galena. 
Here he was married during the same year to Miss Ann Ryan, who 
still survives him. Mrs. McCarthy was born in the parish of 
Marugh, County Limerick. When this couple came to Greenfield 
they settled on section 26, where they dwelt ten years. Some more 
land was then acquired by purchase on section 27, where the husband 
died and the widow now resides with her youngest son. Mr. 
McCarthy served some years as town supervisor, and was treasurer 
of his school district for the first fourteen years of its existence. He 
was always a democrat, as are his sons, and all were baptized in the 
Catholic church. At his death the fatlier left four hundred and forty- 
one acres of land, which has been equitably divided between the 
widow and heirs. All the children living were born in this town- 
ship, James, the eldest, March 5, 1860. He was studious in his 
habits, and became a proficient penman. In 1880 he went to 
Chicago, and found employment with the Chicago & Northwestern 
Railroad Company as waybill clerk. His faithfulness and ability 
liave been appreciated, and he has steadily advanced to his present 
position as head collector in the city. John, the second son, was 
born June 15, 1861, and has spent all his life here on the farm. His 
education was supplied by the common schools of the town, and 
although equally as capable for business as his brotlier, has chosen to 
be his widowed mother's stay. Elizabeth, the youngest child, dwells 
at home, and is now teaching school at Theilman, 

George W. Hall (deceased) became a resident of Wabasha 
in 1857, engaging in the sale of furniture. He was born in Perry 
county, Pennsylvania, December 6, 1824. His parents, Moses and 
Catharine Hall, were natives of the same state. He was reared on 
a farm, and engaged in the grocery trade in Muscatine, Iowa, in 
1854. Sarah Butturff", daughter of Frederick and Elizabeth Butturfif, 
of Pennsylvania, was born in Cumberland county, same state, Feb- 
ruary 28, 1825. The latter was united in marriage with Mr. Hall 
February 6, 1849, and still survives him. After three years of trade 
in Iowa our subject came to Wabasha, and opened a furniture store 
in partnership with Mrs. Hall's brother, Samuel Butturff". In 1860 
he took up a homestead in Glasgow township, on which he dwelt 
three years. Being in delicate health, he sold out and returned to 
Wabasha. Here he was some time a clerk in Weatherbee's store. 



1284 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

For some years after this he kept a meat-market. He built onehouse 
in South Wabasha when he first came here. He afterward bought 
and improved others. At his death, May 7, 1870, he was possessed 
of two adjoining residences on AHeghaney street, now owned by liis 
widow. Mr. Hall was a member of the Masonic brotherliood. Hav- 
ing little education himself, he appreciated the value of schools, and 
was active in fostering them. He was a contributor to the suj^port 
of all churches, but the Episcopal was his favorite. He was a firm 
adherent of tlie democratic party in politics. The third child and 
only daughter, Anna, married John A. Canfield, of Kellogg, and is 
now deceased. The sons, in order of birth, are: Henry W., Green- 
field ; William Parker and George W., Prairie View, Kansas. 

Elijah Stout (deceased) was born in Middletown, New Jersey, 
February 23, 1806. John and Martha Stout, his parents, were also 
natives of New Jersey. Tlie former served the colonies as a soldier 
in the revolutionary army, his pretty wife in tlie meantime attending 
to affairs at liome. One day while she was engaged in boiling soap 
a passing British officer attempted to kiss her, and received a dab of 
hot soap in his face for his pains. In early life Elijah Stout went to 
New York city and engaged in mercantile life. At one time he had 
two stores in operation there. In 1827 he was married here, the 
bride being Julia A. , only daughter of George Cooper, Esq. Tliirteen 
children were the result of this union, six of whom are now living. 
The mother died in 1850 at Middletown. whither Mr. Stout returned 
in 1831. He had three stores in Monmouth county, and held the 
office of assessor from 1831 to 1856, over twenty years, and was 
judge of the county court over two terms, resigning that office to 
come west in 1856. July of the latter year found him a resident of 
Lake City, where his talents and enterprise were needed. He at 
once took part in the efforts being put forth to establish a city on a 
moral and business foundation. He was among the first to advocate 
measures for the general welfare, and was always called upon to 
preside at public meetings. When the poor or sick needed aid or 
relief his hand was always ready to minister. When he first came 
here he served two years as justice of tlie peace, and afterward till 
the time of liis death as assessor. In ]>olitics he was always a demo- 
crat, and never forgot his christian dignity while party strife raged. 
During the late civil war he was among the foremost and truest sup- 
porters of the government. He was a life-long member of the 
Baptist church, and was among the very few who organized a society 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1285 

here in 1857. He was both an Odd-Fellow and a Mason, and none 
were more ready to aid in acts of benevolence and charity. He 
possessed a singularly sympathetic nature, and having once made a 
friend, held him through life. He was almost invariably requested 
to conduct the funerals of friends or neighbors. His faith in Chris- 
tianity continued to the end, and he passed away January 24, 1881, 
after an illness of nearly three months. In 1854 he married Caro- 
line M., widow of Judge John Murphy, of New York, and mother 
of Henry C. Murphy, the well-known attorney of New York city. 
Mrs. Stout still survives, and is resident in New York. Two dauffli- 
ters of Judge Stout were drowned here in June, 1858, under most 
distressing circumstances, as related elsewhere. Timothy, the second 
living son, died at Marshall, this state, in the fall of 1883, aged 
forty-nine years. He served as captain of Co. I, 2d Minn, regt, 
during the civil war, and was wounded at the battle of Mill Spring. 
John resides at Minneapolis, Edward in Texas, Caroline (Murray) at 
Long Branch, Eliza J. (Williamson) at Duluth, and George and 
James C. in Lake City. 

George C. Stout, merchant, Lake City, is the eldest son of Judge 
Stout, and was born in the State of New York. When quite young, 
his parents settled in Middletown, New Jersey, and he was reared 
in that village, receiving the benefit of its advanced schools. He 
was married in Middlesex county, the bride being Miss Adelaide 
Perrine, a daughter of Judge John Perrine, of Middlesex county 
court ; the latter came of a long-lived family, having reached the 
age of eighty-six when he died, in January, 1884. Mrs. Stout's 
maternal grandmother lived to be over one hundred and one. Mr. 
Stout became a resident of Lake City April 15, 1857, and has dwelt 
here continuously since. He engaged in mercantile business, and in 
1870 began an exclusive clothing and furnishing goods trade. In 
1876 G. M. Dwelle became a partner, and on January 1, 1884, J. C. 
Hassinger entered the firm. The business is prosperous, and is con- 
ducted in a building owned by the firm, corner of Washington and 
Center streets. It is a double brick, two stories high, and was built 
in 1882. The structure that stood here April 1, 1882, was totally 
consumed by fire on the night of the 22d of that month, inflicting a 
loss of twelve thousand dollars on Stoat & Dwelle. There was a 
partial insurance, and next morning the senior partner started east 
after a new stock of goods. The present store was at once erected, 
and stands as a monument to his courage and perseverance. His 



1286 HISTORY OF wabasha county. 

religion is the golden rule, and his political principles are championed 
by the republican party. lie is at present one of the city council. 
Three children have been given to Mr. and Mrs. Stout. George, the 
eldest, is in business in St. Paul. Frances and Ada P. remain to 
grace the pleasant home of their parents. 

Hon. Patrick Henry Raiiilly, the most extensive farmer and 
stock-raiser in Wabasha county, if not in southern Minnesota, re- 
sides in Mount Pleasant township, on his immense farm of twelve 
hundred acres. Mr. Rahilly was born on a farm near the city of 
Limerick, Ireland, March 8, 1834, and is perhaps the most successful 
man who ever came to Minnesota a youth and without means. His 
ciiildhood, till the age of ten years, was spent on the farm, after 
which he was placed at school in the city of Limerick, where he re- 
ceived a classical education, though his collegiate course was but par- 
tially completed, as his father, Mathew Rahilly, decided on emi- 
grating with his family to the United States, in the sixteenth year 
of our subject's age. They sailed from the city of Limerick on May 
2, 1849, and landed in I^ew York in the month of June. The family 
soon after settled in Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania, where the 
father still lives, at the advanced age of eight^'-three years. In his 
eighteenth year young Rahilly left his parental roof with a deter- 
mination that, if honest industry and faithful application to business 
had its reward, he would not only make a home for himself but a 
name among his fellowmen. His first two years was passed in 
Cayuga county. New York, as a farm hand, where he early acquired 
a thorough knowledge of handling and dealing in live-stock. After 
serving his time, including the stipulated month's notice to his em- 
ployer, he went west to Chicago, in 1854, whitlier he had been at- 
tracted by circulars scattered through the east by the Illinois Central 
Railroad Comj^any. Not finding the desired opening there, he ])ushed 
on to Milwaukee, and from there by stage to Dunleith, where he 
boarded a river steamer bound for St. Paul. While on this his first 
trij) up the Father of AVaters, the uncivilized appearance of the coun- 
try, the sight of numerous squads of half-dressed and less than half- 
civijized Indians, and the thoughts of the old eastern home, sur- 
rounded by its many blessings and advantages, caused unbidden 
tears to fliow. On reaching Wabasha prairie (now Winona), he dis- 
embarked, and soon after made his way west to the new town site of 
Rochester, Olmsted county, Minnesota, where he at once found em- 
ployment with the Hon, W. D. Lowery, who was then opening up a 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1287 

lar2:e farm, as well as conducting a mercantile interest, to which was 
soon after added a banking business. In time, Mr. Lowery saw in 
his employe the honor and ability that merited a better position than 
that of a common hand, and, for the mutual benefit of both parties, 
placed him in the bank as superintendent, and also made him an 
equal partner in the farm interests. In August, 1860, Mr. Eahilly 
severed his connection with Mr. Lowery, and on the 23d of the same 
month, at Winona, was united in marriage with Miss Catharine Nor- 
ton, a native of County Galway, Ireland, and a daughter of 
James Norton, who came with his family to America in 1848. Mr. 
Kahilly's first and final move after marriage was to his quarter- 
section of land in Mount Pleasant township, on Sec. 22, T. 11, R. 
13, pre-empted by him in 1858. Here he built a temporary resi- 
dence, and, in the strict sense of the word, started according to his 
means, and from that day to the present writing has continued to 
prosper. Acre to acre, farm to farm has been added, till one un- 
broken farm now numbering twelve hundred acres surrounds his 
first purchase, on which now stands one of the finest and most sub- 
stantial brick residences in the state, outside of St. Paul and Minne- 
apolis. It was erected during the summer of 1880, on the site of an 
elegant one destroyed by fire in March of that year. His entire 
farming interests are all conducted by himself, with the 
aid of hired help, keeping a large number of hands ^ dur- 
ing the summer season, and overseeing all branches of his ex- 
tensive business the year round. It was not until late years 
that Mr. Eahilly allowed himself to be drawn into politics. The 
public had for some time seen in liim the executive ability and inde- 
pendence to wisely direct state affairs, and in 1874 prevailed on him 
to accept a nomination to the state legislature. He was put on the 
ticket of tlie democratic party and elected by a flattering majority. 
He was three times subsequently elected to the same position, and 
once to the state senate. In 1875 he was placed in nomination and 
run by his party on the state ticket for auditor, but his party being 
in a hopeless minority, he was defeated, though in this and adjoin- 
ing counties he ran ahead of his ticket. To Mr. Rahilly the young 
men of today may safely be pointed as an example to follow— a 
man who has made his way from incipiency to manhood's ripest 
years. In business, as in war, there are constant promotions of the 
successful operator, and each promotion is a victory won, for " Peace 
hath her victories no less than war." The smaller acts of life, the 



1288 HISTORY OF wabasiia county. 

finer threads of principle, are the index to what life is or may be. 
Mr. Kahilly has an interesting family of five children, who are re- 
ceiving the educational advantages of the St. Paul, Milwaukee and 
Massachusetts schools and colleges. Their names, in the order of 
their birth, are : Jennie I., Mary A., James M., Catharine A. and 
Margaret. One son, John T., died very suddenly of cerebro- 
spinal meningitis, caused by a foil while in attendance at the Lake 
City schools, in the twelfth year of his age. 

Calvin Dickinson Vilas, M.D., was the first physician to locate 
in Lake City, and today is among its foremost and successful prac- 
titioners. His birth dates May 1, 1822, at Antwerp, Jefferson 
county, New York. His parents, Nathaniel Vilas and Betsey Dick- 
inson, were born in New Hampshire, and the former enjoyed a gov- 
ernment pension during his latter years, on account of services 
during the war of 1812. For many years the fiither operated a 
large tannery, which he built at Sterling Center, New York, and 
liere our subject laid the foundation of a more complete education. 
After attending two courses of medical lectures at Pittsfield, Massa- 
chusetts, and a course at Woodstock, Vermont, he graduated at 
the latter place in 181:6. In December of this year he married Mary 
C, daughter of William and Mary C. (Wright) Ford. Mrs. Vilas 
is four years her husband's junior, and was born in Antwerp, and 
reared in Sterling, New York. Dr. Vilas began the practice of his 
profession at Ked Creek, Wayne county, New York, and subse- 
quently spent a year in Oswego county. Thence he emigrated to 
Eacine county, Wisconsin, and located in the town of Caledonia, 
where he continued in the practice of his profession nine years. In 
September, 1856, he removed to Lake City, Where he permanently 
located, and soon built up a lucrative and successful practice, which 
has for many years occupied almost his entire time and attention. 
Despite the cares of his large practice, the doctoi- takes time to foster 
and encourage educational interests and the public schools. During 
his residence in Wisconsin, he served one year as superintendent of 
schools, and has been on the school board in Lake City the last six 
years, and was unanimously for the full term in the spring of 1884. 
Politically he has always stood by the republican party. His living 
children are: Walter N., practicing medicine at Racine, Wisconsin; 
Elbert E., at Clark, Dakota; George W., at St. Paul, Minnesota; 
Carrie M., died, aged seventeen years. 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



1289 



Rev. William Gaedam, rector of St. Mark's church, Lake City, 
was born in Clitheroe, Lancashire, England, October 18, 1851, and 
was educated there in the common branches. In 1872 he entered 
the Headinglej College, at Yorkshire, England, where he pursued 
the study of the classics, mathematics and theology. In 1875 he 
became a student at the Lincoln Theological College, and at the same 
time became an under-graduate of the University of London. At 
the end of two years he was ordained deacon, and, the following 
year, priest in the Lincoln Cathedral, England, by the Et. Rev. 
Christopher Wordsworth, bishop of Lincoln. His first ministerial 
work was curate of Bourne Abbey church, Lincolnshire, England, 
where he remained from 1877 to 1879. At this juncture he found 
himself prostrated with a nervous breakdown, and in October, 1879, 
came to America with a view to improving his health. In the fall 
of 1880 he was called to the rectorship of the St. Paul's church 
at Plymouth, Wisconsin, whence he came to Lake City in May, 
1883. He was married December 27, 1881, at Milwaukee, by 
Bishop Welles, to Miss Mary Chase Smith, a great-granddaughter 
of Bishop Chase, and daughter of the noted railroad man, H. N. 
Smith, of Milwaukee. Mr. Gardam's father, James B. Gardam, 
who is a scientific chemist, now resides at Cleveland, Ohio. 

DwiGHT Feedekick Beooks, physician at Minneiska, was ushered 
into this world June 10, 1849, at Redfield, New York. His parents, 
Sheldon and Jeanette Brooks, were natives of the same state. Both 
his father's father and mother's father were participants in the war 
of 1812. At the age of seven years our subject came to Beaver, 
Winora county, Minnesota, where he remained till 1862, at which 
time he took up his abode at Minneiska. Up to this time his educa- 
tion had been received at the common schools ; but now he pursued 
the studies of Latin and Greek, under the tutorship of Mr. W. B. 
Bunnell, a noted educator at that time. Soon after this he placed 
himself in the medical department of Michigan University, at Ann 
Arbor, but graduated in medicine at Long Island College Hospital, 
in 1876. Since that time he has been not only following his profes- 
sion, but is largely engaged in commercial pursuits. In 1876 Mr. 
Brooks was chosen as delegate to attend the American Medical Asso- 
ciation at Philadelphia, and has remained a permanent member ever 
since. He is also a member of the Minnesota State Medical Society 
and of the Wabasha County Medical Society. In 1875 he was united 
in marriage to Anna G. Keyes, of Winona, and have two children. 



1290 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Harry K., born in September, 1876, and Dwiglit S., born in March, 
187S. Mi's. Brooks is a member of the Congregational churcli. Dr. 
Brooks' parents, who were many years residents of Minneiska, re- 
moved to Winona, where the former died in the spring of 1883. He 
was well known there as one of the noble men of that county's early 
settlement. 

Thoivias Talman Jenks, Lake City, whose grandfather with two 
brothers came from England and settled in Connecticut and New 
Ham])shire just previous to the outbreak of the war of the revolu- 
tion, was born in Lamoile, Vermont, July 4, 1823. His parents 
were Jeremiah amd Hepcibeth (Talman) Jenks, and were natives 
of Lyon, New Hampshire; the latter a descendant of a Holland 
family who emigrated to the colonies about the middle of the last 
century. Mr. Jenks, like his father, was reared a farmer, and fol- 
lowed that as a business till his advent into Minnesota in 1856. The 
same season he built a shingle mill at Central Point. Six years later 
he bought a planing mill located at the foot of Dwelle street, and 
soon after converted it into a shingle factory, and time converted it 
into a tenement, which has long since passed out of existence. He 
was married at Elmore, Vermont, December 14, 1845, to Elmira 
Bailey, a native of the same state, born April 18, 1827. To them 
were born six children, three of whom are living, whose names in 
the order of their birth are: Lucelia A., born in Massachusetts, 
September 7, 1846, now the wifeof John W. Northlield ; Francis H., 
born in Vermont, April 18, 1848, and Elwin T., born in same state, 
September 10, 1853. The three deceased were : Eugene A., Emma 
A. and Ada, aged eighteen-months, seven years, and fourteen years, 
respectively. 

Jkrry Dady, farmer, Greenfield, is among the early residents of 
Wabasha county, having come to Wabasha in 1855. In 1856 he 
settled on his present farm. His residence is cm section 35, and he 
has a large farm, part of which lies in Wato])a township. Mr. Dady 
was born in Castle Grogery, County Kerry, Ireland, and was reared 
on the farm that had been for many generations in possession of 
his ancestors. His education was supplied by rate schools, and re- 
mained there until thirty years old. He then married Nora O'Don- 
nell, a native of the same parish, and together they set out to make 
a home in America. For several years he was employed in railroad 
construction in Vermont, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. From the 
latter state he came to Minnesota as above related. He has been 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



1291 



industrious, and has thereby secured a competence. In public aflPairs 
he has always sustained the Democratic party, as have his sons, and 
all the members of his family are in good standing in the Eoman 
Catholic church at Wabasha. There are live children, resident as 
follows: Eugene, Warren, Minnesota; Mary (Mrs. Maurice Durgan), 
Black Kiver Falls, Wisconsin; Nora (John Drysdale), Kellogg; 
Michael, Wabasha; John, at home. The latter is the prop of his 
parents in their old age, and is a rising young man. He is now 
serving the third successive term as town clerk. 

Michael U. Dady, Wabasha, son of the above last-named 
subject, was born in Greenfield, October 7, 1855. He was reared 
there, and attended the common school. When eighteen years old 
he took up blacksmith work in Kellogg, and has followed it ever 
sirtce. Became a resident of Wabasha in 1879; worked some time 
in a machine shop, and is now employed by the Chicago, Milwau- 
kee & St. Paul Railway Company as blacksmith and repairer. In 
1879 he married Fanny Hudson, who was born in Fierce county, 
Wisconsin, of Scotch and English parents. They have a son, born 
June 18, 1880, and christened Charles. 

Abnee Tibbitts, who is mentioned as among the first to locate 
where Lake City now stands, was a native of the State of Maine. 
" He came to Racine, Wisconsin, in 1853, and there married, and in 
1855 came to Lake Citv. Here Messrs. Abner Dwelle and Samuel 
Doughty gave him an interest in the new town site just being platted 
by them. He was a man of good address and possessed of excellent 
argumentative qualities, hence very useful in booming a new town. 
This ability, well used, was perhaps the principal consideration 
received for the share he became possessor of in the real estate here. 
He was a man ot aggressive characteristics and filled a few positions 
of trust to the state and nation. In 1878 he went to New Mexico, 
where he is now filling a position in a custom-house. 

Dr. p. a. Jewell (deceased), once a prominent resident of Lake 
City, was born in the State of New York and was educated in the 
classical course at Oberlin, Ohio, and graduated from the medical 
department of the Ann Arbor University. During the war of 
1861-5 he was appointed to the hospital service in Washington, and 
there did the government efficient service. He was married August 
20, 1863, at Morris, Illinois, to Miss Catharine Underwood, a 
graduate of the Female Medical College, of Philadelphia, and sister 
of J. M. Underwood, of this city. He came to Lake City in 1868, 



12!)2 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

and established the nursery which now bears his* name. The doctor 
and his noble wife were only spared to their fellow citizens a very 
few years, and now repose in Lake City's beautiful cemetery. They 
left an unblemished name, but no posterity. 

Silas Gerome Smith, carpenter and builder, is one of the pioneers 
of this county and father of the first white child born in Highland 
townshi]). His grandfather, Jared Smith, was a native of Maine, 
was a farmer and settled at Pompey Hill, Oswego county. New 
York. Here was born and reared Israel Smith, the father of this 
subject, who followed blacksmithing from sixteen years of age. He 
married Eliza Richer, who was born in West Monroe, same county. 
Silas G. Smith was born Septeniber 13, 1S33, at the same ])lace as 
his father. For seven years he worked with his father at his trade, 
and never went to school after he was ten years old. At twenty- 
five he began carpenter work, having previously been employed for 
some time as filer and sawyer in a mill. After losing all his posses- 
sions by fire, he determined to seek a home in the New West, 
and came to Wabasha county, locating on land in Highland in the 
the fall of 1854. In the spring of that year he married Ellen S. 
Jacott, who died May 17, 18T6, leaving two children. Julia Ann, 
the eldest, born January 20, 1857, is the wife of Julius B. Lewis, in 
Wabasha. Silas Jerome resides with his fatlier, and was twentj^ 
years old March 5 last. Mr. Smith made his home on his farm 
until 1875. August 31, 1864, he entered Co. A, 3d Minn, regt., as 
a recruit. He was placed on detached service, and remained at 
Duvall's Bluff most of the time till discharged, July 28, 1865. Since 
1875 his home has been in Wabasha, where he owns two lots on the 
levee. In May, 1877, he married Isabel A. Robinson, who is a 
native of Oxford, Massachusetts. Despite his meager schooling 
Mr. Smith has contrived to secure a good fund of general informa- 
tion, and is an intelligent citizen. In political matters he affiliates 
with the democratic party. He was two years constable in High- 
land, and subsequently served as deputy county sheriff". He has 
been connected with a Bai)tist church which now indicates his reli- 
gious faith. Mrs. Smith is a member of the Congregational church 
in Wabasha. Mr. Smith is a member of the'Equitable Aged Union, 
He has been engaged since his residence here in millwright work, 
and house, boat and pontoon building. The Chicago, Milwaukee & 
St, Paul railway pontoons at Read's Landing and Prairie du Chien 
show his handiwork ; also one at Lacon, Illinois, 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1293 

Patrick Francis Ryan, teacher, was born near Ehnira, New 
York, October 18, 1856. His parents, Patrick C. and Johanna 
Rj-an, were born in Limerick, Ireland, and came to America in 1848. 
For several years the father was employed in railroad construction, 
and settled in Greenfield township, where he now resides, in 1857. 
The subject of this sketch received his education in the common 
school in Greenfield and in the Wabasha city schools. He has 
been employed on a steamboat, on river lumber fleets, and on the 
railroad. During the winter of 1883-4 he had charge of the Minne- 
iska school, the term completing his thirty-sixth month of teaching. 
He is highly regarded by school superintendents, and his services 
are in great demand. For some time his home has been in Wabasha. 
He is a member of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union, and has 
represented this county in the state and national conventions of that 
body. He has also acted as delegate in several democratic county 
conventions, and was secretary of the Wabasha Hancock Club in 
1880. Mr. Ryan is a young man of more than ordinary ability, and 
the writer is glad to note that his talents are likely to be fully 
appreciated by his fellow-citizens. 

John McDonald (deceased) was born and reared in Sligo, Ireland, 
where he learned the blacksmith's trade. He bec^-me a resident of 
Wabasha in 1856, and after working for Oliver Cratte some time, he 
purchased and operated a shop on Alleghaney street. His death 
occurred May 7, 1879, after a long illness. His age at this time was 
about sixty years. Previous to coming here he spent several years 
in Lexington, Kentucky. In March, 1862, he married Miss Mary 
Agnes Cavanaugh, who was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, 
December 25, 1844. On account of his long illness, Mr. McDonald's 
estate was encumbered with debt, but his widow has become inde- 
pendent by industry and good management. She has a nice home 
on the corner of Second and Alleghaney streets, and is educating her 
children well. There are four chikh'en, christened John, Katy, 
Louis and Molly Agnes. The firstborn, Joseph, died at six months 
of age. All are members in good standing of the Roman Catholic 
church. 

Lewis De Camp, carpenter, Wabasha, is a son of David and 
Sarah De Camp, all born in Harrisburg, Giles county, Virginia — 
this subject on January 12, 1821. His grandfather was a native of 
North Carolina, and was a soldier in the war of 1812, as was his 
father. Lewis De Camp was raised on a farm, and at twenty-five 



1294 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

learned the carpenter's trade. He had previously spent some years 
in driving a six-horse freight team. In 1854 he went to Iowa City, 
Iowa, and engaged in farming, and came thence to Wabasha three 
years later. His home has ever since been liere, and carpenter-work 
lias received most^of his attention. He now has considerable prac- 
tice as a horse-farrier. He has eighty acres of land in Wisconsin, 
and two lots where his home is in Wabasha. In 1845 he married 
Adelia Duncan, native of his own county, as were her parents, 
Landon and Sarah Duncan. Five children made complete their 
family circle : Eliza Jane (Mrs. L. Malin), resides at Read's Landing ; 
Mary (Blanchard), Massachusetts ; Ira, sketched below ; Alexander 
and Thomas reside with their parents. Mr. De Camp finds spiritual 
comfort in the faith of Universalism, and has always been an 
adherent of the republican party. 

Ira De Camp, Mississippi pilot, of Wabasha, was born in Harris- 
burg, January 26, 1850, and is the third child of Lewis De Camp, 
whose record is found above. He attended the city schools till 
fifteen years old, and then went on Mississippi lumber rafts. For 
the last five years he has been a steamboat pilot, for which occupation 
fifteen years of life on the river have amply fitted him. He has built 
two houses on Main street, one of which he occupies, the other now 
in process of completion (March, 1884). He is a member of the 
E. A. U., and of the Episcopal church. His political support has 
always been given to republicanism. In 1876 he was united in 
marriage to Miss Addie Benedict, daughter of James K. Benedict, 
Mrs. De Camp was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and came here 
when young. Two children have been given this cou])le, and 
christened Ora and James Lewis. 

Joseph E. Favrow, merchant, was born at Chaniplain, Clinton 
county, Kew York, in 1827. His father, Louis Favrow, came from 
France to join the American army in the war of 1812, and settled in 
this country. He married Josephine Duval, who became the mother 
of our subject. The latter's early life was passed in his native town, 
where he obtained the rudiments of an education. When fourteen 
he entered an iron foundr}', and spent several years as a moulder. 
In 1854 he went to liockford, Illinois, and engaged in the livery 
business. In the fall of 1856 he became a resident of Lake City, 
and at once opened the first hotel there. This was called the "Lake 
City House," and stood on the corner of AVashington and Center 
streets, until destroyed by the great fire of April, 1882. He after- 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1 295 

ward kept a livery stable, and was five years in the butcher business. 
After this he engaged in merchandising, and removed his stock to 
Donnelly, this state, in 1880. For the past three years he has been 
postmaster of that thriving town. He was four years a member of 
the Lake City common council, and some time an active member of 
the school board. His political action has ever been with the repub- 
lican party. He still holds his connection in all the degrees with 
the Masonic order in Lake City, and yet holds property here. In 
1862 Mr. Favrow enlisted for three years in Co. G, 8th Minn. Yols., 
and served two years on the western frontier, participating in the 
battle of Stony Ridge, Dakota, and in several other slight engage- 
ments with the Indians. The remainder of his term was passed 
with the western army in fighting rebels, taking a liand in the battles 
of the Cedars (near Murphreesboro) and Kingston, North Carolina, 
and was discharged at the close of the war. In 1862 Mr. Favrow 
espoused Miss Ellen Conway, daughter of Michael Conway, one of 
the pioneers of Central Point. Mrs. Favrow is thirteen years her 
husband's junior, and was born near Ogdensburg, New York. Two 
children are included in Mrs. Favrow's family. The eldest, Frank- 
lin Fayette, is witli his parents. Ida May is now in attendance at 
the Lake City schools. 

Jacob Bush, mason, Wabasha, was born at Moscow, in the 
District of Montreal, Canada, February 1, 1830. His great-grand- 
father came from France, and settled in Canada. His father, Zabat- 
tias, was born and reared in the same locality as himself. His 
name has been changed since he came here, and as he had no edu- 
cation, he is unable to give the original French spelling. His early 
life was spent on a Canadian farm. For some years he was employed 
in ironworks on Lake Cliamplain, and he found various employ- 
ments in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. In 1852 he came west, 
and spent a year on a farm at Columbus, AVisconsin. He came to 
Wabasha in 1853, and found employment with the fur traders. He 
claimed land, and afterward sold out. In 1861 he enlisted in the 
U. S. Yols., Co. G, 5th Minn. regt. Served in the western army ; 
in the siege of Corinth, BuelFs expedition, battles of Tuscumbia, 
Chattanooga, second C(jrinth, luka, siege of Yicksburg, battle Gun- 
town, Ped River expedition, battle Nasliville, siege and capture of 
forts about Mobile. At Nashville he received a flesh-wound from 
piece of an exploding shell. In all he was an actor in thirty-two 
battles, besides several skirmishes, and was discharged from service 
79 



1296 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in September, 1865. He returned to Wabasha, and has chiefly been 
employed in mason-work since. He was a member of tlie G.A.K., 
while a lodge existed here. He was reared in the Catholic church, 
and adheres to the democratic party. In 1855 he married Susan 
Montraill, who was born in Mendota, this state, and died in Novem- 
ber, 1880. Of her twelve children ten survive her. Josephine, the 
eldest, now wife of David Pugh, resides in Greenfield ; Isabel (Mrs. 
William Edwards), Oliver, Lucy (Frank Hoffer) and Emily reside 
in Wabasha. The rest are at home, christened as follows : Jacob, 
James, Gracie, Susan, Addie and Frank. 

Lawrence Calhoun, lumberman, Wabasha, is a native of Ire- 
land, born in Dublin, August 15, 1826. When he was a year old 
his jnirents, Thomas and Mary (Hackett) Calhoun, came to America, 
and soon settled at Shullsburg, Wisconsin, where the.father engaged 
in mining. His youth was spent in the city of Galena, and in 1845 
he came up the Mississippi and was employed during the summer 
on the Chippewa river survey. The following winter he was 
employed in lumbering by Allen & Boss at Chippewa Falls, and 
nearly all his life since has been spent in lumbering. In the early 
days he ran a keelboat on the Chippewa and Mississippi, and often 
shared his supplies with the Indians, who, in turn, often shared their 
game with him and always remained friendly. In the winter of 
1849-50 he carried the mail on his back between Chippewa Falls and 
Wabasha, making weekly trips. For the past twelve years he has 
been employed by the Mississippi Logging and Boom Co., and has 
dwelt in Wabasha, where he has a fine home on Second street. For 
nine years previously he lived at Kead's Landing, and while here, 
one day, Mrs. Calhoun drove off a saucy Indian with her mop. Mr. 
Calhoun's marriage occurred in 1858, the bride being Mary, widow 
of Thomas Sullivan, who died in Highland in 1856. Mrs. Calhoun 
is a sister of Miles McDonough, elsewhere sketched in this book, 
and was born in the same place. She is the mother of ten living 
children, as follows : Anna (Mrs. M. A. Cunnuings). Minneapolis ; 
Maria (born July 8, 1856, in Highland), Braiiuird, Minnesota ; Mary 
E. (John Gorman), Kellogg ; the others are at home, viz : Sarah, 
Lydia, Minnie, Maggie, Katy, George, Aurelia and Clara. Kosella, 
the ninth child, is deceased. 

Thomas Wood, farmer, is one of the most intelligent and pro- 
gressive of Watopa's farmers, and is prosperous accordingly. He 
came into Indian Creek valley, a comparatively poor man, in 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1297 

1865, and is now the proprietor of five himdred and twenty acres, of 
which one hundred and fifty are under cultivation. The rearing of 
stock occupies a part of his attention, and considerable grain is also 
produced. Mr, Wood was born June 25, 1819, in Disser-Surges, 
County Cork, Ireland. He was reared after the manner of Irish 
farmers' sons, and educated in the national schools. When he had 
reached the age of twenty -nine he set out from Liverpool for 
America on the sail-vessel Hartley Boston, landing in New Orleans 
after a voyage of two months. Thence he came up the Mississippi 
to Galena, and spent some time in farming in lUinois. In the spring 
of 186-1 he came to this county and bought a farm in Mount 
Pleasant, which he sold as soon as the crop was removed. After 
spending a winter in Iowa, he returned and settled on Indian Creek, 
on section 27, where he continues to reside. In all his travels and 
labors he has been attended by a most worthy and faithful helpmeet. 
Eliza Buttermore was born in the same parish three years later 
than Mr. Wood, and was married to him in 1840. Both are mem- 
bers of the Methodist church, and Mr. Wood is a temperate man in 
both precept and example. He has alwaj's supported the republican 
party, and his only public service has been that of school treasurer. 
Five children were given to Mr. and Mrs. Wood, of whom only two 
are living. The first and second born, Mary Jane and John, died 
at one and two years of age respectively. Robert H., the third, 
died at the age of twenty-six, while serving his third term as town 
clerk. The living are Thomas Edwin and William Joseph, at home. 
The former was elected town treasurer in the spring of 1881. 

Edgar T Rollixs, of the Town of Elgin, is the son of Orvis 
Y. and Mary O. Rollins, who were among the early settlers of 
the town, and was born in this town on October 27, 1860. In his 
early years he received a common-school education, and at the age 
of nineteen he obtained the appointment of teacher of a school in 
the town of Salem, county of Olmsted. Here he "wielded the 
birch " for one term, afterward teaching for one term in the Evans 
district of his native town, working on his father's farm during the 
summer season. During the spring of 1880 Mr. Rollins was ap- 
pointed station agent and telegraph operator at Elgin station, from 
the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company, which position 
he held for two years and a half, when he resigned, and since that 
time he has not been actively engaged in any business. While 
acting as operator at Elgin station, the disastrous cyclone of July 



1298 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

21, 1883, occurred, and it was Mr. liollins who sent the first tele- 
gram that conveyed tlie news of this terrible event to the outer 
world. On September 23, 1883, Mr. Rollins was united in mar- 
riage with Miss Rose M. Bentley, of the town of Yiola, Olmsted 
county. Mr. Rollins is noted as an excellent telegraph o])erator, 
and a young man of much promise and ability. He is a member 
of Elgin lodge, No. 115, A.F.A.M., in which lodge he was made 
a Master Mason about one year ago. 

George Farrar, farmer, of the village of Elgin, resides in one of 
the handsomest and most substantial frame dwellings to be found 
in this section of the country, situated on the southwest quarter 
of section 27, where he conducts his farm. He is a son of Calvin 
and Almira H. Farrar, and was born in Moretown, Washington 
county, Vermont, May 31, 1833. In his early youth our subject 
worked on his father's farm in his native state, attending the com- 
mon schools of the district during the winter. During the month. 
of September, 1853, when twenty years of age, he determined to 
strike out on his own account, and went west as far as Beloit, AVis- 
consin, where he hired out by the month to a farmer in whose employ 
he remained for eleven months, when he pushed farther west to 
St. Charles, Minnesota. In the spring of 1855, in company with 
George and Curtis Bryant and Henry H. Atherton (the latter of 
whom had accom])anied our subject from Vermont, and shared his 
fortunes with him), he left St. Charles to seek his home yet farther 
west, and about April 7, 1855, arrived in that part of Greenwood 
Prairie now known as Elgin, where he determined to locate. Mr. 
Farrar is therefore not only one of the original four pioneers of the 
town, but he is also "boss carpenter" of the first log house ever 
erected in Elgin, and afterward kept the first hotel started in the 
town. In the fall of 1855 he filed on the E. i of the S.W. ^ of 
Sec. 17, in the timber-land. He had also previously taken a claim 
consisting of an eighty on section 26, and an eighty on section 27, 
about April 8 or 9, 1855, which was jumped by Leonard Laird, in 
the spring of 1856, during Mr. Farrar's absence in the east, where 
he went December 6, 1855, returning to the prairie from his native 
state during the month of May, 1856, his brother Waldo, who was 
afterward killed while serving his country as seccmd lieutenant of 
Co. I, 1st regt. Minn. Inf., at the battle of Gettysburg, coming 
with him. The first marriage of residents of the new town of El- 
gin was that of George Farrar to Miss Emeline Bryant, daughter of 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1299 

John and Lavinia Bryant, The ceremony was performed at 
Winona, Minnesota, August 13, 1856. The issue of this unibn 
consists of two sons, Will E. .and Frank F., both of whom assist 
their father on his farm in the summer, and teach school during the 
winter months. Mr. Farrar has frequently been called upon by the 
people to represent them in different political offices in his adojjted 
town, having held the offices of supervisor, chairman of board 
of supervisors, town treasurer and constable, besides having re- 
ceived from the state the appointment of captain in the 9th regt. 
Minn. State Militia, on January 28, 1863. Besides being one of 
the pioneer settlers of the town, Mr. Farrar justly deserves mention 
as one of the pioneers in religious matters and temperance work. 
He was connected with the first religious society organized in the 
town, has always contributed largely to the cause of Christianity, 
and is now one of the influential members of the Methodist Church 
South, which he and his wife joined during the winter of 1877-8, 
while he has ever been a most active and effective worker in the great 
temperance cause, identified with and holding offices in the various 
societies formed in the town from early days to the present time. He 
is now P.W.C.T. of Elgin lodge, xJ. 76, I.O.G.T., besides being a 
member of the Masonic fraternity, and holding the office of J. D, 
in Elgin lodge, No. 115, A.F.A.M. Mr. Farrar suffered great 
damage by the destructive cyclone of July 21, 1883, his barn and 
outbuildings being completely demolished, and causing him a loss 
of fifteen hundred dollars. 

John W. Bryant, senior member of the firm of J. W. Bryant & 
Co., grain and coal dealers of the village of Elgin, and proprietors 
of one of the two elevators located in that village, is not only one of 
the most enterprising, but is also the youngest man at the head of 
any business firm in the place, besides being the only one of Elgin's 
sons conducting business for himself at the place of his birth. Mr. 
Bi-yant is a son of George and Polly Bryant, and was born in the 
first log house ever erected within the limits of what is now the vil- 
lage of Elgin, on the KW. i of Sec. 27, on October 15, 1858, his 
father, who is now judge of probate of Day county, Dakota, being 
one of the first pioneers of that town. Our subject in his earl}^ years 
received such education as the common schools of his native town 
afforded, and when only fifteen years of age, without the knowledge 
of his parents, he applied for and obtained the position of teacher of 
the school situated in district 'No. 77, then known as the Johnson 



1300 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

district, where he tuught for two terms, after which he entered tlie 
high school at Winona and pursued his studies there for one year, 
when lie returned to his old school, where he again "wielded the 
birch " for three successive terms. At the age of nineteen years he 
accepted the position of general clerk and bookkeeper for the firm of 
Bryant Bros. & Johnson, general merchandise and grain dealers, of 
Elgin, which position he fillod until June, ISSO. During the month 
of July, 1880, he bought out the partnership interest of A. K. John- 
son in the grain business, of Bryant Bros. & Johnson, and after- 
ward became senior member of the firm, which assumed the name 
of J. W. Bi-yant & Co. On February 3, 1881, Mr. Bryant was 
united in marriage to Miss Pamelia R. Richardson, who, like him- 
self, was born in the town of Elgin. Mrs. Bryant is the daughter of 
H. G. and Julia Richardson, of this town, and with her husband 
resides in a commodious and substantial frame dwelling, situated on 
the same quarter-section where the old log house once stood in which 
her husband was born. Mr. Bryant has never sought for political 
preferment, being a thorough business man and believing that his 
path of duty lies in a strict and thorough attenti(jn to this, with the 
exception of the exercise of that duty we all owe as conscientious 
voters. He is a member of Elgin lodge, Xo. 115, A.F.A.M., in 
which lodge he holds the office of S. W. 

William T. Adams, M.D., son of Samuel and Mary A. Adams, 
was born in the town of Lee, Oneida county. New York, August 7, 
18-19. Up to his thirteenth year the subject of this sketch attended 
the district schools in his native county, when he entered the high 
school at Utica, ISTew York, where he remained two years. In 
October, 1864, the doctor's parents removed to Plain view, Minne- 
sota, and he followed them to that place in June, 186.5. From this 
time until 1869 the doctor worked with his father at the printer's 
trade, attending school part of the time winters. During the sum- 
mer of 1870 our subject taught school in what is known as the Jeny 
Baldwin district, northeast of the village of Plainview. In Septem- 
ber of the same year the doctor entered Carleton College, at North- 
field, Minnesota, where he remained during the fall and winter. The 
doctor had heretofore determined to study medicine, and had 
arranged to enter the office of Dr. N. S. Tefft, of Plainview. Upon 
hi^ return from Northfield, during the si)ring of 1871, he entered 
the employment of A. Y. Felton as deputy postmaster in the Plain- 
view postoffice, which position he held for a year and a half, in the 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



1301 



meantime devoting all his spare time to the study of medicine. 
During the &11 and winter of 1872-3 the doctor attended his first 
course of lectures at Kush Medical College, at Chicago, Illinois, and 
in the fall of 1873 he entered the employ of Dr. J. J. Stone, as 
prescription-clerk in his drug-store at Wabasha, Minnesota, where 
he remained for nearly a year, and in the f\ill and winter of 1874-5 
he attended his final course of lectures at Paish Medical College, 
graduating in the month of February, 1875, having earned his own 
education since he attended district school in his native state. After 
returning to the employ of Dr. J. J. .Stone in Wabasha, where he 
remained for a period of ten months, our subject settled in Elgin 
village, and entered upon the practice of his profession there, March 
28, 1876, where he now resides on a good property of his own on 
Main street. Besides his medical practice, the doctor has charge 
of the Elgin drug-store, which is conducted under the firm name of 
Landon, Burchard & Co. Dr. Adams was married in Plainview, 
Minnesota, on August 29, 1875, to Miss Nellie A. Gibbs, daughter 
of the late Dr. F. C. Gibbs and Mrs. Sarah Gibbs, the latter of 
whom now resides in Plainview. The issue of the marriage is as 
follows : Grace, born September 9, 1877, died April 26, 1881 ; 
Carl Chauncey, born June 3, 1883. The doctor has never sought 
for political honors of any nature whatever, but looks after the 
educational interests of the community in which he resides, as school 
director of district No. 57. 

Henry W. Gilman, of the village of Elgin, son of John and 
Lydia Gilman, was born in the town of Anson, Somerset county, 
Maine, on January 18, 1842. His father was a farmer by occupa- 
tion, and owned a .'arm in the above town, upon which the subject 
of this sketch worked during the early years of his life, attending 
the district schools in the winters. In the fall of 1862 Mr. Gilman 
enlisted as a private in Co. A, 2Sth regt. of Maine Vol. Inf. m. 
Gilman served with his regiment under Gen. N. P. Banks, and was 
engaged in the siege of Port Hudson, being present at its surrender, 
July's, 1863. After this Mr. Gilman was sent to the hospital at 
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and in the fall of 1863 he was honorably 
discharged from the service on account of sickness, holding at the 
time the rank of sergeant. In the month of June, 1864,.Mr. Gilman 
went to California, remaining about six months in the Santa Clara 
Yalley. and from there he went to the Canyon City gold mines, 
situated in the northeastern part of Oregon, and was there engaged 



1302 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

in mining operations until the fall of 1865, when he returned to Cali- 
fornia, and farmed it on the coast, about forty-five miles soutli of 
San Francisco. Here he remained about one year, when he returned 
to Farmington, in his native state. During the year 1867 Mr. Gil- 
man, in conjunction with his brother, conducted a hotel at New 
Sharon, Franklin county, jVIaine. On January 18, 1868, Mr. Gil- 
man was married to Miss Annie O. Porter, daughter of W. B. and 
Elizabeth Porter, of Farmington, Maine, wlio now reside in Elgin. 
After Mr. Gilman's marriage he went out of the hotel business, and 
farmed it in Farmington until the fall of 1871, when he entered the 
employ of the Androscoggin Railroad Company, with whom he re- 
mained until the latter part of 1873, when he came with his family 
to Elgin. Mr. Gilman has followed the occupation ot a farmer since 
he has been here, but for the last three years he has been principally 
engaged in the business of buying and shij^ping horses to Dakota 
and the Red River country. Mr. Gilman now owns a good prop- 
erty on Main street in the village, upon which he resides. In the 
spring of 1880 Mr. Gilman was elected one of the supervisors of the 
town of Elgin, and at the expiration of his tei-m refused to serve 
longer, as his business would not then permit him to do so. In the 
fall of 1881 Mr. Gilman was elected one of the trustees of school 
district No. 57, which position he now holds, having been clerk of 
the board ever since his election. Mr. Gilman is a member of Elgin 
lodge, No. 115, A.F.A.M., in which lodge he now holds the office 
of J.W. His family consists of two children, Fred V., born May 
16, 1871, and Lizzie Edith, born August 18, 1872. In the summer 
of 1880 Mr. Gilman, accompanied by his family, paid a visit to his 
native place in Maine, being absent three months. While there he 
saw his mother for the last time, she having died September 22, 
1881. 

Dorr Dickerman, of the village of Elgin, was born in the town 
of Tunbridge, Orange county, Yermont, on March 12, 1855. He is 
a son of Lewis and Emily Dickerman, and was brought up on his 
father's farm in his native state, receiving his earl}^ education at the 
district schools of the county, which he attended in the winter months. 
"When he had arrived at the age of twenty-three, our subject struck 
out for the west, arriving on March 30, 1878, at Eglin, Minnesota, 
were he commenced working for his cousin, Ezra Dickerman, as a 
farm hand, remaining in his employ until the fall of that year, when 
he went to Rochester, Minnesota, entered a select school and com- 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



1303 



pleted his education there in the spring of 1879. During the 
summer season of 1879 our subject returned to Ezra Dickerman's 
farm in his former capacity, and during the season of 1880 he worked 
the same farm with him on shares. In the spring of 1881 Mr. 
Dickerman went into the liardware, tinware and stove business in 
the village of Elgin, in conjunction with Elijah and Alonzo Ordway, 
under the firm name of Ordway, Dickerman & Co. He remained in 
business until March 15, 18S4, when he retired from the partnership, 
having sold out his interest to his copartners. On March 15, 1882, 
Mr. Dickerman was united in marriage with Miss Mary Senrick, 
daughter of Michael and Elizabeth Senrick, all residents of Elgin. 
The ceremony took place at Rochester, Minnesota. The issue of 
the marriage consists of two daughters, Emily, born October 27, 

1882, and Mary B., born January 26, 1884. Mr. Dickerman resides 
with his family on a nice property which he owns on South street in 
the village of Elgin, known as lot JSTo. 6, block 7. Although never 
seeking political preferment, Mr. Dickerman was run by the people 
on an independent ticket for the office of town clerk on March 13, 

1883, and elected over his competitor, the regular nominee. In 
politics Mr. Dickerman is a democrat, as his father and grandfather 
were before him. Since the above sketch was written Mr. Dicker- 
man has transferred his property in the village to his cousin and 
former employer Ezra Dickerman, and has bought the farm of the 
latter, consisting of the W. ^ of the N.W. J of Sec. 4, and the south 
50 acres and the east i of the north 30 acres of the E. -| of the 
N.E. J of Sec. 5, in the town of Yiola, where he will shortly move 
and carry on farming. 

Hon. William H. Feller, of the township of Elgin, who since 
the war of the rebellion has been prominently identified in the his- 
tory of Wabasha county, was born in the town of Milan, Dutchess 
county, New York State, on October 25, 1821, being the son of 
David and Elizabeth Feller, who, like himself, were native-born 
Americans. During the summer months of his early life he worked 
on his father's farm in Dutchess county, and in the winters he 
learned the rudiments of education at the common schools of the 
county. In 1841 he was offered and accepted the position of clerk 
for the firm of Tyler & Kent, freighters, at Barry town, Dutchess 
county. New York. March 3, 1842, Mr. Feller married Miss Helen 
M. Best, of Pine Plains, in his native county, and was engaged in 
farming until the spring of 1844, when he started a country store at 



130-i HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Red Hook, in the same county, whicli lie conducted until the spring 
of 1852, and in the fall of 1853 he removed witli his family to Man- 
chester, Ontario county, New York, being engaged in farming from 
the time he gave up his store at Red Hook until the spring of 1860, 
when he again moved to Oconomowoc, Waukesha county, Wiscon- 
sin. In December, 1861, Mr. Feller received a commission from 
the war department at Washington, as sutler of the 28th regt. AVis. 
Yols., and served with his reginient during the war until it was 
mustered out of the service at Madison, Wisconsin, during Septem- 
ber, 1865. In the spring of 1866 Mr. Feller and his family came to 
Elgin, where he purchased the farm on which he yet resides, con- 
sisting of the K i of KE. J, and the S.E. i of N.E. i of Sec. 33, 
and the S. i of S.E J of Sec. 28. Mr. Feller has frequently been 
called upon by the people to represent them in various positions of 
trust and responsibility, besides having also been sought for by the 
United States government to fill important offices. In the spring of 
18-15, when little over twenty-three years of age, he was elected jus- 
tice of the peace ot Dutchess county, New York, and in 1849 he was 
re-elected to that office. In the fall of 1850 he was elected member 
of assembly from the third assembly district of Dutchess county, 
New York, on the whig ticket, although the district was strongly 
democratic, taking his seat on January 1, 1851. In the spring of 
1867 he was elected chairman of the board of supervisors of the town 
of Elgin, while at other times he has held the offices of assessor and 
supervisor of that town. In April, 1869, Mr. Feller was appointed 
receiver of the United States land office at Duluth, Minnesota, which 
office he held for the full term of four years, when he was immediately 
appointed register of the same office, which position he resigned 
after he had filled it for three years, the resignation, which was to 
take effect January 1, 1876, not being accepted by the department 
until the following month. At the fall election of 1878 Mr. Feller 
was elected a member of the house of representatives from the third 
district of Wabasha county, and he is now chairman of the board of 
supervisors of the town of Elgin. Mr. Feller is a member of Elgin 
lodge, No. 115, A.F.A.M., and a republican in politics. 

Thomas J. Bolton, a prominent business man of Plainview, was 
born in Logan, Ohio, November 12, 1843. The death of his father 
occurred when Thomas J. was but nine years old, and the year fol- 
lowing his mother removed with her family to Cleveland. In 1855 
they came to Wabasha county, and our subject spent two years as a 



BIOGKAPHICAL. 1305 

cabin-boy on a river steamboat. About the year 1S61 he entered the 
drug business at Wabasha with Jas. Crowley. In December, 1865, 
This firm decided to open a branch store in Plainview, and Mr. Bol- 
ton assumed the management of the same. This was the first drug 
store ever established in Plainview. A store was erected for their 
business. Two years later they sold out to Mr. Felton, and Mr. 
Bolton returned to Wabasha and resumed his place in the old firm, 
but soon after sold oat and went to Eyota, where he opened up a 
pioneer drug store on his own hook. The winter of 1873-4 he sold 
his Eyota store and returned to Plainview. He now owns about two 
hundred acres of land in Plainview township, and is a partner with 
Geo. S. La Rue in the drug busmess. His tarra is situate on the site 
of Greenville, and he uses one of its old store buildings for a sheep- 
shed. He was for a time agent for Laird & Norton, lumber dealers, 
of Winona. Mr. Bolton is at pi-esent dealing in agricultural imple- 
ments. He has had some experience as a publisher, having issued 
a regular advertising sheet for several years while engaged in the 
drug businsss, both in Plainview and Eyota. He is a prominent 
member of the Methodist Episcopal church of Plainview. Li poli- 
tics he is republican, and has been chairman of the town board ; is 
also a member of the Masonic brotherhood, and of the Order of 
Odd-Fellows. Ella, only child of Hon. A. P. Foster, of Plainview, 
became his wife on September 1, 1869. They have four children : 
Alonzo G., Miller T., Mary L. and John. 

Rhinaldo W. Chapman, a Plainview farmer, was born in Lima, 
Jefferson county. New York, June 5, 1835. He was the youngest 
son of Asa Chapman, a farmer. His education was obtained in the 
district school. He continued to reside at home until he had nearly 
attained to his majority. In the meantime he had learned the car- 
penter trade, and being also of a speculative tnrn of mind, had 
prt)fitably handled his small earnings, and was now enabled to pur- 
chase a fifty-acre farm in the southern part of his native county. 
Good luck attended him, and he engaged in buying stock and 
poultry for the New York market. He was drafted in 1863, but 
paid for a substitute and the following year volunteered his services 
to fight the Union battles, and was mustered into the 186th N. Y. 
Inf., and was in active service in the army of the Potomac until the 
close of the war, his regiment participating in all those hard-fought 
battles in which that army engaged immediately preceding the fall 
of Petersburgh. In consequence of impaired health, the result of 



1306 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

exposure while in the service, he has been placed on Uncle Sam's 
pension rolls. He resumed business in Oswego, New York, where 
he ran a grocery store for a few months, and for the two years fol- 
lowing he was in the stock and poultry business. In 1869 he came 
to Minnesota and bought from -John Allen, of Elgin, a farm on sec- 
tion 21 in that township. This place he greatly improved, and 
erected thereon tine buildings. In 1882, ill health induced him to 
go to Elgin village to reside. At the time the cyclone visited that 
unfortunate town he was living with his family, consisting of a wife 
and two step-daughters, Edith and Ilattie Dillon, in the second of one 
of the ill-fated houses. The family were at dinner when the tornado 
approached, and were all buried beneath the rains of their home. 
They escaped, however, with only bruises, and esteem their good 
luck in this to providential interposition. Mrs. Helen Dillon nee 
Goodenough, of St. Lawrence, New York, the relict of Albert 
Dillon (a comrade in arras of Mr. Chapman), became Mrs. Chapman, 
November 23, 1868. Since the destruction of his Elgin home, Mr. 
Chapman has resided in Plainview village, where he has purchased 
several village lots in Thompson's addition, and on which he is 
erecting a fine house. Mr. Chapman and his family are members 
of the Methodist Episcopal church ; has been steward and trustee. 

RoswELL Newton White, late farmer of Plainview, was born in 
AVestchester county. New York, January 21, 1809. When fourteen 
years old he was apprenticed to a carpenter at New Rochelle, New 
York. This trade occupied his life for the next nine years, and 
served to assist in the development of a fine artistic talent which he 
possessed. At the age of twenty -three he turned his attention to 
engraving, and without any previous training he solicited a job at 
wood engraving from a New York house, which was reluctantly 
given him. His work was promptly done and well. It was approved, 
and from that time on he found plenty to do in this line. The New 
York Bible Concern and Harper Brothers employed him during 
the eight years that he continued to reside in the metropolis, and he 
was esteemed one of the best wood engravers of his day. In 1839 
he established a home in McHenry county, Illinois, and opened an 
office in Chicago, where he obtained work from McCormick, II. P. 
Murray, and others. Seventeen years he resided in Illinois, but in 
the spring of 1856 he caught the western fever, and also further in- 
duced to seek a change by ill health, he came to Greenwood prairie 
and pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres on section 11. Here 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



1307 



he established liis home, and spent the remainder of his life in agri- 
cultural pursuits. He died April 3, 1883, leaving a wife and four 
children surviving. Mrs. White was Jane Osborn, the daughter ot 
John Osborn, of New York city. The children are: Annie (Mrs. 
Furlong), of ^ass county, Dakota; Jane (Mrs. Griffing), of Boston, 
Massachusetts ; Emelie E. White, of Crescent City, Florida ; and a 

son, 

Chakles O. White, who was born in McIIenry county, Illinois, 
October 3, 1851. His parents removed to Minnesota when Charles 
was in his fifth year. He has led the usual life of the farmer boy. . 
He received a common school education. He learned the carpen- 
ter's trade, and for several years followed it in Plainview, and two 
years in Florida. He married Avalin Melendy, of Plainview, for 
his first wife. Four years later her death occurred, and on March 
1 he was married a second time, Miss Nettie Melendy being his 
choice, by whom he has one child, Etiie. Mr. White resides on the 
old homestead. 

KuFUS C. Weight was born in Bakerstield, Franklin county, 
Vermont, February 3, 1886. His lather, David Wright, and 
mother, Clara Hodgkins, were natives of New England, and sprang 
from New England stock. His early life up to sixteen years of age 
was spent upon his father's farm, with such advantages as the usual 
country schools of that day ofi:ered. At that time, being ambitious of 
obtaining a better education than had thus far been ofl:ered, he 
gained the consent of his father to work and obtain the means of 
attending the academy of his native town, where he attended 
several terms, also a similar institution in a neighboring village, 
working and teaching meantime to defray expenses. Now, being 
about twenty-one years of age, and desirous of seeing more of the 
world, he came west, and traveled about one year with a brother, who 
was lecturing at this time ; but not being satisfied with this, he pur- 
chased an outfit himself, giving descriptive lectures upon the science 
of astronomy, traveling most of the time in the southern states, 
which was during those excitable times just preceding the war of 
the rebellion. But as the approach of the coming storm came near, 
the south grew too warm for him, and he came north — not leaving, 
however, until after Lincoln had been elected president. The break- 
ing out of the rebellion found him in Ohio, and soon after the first 
battle of Bull Run he was on his way to New York with a company 
of Ohio boys to join the Union army ; was there mustered into the 



130S HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTi'. 

65th N. Y. Vol. Inf., commanded bv Col. John (V)chrane. lie was 
with McClellan in his Peninsular campaign, participated in the battles 
of Williamsburgh, Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill, being wounded in 
the two last battles — at Malvern Plill severely in right shoulder and 
lung, — taken prisoner, had a month's experience in the prisons of 
Kichmond ; from there paroled and taken to hospital at Chester, 
PenTisylvania ; was from there discharged from the service in Decem- 
ber, 1862, and remained out about one year, when he re-enlisted in 
the 10th Mass. Battery, and served under Grant in the army of the 
Potomac until the close of the war, having been in most of the 
leading battles from the Wilderness to final surrender of Lee's army 
at Ap])omattox Court House. He was a second time discharged 
from the service at Boston Harbor in June, 1865, having served 
in all about three years in the array. After a rest of a few months 
he again came west, remaining most of the time in Wisconsin, vari- 
ously employed, usually teaching during the winter months, until 
July, 1869, he came to Minnesota. His last year in Wisconsin was 
spent in St. Croix county. Arriving in Plainview the last days of 
July, 1869, with its bountiful crops almost ready for the reaper, he 
decided to remain here awhile, assisting in securing crops during the 
fall, and in the winter teaching the school in the district in which 
he now resides. Being so well pleased at this time with the beauty 
and natural fertility of the soil of Greenwood Prairie and surround- 
ing country, he decided to remain longer and turn liis attention to 
farming, which he did. He was married March 26, 1871, to Miss 
Ettie Wood, who had but recently come from Schoharie county, 
New York, from where several of her family had come before her, 
and become early settlers of Plainview and vicinity. In 1874 he 
bought his present farm of one hundred and sixty acres of Stephen 
Struble, situated about three miles northeast from the village of 
Plainview, and is now engaged in diversified agriculture. He is 
in politics republican, liberal in religious views. Belongs to 
Masonic fraternity and the Grange. Has been assessor of the 
town since 1881. 

Theodore Bowen, one of the principal farmers of Lake township, 
settled there in 1861, buying eighty acres of land. The subject of this 
sketch was born December 17, 1838, in Onondaga county. New 
York, tlis parents' names were Isaac and Lucy Bowen. His youth _ 
was spent on the farm and at the common schools. Afler arriving 
at maturity he was wedded to Augusta Monroe, of Oswego county, 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1309 

]^ew York, and they have two children : Isidore, now Mrs. C. T. 
Webster, of this township, and EsteDa. In September, 186i, Mr. 
Bowen enlisted in the 184th regt., N. Y. Vols., and served till the 
close of the war. In 1871 he was elected town treasurer, which 
office he held for nine years consecutively, and has also been treasui-er 
and director of school district No. 6 several terms. While the 
Baptist church represents his religious views, his wife is a Methodist 
in belief. 

William Sydney Webster, one of the leading farmers of Lake 
township, received his birth near Seranton, Pennsylvania, in 1845. 
His father (William) was a native of that state, while his mother 
(Christiana) was a German by birth, emigrating to this country in 
1830. Our subject was a natural-born farmer, so after receiving a 
common-school education, worked on his father's farm- till he became 
thoroughly acquainted with what was to be his lifework. During 
the winter months, when work was not pressing, he got out lumber 
from the woods near by, which he sold to the Seranton mines. At 
length, in 1870, he came to this county and bought eight}^ acres of 
land, where he now resides ; but by economy and thrift he now is 
the possessor of four hundred and eighty acres of land situated on 
sections 32 and 33. He married Mary Shaw, daughter of George 
and Jennie Shaw, of this township. They have one child, Jennie 
Ann. Mr. Webster and wife are members of the Methodist church 
at Lake City. 

George Freeman Hancock, farmer, is the oldest child of Free- 
man and Louise Hancock, who were born in Massachusetts. George 
was born in 1818, in Berkshire county, of the same state. When 
our stjbject was four years old, his parents moved to Oswego county, 
New York. Here he attended the district school, and worked 
upon the farm. In 1840 he married Alvira Shattuck, at 
Granby, New York, and began farming for himself For several 
winters he worked in the woods getting out lumber for dealers 
along the Oswego river. In 1858, after disposing of his prop- 
erty, he emigrated to this county, where he pre-empted one hun- 
dred and sixty acres of land, upon which he now lives. Mr. Hancock 
has been justice of the peace, and assessor for about ten years. At 
present he is clerk of school district No. 90. The republican party 
represents his politics. The names of his children are : Elizabeth 
Adel (deceased), Sarah, now Mrs. John Morris, living in West 
Albany township, and Friend J. 



1310 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Richard O'Brien, farmer and stock-raiser, of Lake township, is 
a brotlier of John O'Brien, of Lake City, and, like him, one of this 
county's successful farmers. He was born in St. Lawrence county, 
New York, May, 1840, and, like his brother, was reared and edu- 
cated on the farm, where he remained till the fall of 1863, when he 
came to Lake City, Minnesota, and at once applied himself to labor 
at anything to earn an honest dollar, and so continued two years. 
By this time economy and industry had rewarded him with the 
necessary means to purchase one hundred and sixty acres oi land in 
Lake township, where he at once engaged in agricultural pursuits. 
Although Mr. O'Brien was not among the early arrivals in this 
county who secured free homes fi-om the government, he is one of 
the successful landowners of the county, having added to his first 
purchase till he is now the independent owner of nine hundred and 
forty-seven acres of land in sections 14, 15, 22, 23 in Lake town- 
ship, six hundred acres of which is under cultivation, the remainder 
is wild pasture and all under his own personal supervision. The 
products of his farm is largely disposed of tln-ough the medium 
market stock (cattle and hogs), of which he turns oif yearly about 
eight hundred dollars' worth. lie married Margaret McShane, a 
native of Ireland, and by this union they have five children, as 
follows : Edward, William, Thomas, Anna May and Lula. Family 
are members of the Catholic church. His executive ability has been 
appreciated by his fellow-citizens from the fact that he has held the 
ofiice of chairman of the town board for over ten years, with the 
exception of one term, when he declined the nomination in order 
that his entire time might be given to his farm and stock. 

Charles Carroll Lowe, retired farmer. Lake City, is a native 
of the State of Maine, where he was born November 20, 1832. He 
is the son of Ivory and Fannie (Colcord) Lowe, natives of the same 
state, of English extraction, and the former a soldier in the 
war ot 1812. They reared a family of fourteen children, seven 
sons and seven daughters, of whom our subject was the sixth son 
and twelfth child. He was reared on the farm with common school 
advantages till the age of nineteen, when the family (for educational 
facilities) removed to Waterville in the same state, where he entered 
the Waterville Academy, now the Coburn Institute. Here he pur- 
sued a ])reparatory course three years, alter which he entered the 
Colby University in tlie same city, from which he graduated with 
the class of 1856, receiving the degree of bachelor of arts, and sub- 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1311 

seqiiently (1S60) the degree of master of arts. In the fall of 1856 
he came to Minnesota, and immediately located in Gillford town- 
ship, pre-empting the N.E. J of section 8. where he continued to 
reside np till April, 1882, when he removed to his pleasant and 
substantial home on Prairie, between Walnut and Douglity 
streets, Lake City. During his many years' residence in Gillford, 
Mr. Lowe was almost continuously called to positions of official 
trust — positions his education, good judgment and executive ability 
eminently fitted him.for. The official records of the town show him 
to have been town clerk, assessor, justice of the peace, and chair- 
man of the board of supervisors, as well as to have been identified 
with the educational interiest of the township. He was married at 
Pvushford, New York, March 18, 1872, to Miss Julia Hellen McCall, 
of that place. Their only child, Herbert, was born in this county in 
July, 1879. They also have an adopted daughter, aged twelve 
years. Mr. Lowe is a member of the Masonic fraternity of this 
city, and an active business gentleman. 

Hon. William John Hahn, Minneapolis, Minnesota, was born 
November 5, 1841, in Miffiin county, Pennsjdvania. His great- 
grandfather emigrated from Germany many years prior to the revo- 
lution and settled in Berks county, Pennsylvania, where his grand- 
father was born. The latter entered the continental army as a private 
at the age of eighteen and rose to the rank of captain, and served 
through the war. After the war he moved to Chester county, 
Pennsylvania, where the father of this sketch was born. His name 
was Joseph. When he (Joseph) was quite young his father moved 
to Mifflin county, where he lived until his death, and where his son 
Joseph lived for sixty years, or until his removal to Minnesota in 
1864. His mother's name was Lavinia Hutchinson Mitchell, who 
was of Scotch-Irish descent. His early youth was spent on his father's 
farm and at school. In April, 1862, he came to Lake City, Minne- 
sota on a visit to his sister, Mrs. Sterrett. Here he spent the 
summer, and the Indian outbreak occurring while here, he spent two 
months with the expedition against them, returning to Pennsylvania 
in November of that year, where he remained until August, 1863, 
when he permanently located at Lake City. He remained there 
until January, 1882, when he removed to Minneapohs. He had 
charge of Lake City schools for some time, and was also book- 
keeper. He read law about one year prior to coming to Minnesota, 
and also read a year in office of Ottman & Scott, at Lake City, and 
80 



1312 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

completed his law studies in the office of P. Pemberton Morris, at 
Philadelphia, where he attended law-school. Keturning to Lake 
City in the spring of 1867, he was admitted to the bar at the May 
term ot that year, and immediately formed a partnership with 
W. W. Scott, Esq., with whom he was connected in business until 
May, 1874, when Mr. Scott left for Kansas. He practiced law at 
Lake City until his removal to Minneapolis. He was elected county 
attorney in 1872 ; re-elected in 1874 and in 1876, and was nomi- 
nated again in 1878, but declined the nomination. He was 
appointed attorney-general, March 11, 1881, by Gov. Pillsbury, to 
succeed Attorney-General Start, who resigned to accept the judgeship 
of the third district, and was elected to the same office in 1881, and 
again in 1883. A prominent Minnesota judge, in 1879, in speaking of 
him as a lawyer, said : "Mr. Halin deservedly occupies a high rank 
as a lawyer. He is not only well 'read up' in the law, but his mind 
is naturally unusually clear and discriminating, thus enabling him 
always clearly and accurately to detect the material and pivotal 
questions involved in every case in which he is engaged. In the 
practice of his profession he is always controlled by the highest 
sense of honor, disdaining to. resort to tricks or quibbles, never 
taking any position before either court or jur}^ which he does not 
believe to be correct. Consequently he is always listened to with 
interest by both. Although modest and unassuming, he always 
advocates his position with that earnestness which always comes 
from a clear conception of an idea and an honest conviction of its 
correctness." Shortly after his appointment as attorney-general the 
celebrated Bond case (the most important case ever heard in this 
state) came on to be heard, and the charge of the same for the state 
was committed to the new attorney-general. St. Paul "Dispatch" 
of August 2, 1881, says of him : 

Shortly after the close of the "Dispatch" report of last evening the 
attorney-general closed his argument, and the court adjourned over to nine 
o'clock this morning. During the attorney-general's remarks he was listened 
to with the strictest attention, and it was plain to be seen that he has made 
both a strong and a very favorable impression upon his auditors. In fact, one 
of the oldest attorneys at the Ramsey county bar, one who himself delights, if 
not revels, in abstruse points and tangled legal webs, remarked to a " Dispatch " 
representative that the attorney-general had made a brilliant argument, and 
one which would give him a high reputation among lawyers throughout the 
state as abounding in legal acumen and displaying deep research and a very 
high order of logical reasoning. 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1313 

Mr. Hahn served in the army three months in Pennsjdvania. 
He belongs to Lake City Commandery of Knights Templar, Hope 
Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, and Carnelian Lodge, A.F.A.M., of 
Lake City, and was Grand High Priest of Minnesota. He has always 
been a republican in politics. He married Emily Laurette Martin, 
of Mifflin county, Pennsylvania, September 16, 1868. She was the 
daughter of James M. Martin, Esq., and a sister of J. M. Martin, of 
Lake City. He has four children : Emily Alexander, Roland Bruce, 
Lavinia Mitchell and Clara Josephine. 

Elijah Porter was born in Westfield, Massachusetts, July 6, 
1811, and left motherless when ten days old^ and at the age of two 
years was stepson to his father's second wife. Mr. Porter bears 
testimony that this the only mother he ever knew, proved to be all 
that could be expected of a real mother. When ten years old the 
family moved to Ohio, which was then, 1821, a wilderness, accom- 
plishing the journey, six hundred and fifty miles, in twenty-one 
days. The family here underwent the common privations incident 
to pioneer life, which wei'e much more severe than pioneering 
usually is in later years. In 1826 he had tired of clearing land and 
other hard work of the farm, and walked forty miles to Canton, to 
learn the printing business. Here Mr. Porter's character was 
formed, and here he became a christian and united with the Metho- 
dist Episcopal church, in 1831. This year he left Canton for Massa- 
chusetts, working at different places on the way, and in 1832 went 
to New York. In New York he worked at his trade for several 
years, saving from his hard earnings in the meantime money to buy 
an outfit for an office of his own, which he established in his native 
town, installing himself as editor of what was called the "West- 
field Letter." This was at the time of the Wm. Henry Harrison 
campaign ; and though the town was a democratic center, Mr. Porter 
went bravely to work to advocate the principles of the whig party, 
and mixed with it considerable of freesoilism and temperance. And 
though unpopular as this course may have seemed to some, but a short 
time elapsed until the town was against democracy by a majority of six 
hundred. Seventeen years after this, however, having done his 
work and lost all his money, he gathered together a few remnants 
and again set out for the far west, and landed at Maiden Rock, Wis- 
consin. In 1S59 Mr. Porter came to Lake City, and resurrected the 
"Tribune," and for two years devoted his talent to editorial work. 
When Mr. Porter gave up the "Tribune," he was appointed post- 



1314 HISTORY OF WABASHA OOUNTV. 

master by President Lincoln, and held the position until 1867, wlien 
he was removed by Andy Johnson. Mr, Porter is a Methodist, an 
Odd-Follow, a temperance man, and a pliilantliropist in the best 
sense of the word. 

Fmtz Lange, brewer, Lake City, is the partner of John C. 
Schmidt, in the brewing business. lie was born in Schweren Meck- 
lenberg, Germany, January 14, 1837, and is the son of Christopher 
and Sophia (Brinkho) Lange, who were also natives of the same 
province, and by occupation farmers. His echicational advantages 
were somewhat limited, though he, like all the better class of Ger- 
mans, has made amends for it by careful study and observation since 
his advent into this country. In the spring of 1857 he emigrated to 
America in the same vessel with his partner, Mr. Schmidt, and with 
him spent a year at Buffalo, New York, and the following spring 
came to Wabasha county, Minnesota, and settled in West Albany 
township. Here he took eighty acres of land under the homestead 
act, and purchased another eighty. This he so(m after sold and 
])urcliased a one hundred and sixty acres in the same township, 
which he traded in 1877 for his Lake City property. At Buffalo, 
New York, on August 9, 1857, Mr. Lange was united in marriage 
to Miss Henrietta Haase, who was also a native of Mecklenberg, 
and came over in the same ship with himself, being six weeks on 
the ocean in a sailing bark. Mr. Lange by industry and economy 
has made for himself and family a comfortable home, and enjoys 
the respect and confidence of his fellow men. He has four children, 
whose names are : Caroline, now Mrs. Charles Chandell, of Camp- 
bell, Minnesota; Fritz J., Josephine and Henry, at home. He is 
a member of the A.O.U.AV. and the Sons of Hermann. Their 
religious faith is in the Lutheran doctrine. 



ERRATA. 

Page 1095, line 12, for " 1862 " read " 1861." 
Page 1095, line 13, for " Louis " read " Lewis." 
Page 1120, line 16, for " 1836" read "1837." 
Page 1119, line 38, for " Bremen " read " Union." 
Page 1176, line 34, for "Miss J." read " Miss F." 
Page 1179, line 27, for " Ora " read " Ova." 
Page 1180, line 1, for " Flora C." read "Flora L." 
Page 1180, line 12, for "Ora" read "Ova." 
Page 1180, line 13, fbr ".June" read "January." 
Page 1208, line 25, for " fifteen " read "twenty." 
Page 1218, line 4, for " paternal " read " maternal. 
Page 1233, line 33, for " Tioga " read " Orange." 



CHAPTEE XCIX. 

TOWNSHIP OF LAKE. 

This is a rather small township, both on account of Lake Pepin, which lies 
partly within its boundaries, and because the city of Lake Citj'^ was carved out of 
its original territory. 

IMost of it lies back of the bluffs which form a kind of ampitheater within 
which the city is situated. Its surface is rolling, diversified by ravines and bluffs,, 
from the summit of which fine views of Lake Pepin and the Mississippi Valley; 
may be had. The soil is largely of yellow clay, and produces the finest crops of 
wheat ; other crops, as potatoes, barley, rye, corn, etc., are also raised in abund- 
ance, but the best proof of the fertility of the soil is found in the tasty farm 
houses and large barns that dot the landscape in every direction, evidently the 
homes of intelligent and prosperous people. It was settled largely by the Irish,, 
and the present population is composed mostly of Irish, with some Germans and 
Americans. There are five school houses in the town in good condition, and the 
schools compare well with those of other sections. The first town meeting was 
held at the City Hotel, May 13, 1858, at which there were 103 votes polled and 
the following- named gentlemen were elected town officers: 

SuPEKVisoRS — Charles W. Hackett, Abner Dwelle, Samuel Doughty. 

To"vvN Clerk — Dewitt C. Sterry. 

Assessor — Henry Collins. 

Collector — H. M. Hulett. 

Overseer of Poor — John McNeil. 

Constables — Henry O. Perry, Levi Collins, Jr. 

Justices of the Peace — D. C. Estes, G. L. Porter. 

Pound Master — A. K. Gaylord. 

Since 1858 the following named men have served the town as Chairman of 
Supervisors and Town Clerk : 

Chairman of Supervisors : Town Clerk : 

1859 Samuel Doughty. 1859 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

I860 Samuel Doughty. 1860 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

1861 J.L.Armstrong. 1861 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

1862 William Arnold. 1862 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

1863 R. H. Matthews. 1863 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

1864 J. L.Armstrong. 1864 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

1865 George S. Kent. 1865 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

1866 R.S.Goodrich. (1866 Dewitt C. Sterry. 

] 1866 B. C. Baldwin. 

( (To mi vacancy). 

1867 J. L. Armstrong. 1867 S. R. Merrill. 

1868 J. L. Armsti-ong. 1868 S. R. Merrill. 

1869 J. L. Armstrong. 1869 S. R. MerriU. 

1870 J. L. Armstrong. 1870 S. R. Merrill. 

1871 J. L. Armstrong. 1871 S. R. Merrill. 

1872 Geo. Watson. 1872 R. W. Purcell. 

1873 Geo. Watson. 1873 R. W. Purcell. 

1874 Richard O' Brian. 1874 J.S.Lewis. 

1875 Richard O' Brian. 1875 J.S.Lewis. 

1876 Richard O' Brian. 1876 Patrick Reedy, 

1877 Richard O' Brian. 1877 Patrick Reedy. 

1878 Richard O' Brian. 1878 Patrick Reedy. 

1879 Richard O' Brian. 1879 Patrick Reedy. 



1316 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

Chairman op Supervisors: Town Clerk: 

1880 -A. R Spaulding. 1880 Patrick Reedy. 

1881 Richard O' Brian. 1881 Patrick Reedy. 

1882 Richard O' Brian. 1882 Patrick Reedy. 

1883 Richard O'Brian. 1883 ...Patrick Reedy. 

1884 Richard O' Brian. 1884 Patrick Reedy. 

THE RAILWAY BOND SUIT. 

Reference has been made on page 806 to the matter of railroad bonds and 
the litigation in connection with them between the town and the railroad com- 
panies. 

On March 6, 1868, the village of Lake City was authorized by special act of 
legislature to issue its bonds in aid of the construction of the Chicago and St. 
Paul Railway. 

This act was amended February 2, 1869, the word "town" being substituted 
for "village." Pursuant to the authority given by these acts, and while the rail- 
way was in process of construction, the town of Lake City, by its Board of Super- 
visors duly convened, on February 6, 1869, adopted an ordinance, submitting the 
question of the issuance of the bonds to the legal voters of said town. The sum 
of $75,000 bearing interest at the rate of 6 per cent, per annum, etc., the princi- 
pal to mature thirty years after the date of such bonds, was voted at the special 
election, held February 23, 1869. The delivery of these bonds was conditioned 
upon the completion and full operation of the Chicago and St. Paul Railroad 
between St. Paul and Winona on or before April 1, 1872. 

On June 29, 1869, the Chicago and St. Paul Railway Company contracted 
with the Minnesota Railway Construction Company to build and equip the rail- 
way from St. Paul to Winona, and also sold and assigned to the Minnesota 
Railway Construction Company all gifts, donations, bounties or aid in any form 
which had been or thereafter might be given to it by any person, corporation, 
municipality or State to aid in the construction of the railway, including the 
bonds which the town of Lake City had obligated itself to issue and deliver. 

The road was completed and cars running thereon for the entire distance 
.'pacified, and the road had become entitled to the delivery of the bonds by 
January 1, 1872. After this on February 26, 1872, the city of Lake City was 
incorporated, the territory of which was carved out of the town of Lake City. 

No provision was made by the act incorporating the city, for the payment of 
any part of the debts or the assumption of any of the obligations of the town of 
Lake City, by the city of Lake City, nor is there any general statute of the State 
adjusting the liabilities of the old town within the new city. 

A contract, however, was entered into between the city of Lake City and the 
town of Lake City, through their respective municipal officers, in which it was 
agreed that of all cash in hand, taxes in hands of county treasurer, uncollected 
taxes, etc., the city of Lake City should receive 83 per cent, and the town of 
Lake City 17 per cent. It was further stipulated tliat all outstanding accounts 
and claims against the old town of Lake City should be borne in the same pro- 
portion by each corporation. It is perhaps necessary to state that this contract 
never came to the notice of the courts in which the suit that followed with the 
railroad company was tried. In 1873 the name of the township of Lake City 
was changed to the township of Lake. On page 806 it is said: "The issue of 
the bonds voted and their transfer led to litigation." This is an error. After 
the completion of the road the Minnesota Railway Construction Company pre- 
sented its bonds to tlie officers of the town of Lake and the city of Lake City to 
sign, but they refused to do this alleging fraud against the company. The 
Minnesota Railway Construction Company tlien brought suit by writ of man- 
damus in the Supreme Court to compel the town of Lake and city of Lake City 
to issue their joint and several bonds of the character and amount provided for. 
In this suit Thomas Wilson appeared for city of Lake City, and H. D. Stocker 
and W. J. Hahn for town of Lake. The defendants in this action alleged in 
their answer various acts of fraud on the part of the railroad company, the most 
material of which was that before the ordinance authorizing the holding of an 



THE RAILWAY BOND SUIT. LAKE CITY. 1317 

election to ratify the issuing of the bonds was passed, the St. Paul and Chicago 
Railroad Company, for the purpose of inducing the Supervisors to pass the same, 
promised the Supervisors that if they would pass the ordinance, the railway 
company would locate on the private property of said Supervisors, thereby greatly 
enhancing its value. The city also made the further objection that as it was a 
new and distinct municipal corporation, since created and erected out of a portion 
of the original town of Lake City, it therefore was not liable for any of the 
obligations of the old town. 

This answer was held sufficient as to the city and the action against it was 
dismissed. It now remained for the town of Lake to prove the alleged fraud. 

For this purpose H. D. Stocker, Esq., went to California and there obtained 
depositions from the old Supervisors of the town fully sustaining the position of 
defendants. These depositions were placed on file and coming to the notice of 
plaintiffs' counsel induced them to offer to compromise the suit which was 
accordingly done and a judgment by agreement of $2,500 was entered in the 
District Court of Wabasha county against town of Lake. A controversy now 
arose between the city and town, in relation to the payment of this judgment and 
the expenses of the suit. Under the contract entered into by these two corpora- 
tions in 1873, the substance of which is given above, the cash on hand, taxes in 
hands of county treasurer, uncollected taxes, etc., belonging to the old town of 
Lake were divided in the ratios set forth in the contract, and all liabilities, debts, 
and obligations of said town had also been borne in like ratio. The expenses 
incurred in this suit together with the above mentioned judgment amounted to 
about $9,200. The town of Lake claimed that the whole of this amount came 
under the operation of the contract of 1872 and that the city of Lake City was 
accordingly bound to pay 83 per cent, of it. Considerable discussion ensued and 
at a meeting of the city council upon August 38, 1882, the report of a committee 
appointed to investigate said claims advising the payment of 83 per cent, of the 
judgment, viz. : $3,100 to the town of Lake in consideration of a full release by 
the town of all further claims against the city was unanimously adopted. The 
city authorities holding that expenses of the suit incurred by the town amount- 
ing to about $4,000 were voluntarily incurred by it and constituted a private 
debt of the town of Lake for which the city was not responsible under the con- 
tract. The town, however, did not accept the $3, 100 in the form it was offered, 
and the matter still remains unsettled. It may be permitted us to hope that it 
may be amicably adjusted in the near future. 

LAKE CITY EARLY SETTLEMENT. 

It was not so much beauty of location, as it was opportunity for trade, that 
was sought by the early settlers along the upper Mississippi, else the beautiful 
location this city now occupies would not so long have remained unclaimed by 
white settlers. 

The Indian ports at Red "Wing and at Wabasha, the inlet and outlet of Lake 
Pepin, had been the home of half-breeds for years previous to any settlement at 
this point, and white traders had also been resident there for no inconsiderable 
time prior to the coming of any white settlers to this immediate vicinity. 

The mouth of the Chippewa River on the Wisconsin shore, and Read's on 
this, had been occupied as trading ports by whites, the former for eighteen years, 
the latter for nearly as long, before Jacob and Philip Boody laid claim and settled 
upon lands now within the corporate limits of this city. 

This settlement was effected in the autumn of 1853, the claims in all amount- 
ing to 328 acres, lying up the lake from the centi-al part of the city. In May of 
the spring following, Mr. Patrick Conway and his two sons, James and William, 
arrived, and took claims back of the present city, near the old territorial road. 
In June, Mr. Abner Dwelle and his family, together with John Boody, cousin of 
the first claimants, came and took claims down the lake, and these were the only 
settlements prior to the year 1855. 

The spring of 1855 brought quite a reinforcement to the little settlement, and 
from that time forward frequent accession to the number of settlers occurred, 
until in the fall of 1856 it was estimated that about 300 persons were settled in 



1318 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

the neighborhood. Among tlie arrivals of 1855 whose names have become house- 
hold words were Abner Tiblx'tts, William Berry, Seth Skinner, who brought a 
small stock of goods whicli he retailed from a board slianty belonging to Abner 
Tibbetts, and Mr. Samuel Doughty, who bought the claim's of Jacob and Philip 
Boody, and in June of this year erected the tirst frame dwelling in the place, 
bringing his lumber by raft from Read's Landing. This building, originally 
intended as a kitchen for the more consideralile dwelling he proposed to erect, 
was 18 by 26 feet, and stood very nearly upon tlie site of the present dwelling of 
Mr. Doughty on High street. He also ])rought a few blacksmithing tools with 
him, and though his shop was not very commodious, its usefulness to the pioneers 
as a place where their plows might be sharpened, amply compensated for its lack 
of windows and chimney. Although the country was still a wilderness, and 
Indians were constantly passing back and forth from Red Wing to Wabasha, 
camping on the shores of the lake near the houses of the early settlers, and occa- 
sionally inviting themselves to dinner, yet they were generally civil, and the set- 
tlers knew very little of the privations that oft are suffered by pioneers in sections 
far removed from the highways of trade. P*i-ovisions were brought from Prairie 
du Chien by the steamers that were constantly plying up and down the river, for 
these were the days when trade was booming upon the Mississippi, as many as 
nine steamers having been seen in the lake at one time. The beautiful plain, 
encircled by bluffs on three sides and fronted by Lake Pepin, was at this time 
covered with burr oak, white and black oak, maple, hazel brush, etc., interspersed 
with little stretches of prairie as smooth as the most finely-kept lawns. Game 
was abundant, and the lake and creeks teemed with fish. Currey creek was espe- 
cially noted for deer, there being several runways upon it, and a drove of nineteen 
elk was at one time seen by Mr. Doughty on the prairie back of the town. 

Nothing but sheer laziness would prevent a man from obtaining as many 
prairie chickens and ducks as desired. Wolves, too, were common, and were 
frequently seen in numbers playing upon the ice of the lake. In the year 1856, 
large numbers arrived, and buildings of a permanent character were rapidly 
pushed. Messrs. Tibbetts, Dwelle and Baldwin erected a large store building in 
1855 and 1856, wiiich was occupied by H. F. Williamson, who opened quite a 
large stock of goods. This building stood near the foot of Washington street, 
where the old grange warehouse now is. Mr. Patten also built a store, and the 
steamers, which previously objected to landing at this point, began to make regular 
stops. A town was surveyed and platted this year, Messrs. Tibbetts, Dwelle, and 
Doughty being proprietors, and the lots sold rapidly to the new-comers. lyir. 
Doughty donated four of his best lots, in what is now the central portion of the 
town, to Messrs. Jacobs and Sigler, in consideration of their erecting a hotel 
thereon. The City Hotel, the result of this transaction, stood on the corner now 
occupied by Stout, Dwelle and Hassinger's clothing store, and was a good- sized 
and popular house. It was converted into a store afterwards, and finally desti'oyed 
by fire in 1882. In this year, also, a sawmill was erected by Messrs. Gillett, 
Thompson, Starr, and A. H. Gaylord at the foot of Main street, the frame of 
which is still standing. 

Mr. Abner Tibbetts built a grain warehouse, which was occupied by J. L. 
Armstrong and L. H. Maples, who started the forwarding and commission busi- 
ness. During this year the Congregationalists built a small church, which was 
destroyed by a windstorm while in process of erection, but was immediately 
rebuilt. The materials for building were rafted from above, jirincipally from 
Stillwater and Hastings. The town grew rapidly. In 1857, John T. Averill put 
a run of stone into the planing- mill of Tupper & Sons, which was the first move 
toward a gristmill. The Post Oftice was established in 1856, and H. F. William- 
son appointed postmaster. The first child born upon ground included in the town 
plat was a girl born to John Boody and wife, in the summer of 1854. The first 
death in the settlement was in the same family, Mrs. John Boody, who died some- 
time in 1855. The first marriage was that of G. W. Hathaway and Miss Abbey 
Langley, in the year 1857. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Elias Hazlett, 
who also taught the school — it being opened in 1856. Matters continued to 
improve in the little colony until the lands were legally entered and title properly 
acquired, soon after which the formal organization of the county into townships 



CEMETERIES. BIOGRAPHICAL. 1319 

was effected, and the history of the colony here becomes a part of that of Lake 
City Township, May 11, 1858, the time of the first town meeting, to be resumed 
as separate history in 1864, when by special act of legislature the city was 
endowed with special and corporate privileges. 



, CEMETERIES. 

Even in as healthy a locality as Lake City, the dread messenger is not un- 
known, as the many monuments and marble slabs of the present beautiful ceme- 
tery, mute testimonials of his visits, show. 

Mrs. John Boody, the first person who died in Lake City, and her child, were 
buried at M ancle Lake. Several others were buried near where Jewel's nur- 
sery now is. All of these were afterwards removed to the present cemetery, 
which is upon a plot of ground set apart by Mr. Abner Dwelle, about the year 
1861. Its location, upon the southeast side of the city, separated from the high 
bluffs only by a ravine, toward which it slopes upon one side, is as pleasant as 
can be desired, while the regularity of its streets and the numerous evergreens 
that in future years will shade these quiet graves, show evidences of the taste and 
care of the proprietor of the grounds^Mr. Dwelle. 

It contains several fine monuments, and many of the lots have been beauti- 
fied by the planting of trees and shrubbery. It is a pleasant spot, though it may 
bring sadness to many a loving heart, and time will add to both its ornamentation 
and natural beauty. 

BIoaRAPHICAL. 

Hon. William H. Lyon, U. S. Indian Commissioner, of Brooklyn, New 
York. 

This gentleman though not a resident of Wabasha County, belongs to its his- 
tory, and especially to the history of Lake City. 

He was born at Holland, Hampden Co., Mass., October 18th, 1819, and (as 
was also Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, killed at the battle of Wilson Creek, Mo., in the 
late war) and is descended from William Lyon, one of the early English settlers 
of Massachusetts, and who located in 1635 at Roxbury. At the age of 14 
Mr. Lyon was sent to Hartford, Conn., to attend school with the purpose of ulti- 
mately studying law. But after leaving school he was engaged for some time in 
teaching in Wayne Co., N. Y. ; the last two years as principal of the Clyde High 
School. While he was in charge of this school. Prof. Morse first put his tele- 
graph in operation between Washington and Baltimore. The subject of telegraphy 
greatly interested Mr. Lyon, and, after some experiments, he invented a printing 
telegraph; or, rather, he demonstrated by means of a model, which he con- 
structed, that pen and ink type and ink could be used in conveying the messages 
by the telegi-aph wire. Mr. Lyon, strange as it may seem, never pressed his 
claim as a scientific discoverer, or even took any means to secure to himself the 
honor or benefits of his discovery. Yet it became, no doubt, the basis of a 
theory which has since been utilized. 

The Clyde Eagle, of July 11th, 1844 (Vol. 1, p. 9), has a two-column editorial 
headed, " The Electi-o- Magnetic Telegraph Improved," in which is the follow- 
ing: " With this machine, Mr. Lyon is able to write with pen and ink with the 
same facility that Professor Morse scratches characters upon paper with points of 
steel." This editorial was copied into the New York Commercial Advertiser, 
Evening Post, the Boston Traveller &n(\. other journals. 

About this time he changed his mind in regard to studying, and decided that a 
mercantile profession would be more to his taste. 

In 1845 Mr. Lyon went to New York, and engaged in the wholesale dry- 
goods business. In 1847 he change^ to what was then termed the Yankee Notion 
and Fancy Goods business, which he has continued successfully up to the present 
time. He was among the first New York merchants to visit Europe to secure a 
better assortment of fancy goods than could be procured from the New York 
importers. 



1320 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

In 1848, after having completed his orders and selections in England, he 
started for France, but was i)revented from going by the revolution then in pro- 
gress tliere. While waiting in Belgium, he learned of the flight of Louis 
Phillippe to England and the establishment of the Provincial Government of the 
French Republic under Lamartine. lie left immediately for France, and was the 
first American merchant to enter Paris after the insurrection. Everj-thing was 
in confusion, business prostrated, and the commission houses and manufacturers 
had large stocks of goods on hand which tliey were very anxious to turn into 
money. Mr. Lyon bought largely, at very low prices, and also made plans for 
futiu-e shipments, many of which arrangements continue to this day. He after- 
wards extended his connections to all the leading manufacturing centers of 
Europe until few houses are better known througliout the world. The firm of 
Wm. II. Lyon & Co. occupy a spacious stone building, Nos. 483 and 485 Broad- 
way, New York, 50 feet on Broadway, running back" 200 feet to Mercer street. 
The basement and several floors cover a space of 50,000 square feet devoted to 
the display of their extensive stock. 

In all these nearly forty years this house has kejit in the van of progress. 
They import goods from Europe, China, India, and Japan, and their sales extend 
not only to every State in the Union from Maine to California, but to Mexico, 
West Indies, South America, and Canada. Mr. Lyon has been for many years a 
member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, a director in the Brooklyn 
Life Insurance Co., and chairman of its Executive Committee. Was one of the 
incorporators of the New England Society, of Brooklyn, and a director since its 
organization ; a member of the Long Island Historical Society and a director of 
the Oxford Club. 

When, in 1876, Hon. Zachariah Chandler, the Secretary of the Interior, was 
requested by Pi-esident Grant to select a practical business man in New York city 
as a member of the Board of Indian Commissioners, he chose William H. Lyon. 
Mr. Lyon was assigned to the Purchasing Committee immediately, and for many 
years has served as its chairman, giving to the business of the Government the 
same measure of devotion that had made him one of the most successful mer- 
chants in the city of New York. The business of the Government's Indian 
Warehouse in NewYork received from Mr. Lyon the same conscientious attention 
that he had given to his private affairs. The best nrticle for the pui^pose, nt the 
lawest possible price was the one rule governing him and his associates. These 
methods stamped out the "shoddy" contractors, and now the best merchants, 
millers, manufacturers, and cattle dealers in the country compete by hundreds for 
the contracts. The Purchasing Committee, of which Mr. Lyon is chairman, is 
credited with having saved the Government millions of dollars in the purchase 
of Indian annuity goods, supplies, etc. In former years the purchases were so 
conducted, that certain conti-actors were sure to get the awards. Last year 354 
bids were received, and awards were made to 145 "different parties, and under the 
present management those persons are considered the lowest bidders who gave 
the best value in goods at the price, and such invariably get the contracts. 

The Government and the Indians are to be congratulated upon the most 
fortunate selection of Mr. Lyon as a member of the Board of Indian Com- 
missioners. 

In the summer of 1862 Mr. Lyon visited Lake City, Wabasha County, for 
the purpose of selling a small piece of property that had been taken for him by 
an agent (upon a debt, we believe.) But when he arrived in Lake City upon a 
steamer, on a beautiful summer day, he was so well pleased with the place, so 
charmed with the beauty of the surrounding scenery, and so much delighted 
with the climate that, instead of selling, he commenced to buy and build, and 
for more than twenty years has continued to buy more and more property-, and 
to erect building after building, until he became years ago the largest property 
owner in the city. 

Although he has visited time and again nearly all the famous summer resorts 
of this country and of Europe, yet, since his first" visit to Lake City, he has spent 
nearly every summer vacation in the City of the Lake, never tiring of its beauti- 
ful scenes, and always declaring that the climate here agreed with him better 
than at any other place in this country or Europe. 



BIOGBA.PniCAL. 1321 

Lake City is to be congratulated upon that fortunate first visit in 1862, as he 
has ever since held her best interests dear to his heart. When the first draft had 
been made during the late war, it was almost impossible to raise the money to 
hire substitutes, even at exorbitant rates of interest, and the town was in a great 
strait ; but Mr. Lyon, arriving about that time, came forward and readily loaned 
the required amount, refusing to accept anything but simple interest, taking the 
first bonds of the town ever issued. 

When Lake City was trying to secure the County Seat, and Wabasha was 
presenting the County with a Court House, Mr. Lyon personally purchased, at a 
high figure even for that day, all of block No. 23 (the Sherman House block), to 
be presented to the County for a Court House site in the event of Lake City's 
success in the contest. 

Believing that it would be a benefit to the city to have the business streets as 
wide and commodious as possible, he purchased the land along the northerly side 
of Broad street and donated to the city a strip 20 feet wide along the entire 
length of the street, from the lake shore to the depot, except along the sides of 
three out of the ten blocks, which he was unable to purchase. The strip along 
these three blocks was afterwards condemned by the City Council ; the street 
widened through its entire length to 90 feet, and its name changed in his honor 
from Broad street to Lyon avenue. He has made liberal and large donations im- 
partially to all the churches of the city that have been built since he became 
interested in her. Believing that Lake City' s climate and beauty of scenery would 
make it, with proper accommodations, a great summer resort, he labored for 
years to interest the citizens to join with him in the erection of a large summer 
hotel, offering to take one half the stock if necessary. Seeing that manufactur- 
ing interests would help the city, he interested parties in New York, and in 1872. 
came out with all the plans and specifications ready, and intending to close con- 
tract with local builders for the erecton at the foot of Lyon avenue of a building 
for manufacturing, at an estimated cost of $50,000; but upon his arrival, finding 
that his plans for widening the avenue, which was necessary to his full arrange- 
ments were opposed and not likely to be carried out, he returned home and 
located the building in Brooklyn, New York. 

The various buildings erected and owned by him in the city,— Lyon House 
block. Opera Hall block, Lyon block. Post Office block, Printing block, etc.— 
are described in our description of Lake City. 

Mr. Lyon is a gentleman of imposing figure and commanding appearance. 
Although his attention has always been given strictly to his business engage- 
ments, he has found time for social enjoyment and public duties ; his congenial 
temperament making him fully to enjoy life as he journeys through it. 

William Martin, farmer, son of Hugh and Rachel Martin, was born in 
March, 1823, in Richland county, Illinois. His* parents were natives of Ohio, 
coming to the birthplace of our subject in 1818, where eight children were born, 
he being the third. When he was seven years of age his parents moved into 
Schuyler county, where he was brought up on the farm. In 1840 removed to 
Montgomery county, Indiana. 

On reaching his majority he worked at the cooper's trade, and subsequently 
as plasterer, which he has followed part of the time ever since. In 1868 came to 
Lake City, where he has resided about seven years in all ; the remaining nine 
years were spent on the farm near town. He married Jane Prior in 1842 and by 
this union had two children — Robert Thomas and Richard. From 1847 to 1848 
served in the Mexican War. In 1850, his wife having died, married Lucinda 
Prior and by this union had six children— William, Willard, Sarah, Allen, David 
and Mattie Bell. In 1880 he married Mrs. Jane Wills; her maiden name w^as 
Jane Beatty. Family are members of the Presbyterian Church in Lake City. 

John Henry Sparrell (deceased), was born in Bedford, Massachusetts, 
September 26, 1828. After reaching school age, he attended the common schools 
and subsequently became a student of Bridgewater Academy in the same state. 
But at the early age of eighteen he quit school and engaged in the manufacture 
of furniture in his native town. 

His parents, John and Sylvia (Turner) Sparrell, were natives of Situate, Mass., 
and the parents of ten children, the only surviving one being Emeline A. Sparrell, 



1322 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

of Boston. The subject of our sketch came to this country in 1858 and pre- 
empted land in Gillford township. In the spring of 1862 he opened up the farm 
and subsequently jiurchased adjoining lands until he became known as one of the 
largest land- holders in that section of the country. Although Mr. Sparrell has 
no military record, he was very active in securing substitutes for his neighbors 
"Who did not wish to serve their countrj'^ in the capacity of soldier during the civil 
war. Our subject took an active part in politics, and was often elected state dele- 
gate to county or state republicaVi conventions. In short, he \\'as always interested 
in any public work, or anything for the benefit and advancement of the commu- 
nity in which he lived. In 1805 he moved to Lake City, where he became a 
member of the firm known as Sparrell «& Bates, dealers in and manufacturers of 
furniture. Soon after, they established a branch i-tore at Red Wing, which w^as 
conducted by his brother, E. K. Sparrell, the firm l)eing Sparrell, Bates & Co. 
They did an extensive business until his failing health made it necessary for him 
to retire from active life. But his brother dying (July 29, 1874), he resumed 
business for the purpose of settling up his brother's estate. At length, his health 
again failed and on September 20, 1877, departed this life. 

Our subject was a member of Red Wing Lodge No. 8, A. F. and A. M., the 
Masonic Aid Associaiion, and the Knight Templars, each of which offered reso- 
lutions at the time of his death. 

At a stated conclave of Red Wing Commandery No. 10, K. T., held Septem- 
ber 24, 1877, the following preamble and resolutions were adopted: 

"Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God to remove from our midst our 
well beloved brother. Sir Knight John Henry Sparrell ; therefore 

'^ Besolved, 1st, That in his death the Commandery has sustained a loss which 
every member sincerely mourns. 

''Resolved, 2d, That we will ever respect and cherish in our memory the 
manly virtues, the sterling integrity and sincere friendship of our deceased brother. 

^'Hesolved, 3d, That to the bereaved family of the deceased we tender our 
heartfelt sympathy in this their hour of affliction. 

'' Resolced, 4th, That a copy of these resolutions be presented to the family 
of our deceased brother, and spread upon the records of this Commandery. 

Fred. Joss, ^ 

DwiGHT M. Baldwin, C Committee. 
Ira J. Kellogg, ) 

On November 20, 1862, Mr. Sparrell wedded Mazie A. Horr, of Blooming- 
ton, 111. This union was blest with the birth of one child, Daisy S. As it had 
always been the intention of our subject to have his daughter educated at the 
Normal School at Bridgewater, Mass. , his wishes were carried out by her gradu- 
ating from that institution in 1883, with high honors. 

C.U'T. Pearl Roundy, boat- builder, Wabasha, is a grandson of John 
Roundy, one of the heroes of Lexington and the Revolution. One of two 
brothers of the latter, who were also in the battle of Lexington, was killed there. 
John and Mary Roundy, the parents of this subject, Avere natives of Massa- 
chusetts. They settled at Blue Hill, Maine, where Pearl Roundy was born 
December 30, 1812. He was reared there, attending the common school and 
academies there and at Waterville. Blue Hill was noted for ship-building, and 
when sixteen years old young Roundy found emplojTnent in a ship- yard. When 
about twenty- four he went to Pennsylvania and dwelt at Brooksville twentj' years. 
For twelve years he was engaged in mill-building in that vicinit}\ In 1856 he 
located in Pepin, Wisconsin, and has ever since been engaged in building river 
craft on the Upper Mississippi. He came to Wabasha in the spring of 1876, and 
went into partnership with W. T. Dugan in operating a boat-yard. Captain 
Roundy was made an Odd Fellow in Pennsylvania, and has just taken a demit 
from a Wisconsin lodge. He is now president of the Mutual Engineers' 
Association here. In religion he is a Universalist, and an old-line Democrat in 
politics. He has commanded two different militia companies in the East, and 
was also adjutant. In 1838 he was united in marriage to Miss Ann Hastings, a 
native of Bellfont, Pennsylvania. Of eight children given them, six are now 
living. All save the third (now Mrs. Willis Parker, at Sioux Falls, Dakota,) are 
at home. Their names are : Thomas H., Robert M., Annie, Pearl, Orin, and Milton. 



BIOGKAPHIOAL. 1323 

Rev James M. Shuktlepf (deceased) was among the pioneer preachers of 
this county, and assisted in organizing the first Baptist Church at ^\abasha in 
1857 He came to this city in 1856, and during the following winter began to 
hold" prayer meetings in his house, and during the following year was the coad- 
jutor of Rev H. B. Wharton in a successful effort to form a church society In 
1859 his voice failed, and he was forced to abandon his pulpit labors almost 
entirely. His demise occurred at Wabasha, October 22, 1866. The deceased was 
the eldest child of James and Dorcas (Lyon) ShurtlefE, and was born in Ashfield, 
Vermont July 21, 1794. He was reared on a farm and educated m Massa- 
chusetts.' In 1815 he was converted to God and joined the Christian Church. 
Next year he was licensed to preach, and ordained in 1817. October 2d ot the 
latter year, he married Elizabeth L. Gleason, born in Boston, September 9, 1799 
to James and Drucilla (Wright) Gleason. In 1820 Mr. Shurtleff went to West 
Virginia, where for four years he labored with gi-eat success^ In 1825 he went 
to Ohio, where he organized many churches, and joined the Free W 11 Baptists 
in 1831 In 1837 he moved to Illinois and traveled in that btate until he canie to 
Wabasha. It is estimated that he baptized nearly nine hundred persons, and he 
conducted many quarterly meetings and organized numerous societies. His 
widow died January 9, 1882, and two daughters survive her. The eldest is the 
widow of the late C. S. Hendricks, sketched below; the other is Mrs. William C. 
Piers, of whom other mention is found in this work. iTrT,oi.o+i. 

Coleman S. Hendricks (deceased) was a son of Martin and Elizabeth 
(Arnold) Hendricks, and was born in Halifax County, Virginia, June 2, 1812 
kis early life was spent on a farm in Ohio, and he received ^ J^/.^^^jf^^^^J^-^^^^^^^^ 
training!^ Wlien twenty-one years old he joined the Fr^e Will Baptist Church, 
which Iflorded him a congenial religious home most pt his life. He ^^^ subse^ 
quently connected with Methodist and Congi-egational Churches, but soon 
Returned to his original choice. In 1853 he was ordained a beacon at Village 
Creek, Illinois, by Rev. J. M. Shurtleff, whose daughter Clarissa he had married 
in 1836. In 1857 he came to Minnesota and dwelt three years in Wabasha. He 
then removed to Sand Prairie, and i^lSf to Cook's Valley making a business 
of farming. His death occurred at Cook's Valley, April 16, 1877, caused by 
neuralgia and consumption; for the last six months of ^f ^ll^^^^^ ^^J ^ T£ 
to lie down at all, and was a patient sufferer through gi-eat pam Mi. Hendiicks 
was an active Sunday-school worker, and organized the first school on band 
Prairie in 1860. He was an enthusiastic temperance ^^^^^f^^',^^" /,^!L™i 
adherent of Republican principles. During his residence in Wabasha ii^tee Jon 
as Assessor, and was a member of the Home League organized for tlie protection 
of settlers' interests. Beside his widow, eight of his mne ^^il^Y^^^I/^fX^,^ ^1 
The eldest, Francis M., was a member of McClellan's army, and t^^ed in hospital 
during the Wilderness campaign. He left one child, Edith now resident in 
Wabasha. Marquis L. is sketched below. James «• served three years m the 
Third Minnesota regiment, and now dwells at Warren, this State. A^ t^e others 
reside in Wabasha, viz. : Eliza (Mrs. H. B. Wuiting), Ansel A. (the Jay of his 
widowed mother), John C, Sarah J. (wife of John Plumb), Emma, and Mary L. 

^''L.^H^GiBKAKS M. D., is a native of Connecticut. His first visit to Minne- 
sota was made in 1854, in company with (General Israel Garrard but his actual 
residence in the State was not made until four years later-1858. ^y-^/^^^^ 
received a liberal education but did not complete a full classical course, lie 
graduated from the medical department of the ^^'7^ff}y,''\^^^^f:illf'']^ 
in 1853, and the following year came into Minnesota with his brothei Israel, as 
before stated, intending to go to Puget Sound in Gov. Steven s line of survey 
Through some malarrangement they failed to find the military escort and so 
took a tour through Minnesota, finally bringing up at Frontenac, (tlie»iJ,f^l«<J 
Western Landing), on Lake Pepin. Here they took up several thousand acre., ot 
land, buying claims from the squatters, most of which was afterward settled 
with half-breed scrip. In 1856 Dr. Garrard went to Europe and spent two years 
traveling and studying upon the continent, returning to America in 1«5_8. ine 
same year he returned to Minnesota, and from 1858 to 1870 was a i-esident of 
Frontenac, engaged in looking after his landed interests there, lo the tali oi 



1324 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

1859, he was elected a member of the State Legislature and served during the 
sessions of 1859-60. In 1870 he removed to Lake City, was one of the organizers 
of the National Bank here that same year, and its president durinir the first three 
years of its existence. A man of liberal culture and decidedly interested in all 
questions of moral reform. He was the candidate of the temperance party of 
Lake City for Mayor on the no-license ticket in 1876, and was elected on that 
issue. 

In 1862, Dr. L. Garrard married Miss Flora, daughter of Mr. Eli Van Vliet. 
They have two daughters, Editli and Annie, botli attending school in Cincinnati. 

The Doctor is a gentleman of broad views, cosmopolitan in his tastes and 
ideas, charitable and kindly in his disposition, of genial social temperament, and 
one of Lake City's most popular and public-sjjirited citizens. 

James C. Stout, insurance, loan, and real estate agent. Lake City, is a son of 
Judge Stout, and a brother of George Stout, whose sketches appear on another 
page, was born at Middletown, New York, August 25, 1840, and came to Lake 
City with the family in July, 1856. Here he attended the early schools and in 
1859 entered the Hamilton University at Madison, New York. On his return to 
this city he entered the mercantile house of his brother-in-law, H. F. Williamson, 
and sold out to him in 1866. He then built the l)rick store on the cornei- of 
Washington and Marion streets, at a cost of $8,000, where he conducted a general 
merchandise l)usiness for a number of years, after which he engaged in his 
present business. For the past year much of his time has been spent in St. Paul, 
wiiere he is working up an extensive insurance. He was married August 13, 
1868, to Miss Agnes Scott, a native of Fremont, New York, and has a family of 
four children. 

Rev. Sven August Lindholm, pastor of the Swedish Lutheran Church, Lake 
City, was born in the Province of Smaland, Sweden, August 17, 1852. He is the 
fourth son of Nels Lindholm, a farmer, who died in 1862. His mother, Sarah 
Maria (Peterson) Lindholm, still resides on the old Sweden homestead with her 
oldest son. After attending the parish schools (which were of high grade) 
till the age of fourteen, he spent a little over two years in private study 
under the learned Professor Weilertz in the Parish of Morlunda. This study 
was principally devoted to the languages. In 1869 he emigrated to America, 
sailing from Oscarshamn, April 26, in the old steamship Northern Light. Tlie 
same spring he went to De Kalb, Illinois, where he remained till the fall of 
1870, working on a farm and attending school ; at that date he came to Minne- 
sota and entered the St. Ausgar's Academy, in Csirver count}-, where he pursued 
the common English branches and languages till 1873 when he returned to Illi- 
nois and entered the Augustana College and Theological Seminary from which 
he was ordained at the annual convention of the Swedish Lutheran Synod assem- 
bled at Princeton, Illinois, in June, 1878, by the synod's president, Rev. E. 
Norelius. His first ministerial duties were performed in Southern Dakota, 
whence he came to Lake City in June, 1879. He was married June 25, 1878, in 
Chicago, to Miss Hilda A. Cedar, a native of Norkoping, Sweden. Their two 
children are named August Fridolf J. and Augusta Alfreda. 

Marville M. Foli.ett, retired jeweler. Lake City, is a native of Smithfield, 
Rhode Island, born in 1812. His father, Leonard Follett, was of French extrac- 
tion and a native of the same state. He died in early life, leaving this his only 
child to the care of the mother, who soon after married again. Her maiden name 
was Lavina Jefferson, also a native of Rhode Island, and of English parentage. 
The later years of her life were passed in the state of Massachusetts, where she 
died in the 80th year of her age. The orphan boy whose name heads this 
sketch was forced out of school into a woolen factory, to earn his own bread and 
clothes, at an early age. At the age of twenty- one years he went to Lowell, 
Massachusetts, where he became a jeweler's apiirentice. After completing his 
trade he entered in i)usiness for himself, remaining two years in the same city. 
While here he married Miss Martha Berry, on June 1, 1837. She was the daugh- 
ter of Peleg Berry, a wealthy farmer of West Fairley, Orange county, Vermont, 
whither they soon after removed. In West Fairley he established himself in the 
business of his trade, and there remained till 1854, when he sold out and went 
to Canton, New York, where he devoted twelve years to the same business. 



BIOGKAPHICAL. 1325 

Failing health by this time induced him to make a change, and accordingly he, 
through the advice of a friend, went to Upton, Massachusetts, bought a farm 
and followed agricultural pursuits till the spring of 1868, when he sold again, 
and in June of the same year removed to Minnesota and permanently located in 
in Lake City. Here he invested in a stock of merchandise, which he placed in 
charge of a son-in-law, and in this way lost a large amount of his hard-earned 
money, after which he was obliged to go back to his trade, and thus continued 
till 1880. Their children are Susan V., wife of J. W. Champlin, Clara M., now 
Mrs. H. F. Tanner, of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Jennie L., died in Vermont, Luther 
M., a jeweler in Appleton, Wis., and Leonard P., at Wahpaton, D. T. 

Garrison D. Post, Lake City, one of the most active business men of the 
county as a dealer in wheat and other grain, and whose operations are not con- 
fined alone to this county, but reach into adjoining counties that enjoy railroad 
advantages, where grain can be bought in bulk or car-load lots, came to Minne- 
sota in 1854. He was born in Orange county, New York, October 12, 1825, and 
is the fourth child and third son of Moses and Maria (Brooks) Post of the same 
state. His great grandfather, David Post, was the founder of what is now 
Edenville, New York, was very wealthy, owning a township of land in Orange 
county, and was a prominent character during the Revolutionary war — furnishing 
supplies to the Colonial army during their long stay at Newburg. His nationality 
was German. The mother of our subject was of New England stock, from the 
State of Connecticut, whose ancestors were prominent American citizens back 
many generations. Mr. Post when about twenty-two years of age started in bus- 
iness for himself as a merchant in the State of Pennsylvania, where he made and 
lost a considerable amount of money. On his coming to Minnesota in 1854, he 
settled in Goohue county on a farm, where he followed agricultural pursuits four 
or five years, and then came to Lake City and engaged in the grain trade. He 
first bought in with Bessey, where he in time became a heavy loser, after which 
he, in company with Mr. J. M. Culver, built a warehouse at the foot of _ Dwells 
street, where they for many years did a large grain and commission business, at 
the same time doing the agency business for the Diamond Joe steam line. He 
some later built two other warehouses, which were, on the completion of the 
railroad, moved to it, near the depot, where they now do duty for storage and ele- 
vators. In 1872 Mr. Post was elected to the state legislature, and served four 
years, during which time the vexed question of the old state bonds, issued to aid 
in railroad construction, was forever settled. He subsequently served the city as 
mayor and alderman, and in fact has been identified with the city's interests 
during his long residence here. 

He was married in Orange county. New York, in 1847, to Miss Julia Dur- 
land, of that county, and to them have been born two children. The eldest, 
Elizabeth, is now Mrs. Charles Freeman, and resides at Elk Point, Dakota, and 
Seely B., in this city. 

William Wilson, Lake City, became a citizen of this county in 1858, and 
has since acquired a good estate in land and city property. He was born in 
Banffshire, Scotland, November 26, 1829, is the son of James and Ann (Ballack) 
Wilson, and is a brother of George Wilson, of West Albany, whose biography 
appears on another page. Mr. Wilson, like his ancestors, was reared a farmer, 
and like them has followed principally agricultural pursuits. He was married 
in his native shire March 24, 1853, and on April 11 sailed from the city of Banff 
for Quebec on the sailing vessel Empress, where they safely landed in the month 
of May. Their journey westward was continued up the St. Lawrence to Queens- 
town, ma stage to Buffalo, where they again embarked for Racine, Wisconsin. 
The next five years found him engaged in farming on rented land. He then 
came to Minnesota, and settled in West Albany township on a farm of his own. 
From that time till 1876 his entire attention was given to the tilling of the soil 
and stock raising, which he made decidedly successful. Since his removal to 
Lake City he has been engaged in the warehouse business and the sale of agri- 
cultural machinery, at the same time looking after his real estate interests, 
which comprise a half- section in Lake township and a quarter- section in the 
town of Glasgow. 

Mr. Wilson and wife are members of the United Presbyterian Church, and 



1326 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

politically, he affiliates with the Republican party. Their children's names, in 
the order of their birth, are Margaret A., now Mrs. George Bussell, of Lyon 
county, this state, Isabella, Jennie, and Maria at home, all having received a 
good education. 

ViLROY E. Clifford, for many years a grain dealer at Maiden Rock, is a 
native of Rutland county, Vermont, and was born in 1833. He parsed his early 
youth on the farm and at school in the Green Mountain State. At about the age 
of twenty years he removed with his i)arents to tiie State of Michigan, where they 
purchased a large farm. Here he remained till about 1864, when he removed to 
Wisconsin and soon after engaged in the gi-ain trade at Maiden Rock, on the 
shores of lovely Lake Pepin. Here he did a large and successful business for 
many years, not only in gi-ain but in merchandizing. In May, 1880, he removed 
to his pleasant and substantial home on East Oak street, in Lake City. Though 
he still continues to deal in wheat, he is giving more attention to real estate. His 
parents, Natlian D. and Daphne (Smith) Clifford, who were also natives of Ver- 
mont, now reside at Maiden Rock, Wisconsin. Mr. Clifford was married in 1866 
to Miss Zoe A. Huestis, a daughter of Benjamin W. and Mary E. (Blackman) 
Huestis. She was born in Jackson county, Michigan, in 1846, where her parents 
settled in the heavj' timber at an early day. They have three children, whose 
names are George W., Burt and Emer V. Mr. Clifford is Mason and holds his 
membership at Maiden Rock. 

Thomas Brown ( deceased ), a native of Crawford county, Pennsylvania, was 
among the early business men of Lake City. In 1856 he came to Winona and in 
May, the following year, built a large hotel on the point in this city, which was 
in early days the most prosperous house in toAvn, being very convenient for river 
travel, and at times has furnished accommodations for as many as sixty people. 
In fact, the Brown Hotel was known as the home of the weary traveler, from St. 
Paul to St. Louis, and its proprietor, Mr. Brown, was a man celebrated for his 
kindness of heart and hospitality. No man, either white, black or red, with or 
without money, ever turned from his door hungry, and if he possessed a human 
fault it was his generosity. Many a poor man has missed the kind face of Mr. 
Brown since his death, on November 12, 1880. The family he left consists of 
his widow, formerly Miss Eliza Emery, of Philadelphia, Penn., and two children: 
Miss Mary E. resides with her mother at the hotel in this city and Cassius B. re- 
sides in Dakota. 

William B. Liitz, contractor and builder, Lake City, is a native of Pennsyl- 
vania and was born at Reading, June 16, 1828. Mr. Lutz' progenitors on both 
sides were desceudents of the early German settlers of that State, and he still 
retains in a marked degi-ee the characteristics of his Teutonic ancestors. His early 
education was such as the common schools of his native state afforded until he en- 
tered upon his trade at sixteen. Completing histi-ade (that of Mason), he followed 
the business in the east till 1850, when he went to St. Louis, Mo., where he en- 
gaged in building two years and returned hcmie. September 7, 1852, he was 
united in marriage to Miss Margaret Evans, of Evansburg, Penn. Her parents 
were foreign born, the father, Thomas O. Evans, in Wales, and the mother, Mary 
Brawley, in Ireland. The parents of Mr. Lutz were John and Margaret (Briner) 
Lutz. In 1855 he emigrated to the territory of Minnesota and settled in the little 
trading post of Wabasha in the county bearing the same name. A month later 
his wife followed him to their new home, making the entire trip by water, occu- 
pying a period of twenty- four days. Mr. Lutz has principally followed the busi- 
ness of contracting and "building since his residence in this county, tliough a por- 
tion of his time has been devoted to municipal, county and legislative affairs. 
He was early a member of the town board of Wabasha, served as sheriff of the 
county and two terms in the legislature, and lias also occupied an alderman's seat 
the Lake City council since his removal here in 1864. The names of their living 
children are Thomas, Lewis, Mary L., Margaret E., Emily J. and William H. 
They are members of the Catholic church and he is a staunch supporter of the 
principles of Democracy. 

Alexander Scott, of the village of Elgin, is engaged in the business of 
manufacturing wagons, his shop being situated on Main street. Mr. Scott learned 
his trade in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked at it until 1871, when he 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1327 

went to Amesbury in the same State, remaining there for two years. In 1873 he 
struclc out for the western country ; first going to Windom, Cottonwood County, 
Minnesota, and from there to Elgin, at which place he arrived on July 12, 1873. 

In the fall of that year he went into partnership with H. G. Hale in the 
wagon making business at Elgin. Mr. Scott subsequently bought out the interest 
of his partner, and in the spring of 1875 commenced for himself the business 
which he now so successfully carries on. The date of his birth was November 
10, 1850. 

Mr. Scott owns a finely located residence on South street. The house being 
situated on a knoll, from which an excellent view of the surrounding country is 
obtained. This house is entirely new, the former one having been entirely an- 
nihilated by the cyclone of July 21, 1883, a more particular description of which 
disastrous event appears elsewhere in our history. 

On December 25, 1878, Mr. Scott was united in marriage to Miss Ida A. 
Rollins, daughter of Irvin W. Rollins, one of the pioneer settlers of Greenwood 
Prairie. The ceremonj^ took place at Elgin. The issue of the marriage is as 
follows : 

Jeflie Isabel, born October 16, 1879; Winifred Ellen, born May 26, 1882, 
died March 9, 1883. 

Mr. Scott has always been an ardent and active worker, as well in the church 
as in the great cause of temperance. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, 
having been raised in Elgin Lodge No. 115, A. F. A. M. about two years ago, 
and now holding the office of Secretary therein. 

Mr. Scott is also a member of Elgin Lodge No. 76, I. O. G. T., in which he 
has held various offices, including that of Worthy Chief Templar. 

John W. Reifkogel, harness-maker and dealer, of Plainview, was born in 
Hamburg, Germany, September 28, 1828. His father, Cornelius Reifkogel, was 
a professional gardener in the citj^of Hamburg. Our subject received a common, 
school education in Germany, and then spent four years acquiring a knowledge 
of his present trade, after which he set out on a tramping expedition lasting two 
years, during which he visited many important places in Germany, Holland, and 
Denmark, working at his trade a few months in Amsterdam. The Government 
next required his services in the army, and from 1848 to 1852 he was in the ranks, 
seeing a little active campaigning during the Denmark war then in progress. 
The excitement incident to active service was not distasteful to him ; but with 
the dull life of the soldier in time of peace he was not content, and in 1853 
deserted the army and came to New York. Here he resided for two years, and 
then went to Boston where he found employment for eleven years in the harness 
shop of D. L. McGregor, on Henley street ; a portion of this time, however, he 
worked in the United States Navy Yard. In 1805 he came to Plainview, de- 
ciding to locate in that place, after a tour of the western country in search of a 
desirable opening for the establishment of a harness sfiop. His first shop stood 
where his present commodious place of business now is, and was a small and 
primitive affair. But he prospered in his business, and now owns a fine resi- 
dence, and is accounted one of the forehanded men of Plainview. Mr. Reif- 
kogel is a free-thinker and a Democrat. He was married to Charlotte Young, 
of Boston, in the year 1855. Seven children have been born to them, five of 
whom are living, viz. : Saphia (Mrs. Daniel Clough), of Elgin township ; William, 
at home; Lottie (Mrs. A. J. Carroll,) of Plainview, and Ettie and Albert, at home. 

Oscar Smith, of Plainview, was born in Columbia county. Pa., October 8, 
1844. His father, Peter Smith, was a farmer, and removed from Pennsylvania 
to Wisconsin when Oscar was in his tenth year. Here they remained near 
Watertown until 1855, when they came to Greenwood Prairie and located a 
claim on section 13, in Plainview township. Oscar early manifested a marked 
fondness for hunting, and during the brief sojourn of the family in Wisconsin 
he was so unfortunate as to lose his left arm, the result of the accidental dis- 
charge of his gun. But this did not check his career as a sportsman, and in 
1858 he had become sufficiently acquainted with the Indians that then inhabited 
Minnesota, as to engage in the fur trade. For three years he followed this busi- 
ness. He next learned the painter's trade, which he has continued successfully 
to follow more or less closely since, although he has also engaged in farming,. 



1328 HISTORY OF WABASHA. COUNTY. 

and now owns 100 acres of his father's original claim on Greenwood Prairie, and 
a half section of fine land near Canby, Laquinparle county, Minnesota. This 
latter he acquired in 1879. Since 1880 he has spent most of his time in Fargo 
and Minto, Dakato. lie is thoroughly endowed witli the rugged and independent 
characteristics of the pioneer sportsman, and spends each winter trapping and 
hunting in the northern portions of Wisconsin, Minnesota or Dakota, and has 
many interesting exploits to relate to his large circle of acquaintances. 

George C. Kichmond, farmer and horse breeder of Plainview, is of Yankee 
parentage. His father was Barzilla Kichmond, of Orleans county. New York, 
where George was born August 16, 1837. His youtli vvas spent chiefly on a farm 
near Lima Center, Roth county, Wisconsin, which bacame the family home in 
1846. lie engaged in work on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway in 
1857 and spent two years, most of the time as section boss. In 1859 he joined a 
company of gold diggers and went to Pike's Peak, where he tarried ten months. 
Returning without wealth, he solicited a position from the railway company, and 
was appointed yard master at Milwaukee. He served his old employeis in this 
capacity until August, 1862, when he enlisted under Uncle Sam's banner in the 
Tu'enty- fourth Wisconsin Infantry, and served with this regiment to the close of 
the rebellion, with the exception of ten months that he was detailed to service in 
the First Kentucky Battery. He was with Sherman until he reached Atlanta, 
and from that place returned with Thomas to Nashville, and participated in 
many of the severest and most closely contested engagements of the war. Very 
soon after the war closed he found his way to Minnesota, and at once engaged in 
farming. He now owns 380 acres of fine lands in Plainview township, and a 
half section in Martin county. He makes a specialty of rearing Norman horses. 
He resides in Plainview village. His politics are Republican, and he has passed 
the chair in Plainview Lodge, I. O. 0. F. Fidelia Colby, daughter of George 
Colby, of Plainview, became his wife September, 1867. They have two children, 
viz. : Charles, born July, 1868, and Frank, February, 1875. Mr. Richmond 
while west in 1859 at one time claimed by squatter sovereignity title to 160 acres 
of what is now the site of Denver City, Colorado. 

Aruhur J. Carroli,, Assistant Postmaster of Plainview, was born in 
Mentor, Ohio, May 19, 1853. His father, Samuel D. Carroll, who was a cooper, 
by trade, came to Mentor from New Jersey in 1830 and located on a farm there. 
He raised a family of twelve children, Arthur being the youngest. Four of this 
numerous family only survive, viz. : Miss Hatie E. Carroll, Postmistress at Plain- 
view; Emily (Mrs. George W. Doeg) Huntley's, Minnesota; Maronette (Mrs. S. F. 
Wicklow) of Owatona, Minnesota; Lottie (Mrs. Wm. Lawton) of Plainview. At 
the age of eleven, Arthur came with the family to Wabasha county. His father's 
death occurred two years later. His education was obtained in the Plainview 
public school. He clerked in Oziah Wilcox's store for about eight months, and 
in 1873 was appointed assistant postmaster to Hon. H. H. Butts. Shortly there- 
after Miss Hattie Carroll succeeded Mr. Butts as postmaster, and Mr. Carroll 
was retained as assistant, and has virtually had the entire management of the 
office since. He fitted up the postoffice at a cost of $700, and has one of the 
finest offices to be found in any western village. Mr. Carroll is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and is secretary of the Wabasha County Sunday 
School Association. During the existence of the village government he served 
as recorder. He has been twice married, the first wife being Ida E. Williams, 
daughter of M. M. Williams, one of the pioneers of Plainview. After her 
death which occurred three months after the marriage, he married Lottie Reif- 
kagel, daughter of J. W. Reifkagel, of Plainview, the wedding taking place 
October 4, 1880. Two children have been born to them, viz. : Elsie and Willie. 

William J. Taylor, stock owner and milk dealer, of Plainview, was born 
October 26, 1823, in Vermont, but spent his youth on a farm four miles southwest 
of Versailles, N. Y., to which place his people removed while William was a 
child. His parents were Bennona and Betsy Taylor. He was residing at home 
December 31st, 1843, when he espoused Amanda Perkins, daugliter of Elijah and 
Patience Perkins, of the same count3\ In 1847, Mr. Taylor engaged in farming 
in Erie county. Pa., and in 1854 removed to Marquette count}', Wisconsin, where 
he bought eighty acres of sandy land, which, in his characteristic language, "A 



BIOGKAPHICAL. 1 329 

warrantee deed wouldn't hold." So in 1861 he abandoned it and came to the 
beautiful prairie of Greenwood. He first rented a farm four miles north of Plain- 
view, but three years later he bought eightj^ acres from A. B. W. Norton on sec 
tion six, in Plainview, and about the same time came to the village to reside. 
His landed possessions noM' consist of forty acres in section seven, and ten village 
lots. He has sold milk to the citizens of Plainview more or less for twelve years 
past, and since 1881 has run a milk wagon. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have five chil- 
dren living, viz. : Ellen J., (Mrs. R. S. Tucker) of Marshall, Minn. ; D. Z., a car- 
penter of Plainview ; Alice (Mrs. M. V. Palmer) of Willoughby, Ohio, and Mel- 
vin F. , farmer, of Plainview. 

Andrew A. Helgerson, farmer, of Plainview, is the only surviving son of 
Andrew Helgerson, who came to Greenwood prairie in the fall of 1854 from Iowa, 
to which state he emigrated from Norway in 1850. The elder Helgerson located 
on what is now the John Safford place, about two miles east from Plainview. 
The spring of 1855, in the absence of Mr. Helgersen, his family were driven 
from their claim by covetous Yankees, who wished to establish thereon a town 
site. The Helgersons, like their neighbors, the Nelsons, did not remove far, but 
again began the work of home building — this time on the northwest quarter of 
section four. They were not again molested, and have continued to occupy this 
claim even to the present day. The elder Helgerson died on the 17th of March, 
1876, and the subject of this sketch now resides with his mother, Mrs. Christina 
Helgerson, on the old homestead. Andrew A. Helgerson was born in Norway on 
the 21st of June, 1849, and was consequently but a baby when his people came to 
America. He was but five years old when his father brought his family to the 
State of Minneaota, and here he led the life of a pioneer during his youth ; his 
education being limited to that obtainable in the country school, of which his 
father was from the first a vigorous supporter. Hans Helgerson, only brother of 
Andrew A., died- in 1881. The Helgerson homestead is situated about two miles 
north of Plainview. The farm buildings are substantial and pleasant, having 
been erected at a cost of nearly |5,000. Mr. Helgerson is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, and a republican in politics. 

Christian H. Pletke, a Plainview farmer, was born in Botenich, Hanover, 
on the 30th day of January, 1836. He continued to reside with his father, who 
was a farmer, until his twenty- eighth year, when he came to New York.' He 
found employment with a West Broadway butcher named Anthony Koptke, at 
No. 41. He remained here two years, during which occurred New York draft 
riot. He next spent one year in the city of San Francisco, and from there went 
to Virginia City, where he tarried four years. He then came to Winona, Minn., 
and a short time thereafter purchased the farm in Plainview — 455 acres in section 
five— in which he has resided since 1882. He is also the owner of two houses 
and lots in Winona City. Mr. Pletke was married to Miss Julia Klett, daughter 
of Sebastian Klett, of Fountain City, Wis., July 17th, 1874. Two children have 
been born to them, viz. : Adelia and Flora. Mr. Pletke is a Lutheran in relic-ion 
and in politics an Independent. * 

Marquis L. Hendricks, farmer, was born in Edwards County, Illinois, in 
1840. Nearly all his life was passed on a farm, and part of his education was 
supplied by the schools of Wabasha. He was employed a short time on the 
■ river, and then engaged in farming in Greenfield Township, where he now 
resides. In religious faith he adheres to the teaching of his father, and has 
always been a firm supporter of the Republican party. In 1865 he married Miss 
Asenath Hilt, of Greenfield, who bore him six children. They have been 
christened Lillie, Charles, Gertie, Fred, Artie, and Clara. Mr. Hendricks was 
the sixth man who enlisted from Wabasha County in the country's service on the 
outbreak of the War of the Rebellion. He enlisted in April, 1861, in Co. I, 
First Minnesota regiment, and took part in thirty-two active engagements, beside 
skirmishes. The following reference to the services of this worthy patriot is 
taken from the Wabasha Herald of May, 1864: "Return op a Veteran.— 
Marquis L. Hendricks, one of the original First Minnesota Volunteers, returned 
to his home in the town of Greenfield, this county, last Friday. We had the 
honor of crossing palms with this veteran of thirty-two engagements. He is a 
young man of unassuming manners and gentlemanly in his deportment. The 



1330 HISTORY OF WABASHA CODNTY. 

stuff that patriots are made of is embodied largely in his composition. He 
served in the First Minnesota until November, 1862, at which time he was trans- 
ferred to the First United States Regular Cavalry, in which regiment he fought 
in some fifteen successive engagements. On account of the daring valor he had 
displayed on former occasions, he was designated as a dispatch bearer at the 
battle of Fredericksburg, in which engagement he liad two horses shot under 
him and received a wound in the arm — a buckshot liaving passed through the 
tieshy part of his arm midmay between the elbow and wrist. In this same 
engagement a fragment of shell, weighing about half an ounce, struck him in 
the neck, yet he did not give up tlie field until niglitfall put an end to the bloody 
strife. He was mustered out of the service a few days since at Culpepper, 
Virginia, — with the few other survivors of the original gallant and glorious First 
— having served three years with honor and credit to his country. It has been 
truly said, that it is more of an honor to boast of liaving l)elonged to the Minne- 
sota First, than to command the finest regiment tliat was ever sent to the field 
from the Empire or Keystone States." 

Edward E. Heerman, steamboat owner and captain, is among the pioneers 
and self-made men of Wabasha county. He is a son of Timothy and Amelia 
T. (Barter) Heerman, the former born in Maine and the latter in England. His 
grandfather, Timothy Heerman, was a native German, and was pressed into ser- 
vice on a British man-of-war, during the Revolutionary war. While the vessel 
was at anchor off Portland, and its officers indulging in a drunken orgie, Mr. 
Heerman locked the forecastle door and went ashore and notified the American 
authorities, who went on board and captured the whole force. When our subject 
was seven years old his father went to Burlington, Iowa, and here the future cap- 
tain laid the foundations of a life of usefulness. When fifteen years old he 
chopped steamboat wood on an island in the Mississippi River to procure money 
to enable him to attend school. When his job was done he received a worthless 
order on a business man in Burlington for his pay. Knowing the youth's object, 
and feeling pity for him, the gentleman cashed the order, and promised young 
Heerman employment in the spring, if he would return to him. After spending 
the winter in a common school, the lad presented himself and was employed on 
a ferry boat. From this he went on a steamer plying on the Iowa and Mississippi 
rivers, and afterward secured possession of a flatboat and spent some years in the 
wood business at Alma, Wisconsin. His genial nature and upright integrity made 
him friends as he went along, and their kindness enabled him to ride some rough 
financial storms and triumph over misfortune. Capt. Heerman has built five 
steamers, all of which he named after his daughter, Minnie, and has engaged in 
traffic on the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers. During the winter of 1879-80 he 
built a steamer at Read's Landing, which he loaded at St. Paul next spring, and 
sailed by way of the Missouri river to Fort Benton (al)out four thousand miles), 
making a successful voyage despite the sneers of his friends. In the winter of 
1882-3 he built and is now operating at Devil's Lake, Dakota, the steamer Minnie 
H. All the material had to be hauled a distance of seventy miles from the then 
railroad terminus, and the vessel cost, when completed, over thirty thousand dollars. 
This is used in trade between Devil's Lake City and "West End," where is a 
town site, in which Capt. Heerman is interested. Capt. Heerman is a member 
of the Knights of Honor in Wabasha, and a firm supporter of the Republican 
party, although he would never accept a civil office. While his religious views 
are not modeled after any creed, he is everywhere known as a consistent Christian 
gentleman. On the 10th of November, 1856, he was united in marriage to Miss 
Haliceia Hannon, of Hastings, who died October 20, 1866, leaving two children. 
Albert E., the eldest, is now in the insane hospital at Rochester. Minnie E. is 
with her father at Devil's Lake. 

WiLiJAM H. Edwards, contractor, Wabasha, was born in Ogdensburg, New 
York, November 16, 1855. His father, Daniel Edwards, was of English descent, 
born in Maine, and a Methodist in religion. His mother, Ella Edwards, was a 
native of Ireland, and a Roman Catholic. The first sixteen years of his life 
were spent in his native town, and he then set out to make his way in the world. 
He engaged in various laborious occupations, and thus traveled about the country 
a great deal, being at one time engaged in lumbering on the Truckee river, in 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1331 

California. He became a resident of this city in August, 1878, and has since 
been employed in furnishing material for government improvements on the Upper 
Mississippi. He is a member of the I. O. O. F.,»aud independent in politics. 
January 25, 1879, he was married to Isabel, daughter of Jacob Bush, a pioneer of 
this city, elsewhere sketched, and has a fine home on Main street. Three children 
grace his fireside, and have been christened Cora Belle, Gertrude Ella, and Ray- 
mond William. 

Hugh Douglas, steamboat owner and captain, Wabasha, was born July 17, 

1817— and reared in Dumfries, Scotland, where he had the advantages of good 
schools. At eighteen years of age he left home and kindred to make him.self a 
home in America. He first located at Aurora, Illinois, where he was employed at 
farm labor. Thence he went to JVielrose, Wisconsin, and engaged in farming on 
Black river. In 1866 he settled at Durand, and has ever since ))een steamboating. 
For six years he ran the Little Monitor on the Chippewa river. He then built, 
and was one-third owner with Ingi-aham & Kennedy, of Eau Claire, in the Clyde, 
which he commanded eleven years. Is now half-owner of the Mubi/, which 
makes daily round trips between Lansing and La Crosse — a distance of ninety 
miles — during the season, under Capt. Douglas' command, carrying freio-ht and 
passengers. Capt. Douglas became a resident of Wabasha in 1872, and has a 
fine home on the corner of Third and Walnut streets, which is kept most tidy by 
his estimable wife. Mr. D. has been thrice married, the last time, January 22. 
1872, to Mrs. Harriet E. Crosby, born in Lyons, Wayne county, New York. Mrs. 
D. has two daughters, Mary Alice and Roselia. The former is the wife of Henry 
A. Johnson, in Dakota, and the latter of Martin Stevens, in Wabasha. Mr. 
Douglas was reared by Presbyterian parents, and since becoming an American 
citizen has always voted the straight Republican ticket. 

Joshua B. Haines, retired farmer, Wabasha, was an early resident of the 
town of Watopa. His grandfather, Jacob Haines, was a native of England and 
son of a British militia ensign, commissioned by George III. His father, James, 
was born in New Hampshire, married Hannah Lord, native of Maine, and settled 
on a farm near North Wolfboro', Strafford (now Carroll) county. New Hamp- 
shire. Here the subject of this paragraph was born — October 29, 1825, and 

reared, receiving a common school education. On reaching his majority he' found 
employment in a cotton factory, where he remained five years. He then spent 
seven years in locomotive shops at Portland. On the 1st of May, 1848, he was 
wedded to Miss Martha J. Roberts, who was born in Berwich, Maine, in 1832. 
John Roberts and Julia A. Cook, the parents of Mrs. Haines, were born in Maine, 
of Welsh descent. The former served in the United States army in the war of 
1812, as did his father and brother. The two last named were poisoned at 
Sackett's Harbor after the battle. Mr. Haines' maternal grandfather, Nathaniel 
Lord, was a Baptist preacher and a participant in the Indian wars of his time. 
On the 9th of April, 1858, Mr. Haines landed with his family at Winona, having 
come up on the first trip of the steamer "Galena." Next spring he secured a 
claim on Indian creek — lying on sections 8 and 21, Watopa — by paying two hun- 
dred dollars therefor, and ''at once remov-ed thither. Here he dwelt until 
1876, when he went to Wabasha. Here he built a home on the corner of 
Sixth and Campbell sti-eets in 1883. For fifteen years he engaged in the 
sale of machinery on the road, and disposed of his farm before moving here. 
Many hardships were endured by this family in the early days. A description of 
one of the dinners is elsewhere given in this work. In the fall of 1859 a severe 
cold spell came on before the log cabin had been chinked. Mrs. Haines was con- 
fined to her bed by illness, and her husband proceeded to close the cracks between 
the logs about the couch with mud, which he succeeded in doing after dumping 
large quantities of earth on the coverlet. During the night the cattle became 
uneasy and proceeded to knock down the door of the kitchen and make them- 
selves at home till morning. Despite these discomfitures, doubly severe to the 
New Englander, Mr. and Mrs. Haines enjoyed life as they never have since, and 
their accounts of western life are still discredited by their daintily- reared eastern 
relatives. Mrs. H. is a member of the Wabasha Congregational Church, which 
most nearly represents the faith of her husband. The latter adheres to the polit- 
ical principles of the republican party, and was one of a band of thirteen free- 



1332 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

soilers who held a deadlock for several hours at an election in his town. He was 
two years justice of the peace inWatopa, and town clerk twelve years, from 1860 
to 1871, inclusive. Tlie children of this family re.sidc as follows: Martha 
Rettenah, with parents; Edwin J., Cleveland, Ohio; John Frank, injured by 
epileptic fits, in asylum at Rochester; Hattie J., (Mrs. George Pierce), Minneap- 
olis; Charles Joshua, Pierre, Dakota, where he is still i)ubli8hing the pioneer 
newspajter, for wliich he took the material from here in a boat, via the Missis- 
sippi and Missouri rivers; George William, at home. The eldest son is traveling 
for a wholesale drug house, on a salary of $2200 per year. 

CiiAKLKs Chawsu-vw, farmer, was born in Iowa in 1855. His parents, 
Thomas and Hannah Cniwshaw, were natives of England. They came to this 
country in 185(5, settling in \N'est Albany township, wliere oin- subject was reared, 
spending his time on the farm and at the district .scliool. He is now the pos.sessor 
of 150 acres of choice land in T.ake township, where he took up his abode in 
1878. In 1883 Mr. Crawshaw was united in tlie bonds of mati-imony to Lucy 
Watson, daughter of George and Margaret Watson, of Mt. Pleasant township. 
Mrs. C. is a member of tlie Presbyterian Church. 

WiiJ-iAM Annond, farmer, son of James and Jane Annond, was born in 
Scotland in 1882. His parents had six children, of which our subject is the only 
one living. In 1868 William found his way to America and soon settled in this 
county, buying a farm consisting of 160 acres, where lie still resides. Although 
Mr. Annond has been director and clerk of the school district in which he lives, 
still he prefers quiet to active life in public affairs; consequently he simply votes 
the republican ticket. He was united in marriage to Isabel Wilson, a native of 
Scotland, and has six children, christened as follows: Jennie, Margaret, James 
George, Anna Bell, Jessie Marion, Alice Willimine ( deceased ). 

Petkr Beck, farmer and brewer, was born in 1841 at Luxemburg, Germany, 
and was the fourth child of John and Catherine Beck. When four years old, 
Peter came with his parents to the United States, settling in Cook county, Illinois, 
on a farm, where they remained till 1854. Our subject then removed, with his 
parents, to Dubuque, Iowa, where he helped his father in a store. In 1869 he 
came to Lake City, remaining till 1877, when he moved out on a farm near town, 
where he now resides. Mr. Beck deals in barley quite extensively ; in 1883 he 
shipped 30,000 bushels. He has been married twice. His first wife's name was 
Margaret Pals, and by her had four children, all of which are dead. In 1876 he 
married Margaret Pontzlet and she has borne him two children — Henry and 
Anthony. 

Dr. D.vvid K. Boutelle, of Lake City, is a retired dentist formerly of 
Vermont. He was born in Landgrove, that State, in 1811, and is the eighth 
generation from James Boutelle who settled with the Massachusetts Bay Colony 
in America in 1632. At the age of twenty-one the Doctor entered a teachers' 
seminary and after a preparatory course of two years he devoted six years to 
teaching. He then entered on the study of dentistry under the private tutorship 
of Dr. Esteeu, of Providence, Rhode Island, and entered on the practice of his 
profession a few years later at Newport in the same State, where remained nine 
years. He then removed to Manchester, New Hampshire, and there continued 
in practice till 1866 when he removed to Worcester, Massachusetts, whence he 
came to Lake City in 1869. Here he engaged in the practice of his profession 
from which he retired in 1879. The doctor was reared and educated strictly in 
the orthodox faith liut has materially changed his views in later j^ears. He is 
a free thinker and an enthusiastic advocate of his belief and a formidable 
antagonist of tlie principles indorsed by him in early life. 

Cai.eh H. Metcalf (deceased), one of the pioneer settlers of Elgin, was 
born in Canada, June 1, 1810. His parents were natives of the United States, 
and soon after his birth returned to Vermont, where he grew up. He married 
Lydia Alcott, who was born in New Hampshire, August 30, 1814. In the year 
1855 he took up land on section 26, and settled upon it with his family four years 
later. His brother Edward also took land, which fell into the hands of Caleb by 
purchase, and at the time of his death— December 28, 1870— he left to his heirs 
a half section. There were two sons, one of whom — George Edwin — sold his 
jiortion and now dwells at Brookings, Dakota, his consort being Ellen, nee Chap- 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1333 

man, of Rochester. Mary Elizabeth, only daughter of Caleb Metcalf, married 
Francis M. Beckner, with whom she resides in Fayette county, Iowa. 

LuciAN MosfROE Metcalf was born November 13, 1840, at Swansea, New 
Hampshire. His father soon after removed to Boston, where he spent his winters, 
being often employed with an uncle in New Hampshire through the summer. 
From the time of his father's settlement here he remained with him, and now 
occupies the homestead, of which he owns 200 acres, carrying on mixed farming. 
The tornado of July, 1883, destroyed his residence and inflicted a damage of 
$4,000. The main portion of the dwelling carried away was 38x30 feet in size, 
and 20 feet high. A one- story wing remained, to which Mr. Metcalf at once' 
added an upright, 30x22, and an L 9x12. While the new house is not as large as 
the other it is comfortable and substantial, and is a monument to the determina- 
tion of its owner. Mr. Metcalf does not repine, but goes about repairing his loss 
as fast as possible. Like his father, he is a Republican, but takes no part in civil 
or religious affairs. On the first day of the year, 1866, he married Miss Electa 
Marilla Ackley, daughter of David Ackley, one of the pioneers of Plainview. 
Mt. Vernon, Winona county, in 1853, and in Plainview in 1854. Five children 
have been given Mr. and Mrs. Metcalf, of whom four are now living. Their 
births date as follows : Mary Ellen, August 27, 1867 (died March 8, 1869) ; Ida 
Melissa, June 10, 1870; Bertha May, November 11, 1872; Guy Ernest, October 
24, 1876 ; Rose Edna, October 6, 1880. 

Irvin W. Rollins, eldest son of Laban C. and Nancy (Colby) Rollins, and 
one of the pioneer settlers of Greenwood Prairie, was born January 18,. 1829, in 
the town of Orange, Orange county, Vermont. His grandfather, David Rollins, 
was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and was a soldier in the war of 1812. 
Laban C. Rollins was born and reared as a farmer, in Corinth, Vermont. He 
became a tanner and shoemaker, and when our subject was eight years of age 
bought a farm in the town of Topsham, Orange county, Vermont. It was here 
that Mr. Rollins spent his early days, and on arriving at maturity was employed 
in teaching during the winter. On the fourth of October, 1855, he landed at 
Minneiska, and proceeded to Greenwood Prairie. His first claim w^as three 
miles east of the present village of Plainview^ but in the next March he left it 
and located on the north-east quarter of section 27, Elgin. His present handsome 
residence stands within fifty rods of the old claim shanty. Proceeding to Wis- 
consin, he purchased three yokes of oxen with which to break up the prairie. 
For two years himself and a brother "kept bach" together and farmed in com- 
mon. The first thing they planted was six quarts of apple seeds. Our subject 
has been an active fruits raiser, and took the first premium ever paid on fruit at 
both state and county fairs. Is now extensively engaged in bee-culture. He 
built the first stone, and also the first brick, chimney on the prairie; and also the 
first cellar- wall. Mr. Rollins was one of the first justices elected in the town- 
ship ; has also served as treasurer, and for many years as town clerk. He has 
ever been a staunch temperance man, both in word and deed. In 1859 our sub- 
ject returned to his native state, and was married at Montpelier, on the 4th of 
April, to Miss Ellen Keith, daughter of Francis Keith, of Barre, Vermont, at 
which place Mrs. Rollins was born, Jime 19, 1833. Their children were all born 
in Elgin, as follows : Ida Almira (now Mrs. Alex. Scott), March 20, 1860 ; Flora 
Adeline, February 8, 1862 ; Francis Laban, March 25, 1865 ; Mary Ellen, October 
10, 1867. 

Orvis V. Rollins is the brother alluded to in the above sketch, and was 
born in East Orange, April 28, 1835. He was but twenty years of age when he 
came here. His claim was made on section 22, where he now lives. He has 
ninety acres of land here, and two hundred in the town of Plainview, and is quite 
largely engaged in stock raising. His herd has been for many years graded with 
shorthorns, and he is now raising some Jerseys. Norman horses are also reared 
on this farm. As high as 1,300 bushels of wheat have been produced by Mr. 
Rollins on the home farm, and he has probably fruited more seedling apples 
than any other man in the state of Minnesota. He is a member of the Elgin 
Masonic lodge, and a supporter of the Methodist Church. His theological pref- 
erences are with those of his wife's church — Congregational — and in political 
affairs with the Republican party. He has been town supervisor three terms 



1334 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

and lias also served as assessor. Ilis marriaj^e occurred in March, 1860, the bride 
being Miss Mary ()., daughter of Erastus Dodge, one of the pioneers of Elgin 
township. The eldest son, Edgar T., is elsewhere sketched in this work. Fred 
E. , eigliteen years old, and Grace Minerva, not yet two, reside at home. 

Benjamin Franklin Baker, veterinary surgeon, Elgin, was liorn in Kirk- 
land, Oneida county. New York, November 5, 1843. His parents — James and 
Anna Baker — were' natives of England, County Kent, and emigrated to America 
in 1829. For many years the elder Baker engaged in mercantile business in 
Philadelphia, and during the War of the Rebellion was occupied in supplying 
horses to the government for cavalry and artillery purjjoses. In 1859 he settled 
in Walworth, Wisconsin, and in Elgin in 1869. Tlie wife and mother in Wis- 
consin in 1859. The subject of this sketch was educated in an academy 
at Whitesborough, Oneida county. In August, 1861, he entered Company F, 
First Wisconsin Calvary, and served one year. He re-enlisted as a veteran in 
1862, in Company C, Twenty- eighth Wisconsin Volunteers. His service was in 
the -western department of the Union army, and he was an actor in the battles of 
Helena, Arkansas, Columbus, Kentucky, Vicksburg, Mobile Bay, capture of 
Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Little Ilock, Red River exjjedition and battle at Shreves- 
jiort, I^^ort Donelson, Pensacola, Forts Morgan and Gaines, besides numerous 
smaller engagements. He was mustered out at Brownsville, Texas, in October, 
1865. For three years he served under detail as veterinary surgeon, and has 
since made that profession his chief occupation. He settled at Elgin in 1869, 
and has since permanently dwelt here. February 22, 1871, he was united in 
marriage with Miss Jeannette Featherstone, who was born in Walworth, Wis. , 
and is nine years her husband's junior. Two children have been given to this 
coui)le, born and christened as follows: July 29, 1872, Nora; May 20, 1876, 
Merton. In religious views Mr. Baker is quite liberal. He is a thorough 
Republican in political opinion. In the spring of 1884 he was elected assessor 
over the Cixucus nominee. He is now doing a lucrative and successful business 
in the practice of his profession, and is among the progressive citizens of the 
tornado- scourged town. 

Curtis Bryant, farmer, of Elgin, son of John and Lavinia Bryant, is one 
of the original four who first settled on that part of Greenwood Prairie, now con- 
stituting the town of Elgin, in the mouth of Ai)ril, 1855. Mr. Bryant was born 
in the town of Middlesex, Washington county, Vermont, September 6, 1833. He 
worked on his father's farm in Vermont, attending school in the winter; also 
went to the academy at Barre, Vermont, and taught school one term. In the 
early sjiring of 1855, Mr. Bryant struck out, in company with a brother, for what 
was then the Far West, arriving at Winona, April 5th. Thence they walked the 
next day to St. Charles, and about the 15th of the same month arrived on the site 
of Elgin township. They proceeded to put up the first log house, of which men- 
tion is made elsewhere in this work. On April 21, 1855, Curtis Bryantfiled his claim 
to the north-east quarter of section twenty-eight, which he still owns and dwells 
on. Beside this, he owns three quarter-sections at Andover, Dakota. For about 
four years our subject was engaged in mercantile business at Elgin in partnership 
with ilis brother George and Mr. A. K. Johnson, under the firm name of Bryant 
Bros. & Johnson. The firm also operated a grain warehouse, of which Mr. Bry- 
ant still owns a third. August 1, 1861, witnessed the nuptials of Curtis Bryant 
and Miss Mary C. Colby, of Orange county, Vermont. As the offspring of this 
union, three children have joined the family circle and been christened" respect- 
ively Nellie M., Charles L. and Lute E. Our subject is a charter member of 
Elgin Lodge No. 115, A. F. and A. M., and belonged to the Congregational so- 
ciety while it existed here. In politics he is a Republican and has served as con- 
stable, justice of the peace and town supervisor. He has always been an active 
contriliutor to active Christianity and charity. In October, 1873, Mr. Bryant was 
made the victim of a serious railway accident while on the way to Chicago to 
dispose of some cattle. When near the state line l)etween Wisconsin and Illinois, 
on tlie C. & N.-W. Railway, a broken rail tiirew the caboose car in which he was 
sitting from the track and down a fifteen-foot embankment. The car took fire 
and \vas consumed, and Mr. Bryant narrowly escaped with his life. He received 
a cut on the head and his spine was so injured that he did not leave his bed for a 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



1335 



year. In the great tornado of .July, 1883, he was a heavy financial sufferer, 
losing property to the extent of five thousand dollars. 

.John Bacon Norton, is one of the few persons who can go through a lite 
of many reverses without becoming soured in disposition, and he deservedly 
enioys the respect and confidence of his fellow citizens. He is the grandson of 
a Revolutionary soldier, and both his parents— Shirley and Nancy (Parmley) 
Norton— were natives of Vermont. He was born in the town of Waybndge, 
Addison county, that State, May 20, 1821. When he was but nine years old his 
people removed to New York, and he grew up there on a farm. The common 
school furnished his only education, save only such as contact with the world 
supplies When nearly' gi'own to maturity he began to appreciate the need of 
education and spent several winters in applying himself to study, at the same 
time earning his board by doing chores for farmers. He graduated from a frame 
school house in Western New York and went to New York city at twenty. 
Here he shipped before the mast on a sailing vessel at ten dollars a month. 
When he retired after ten years of ocean life, he was commander of a ship at" 
$100 a month He made voyages to the AVest Indies, to several ports of Europe, 
and South America. In 1851 he went to California by way of Cape Horn, and 
returned the same way next year, satisfied to give up mining. In 1852 he went 
to Appleton, Wis., and took up land which he tilled seven years. Here died in 
1858 the partner of his joys and sorrows— Sarah, nee McKnighIr— to whom he 
was wedded in 1846, in Brooklyn, New York. Mrs. Norton left six children of 
whom all save the eldest, Sarah J., are still living, as follows: Emeline Ada 
(Mrs John Snow), in Dakota; Martin S., Lodi, California; Maria Louise (Mrs. 
W P Thayer) Lyon, Minnesota; John B., Wesleyan Methodist clergyman, 
Dow City Iowa • Electa E. (Mrs. Robert Butchers), Hart, Winona county. Capt. 
Norton became a resident of Minnesota in 1859, and after spending a year in 
Hart township, bought a farm in Warren, Winona county. Thence he removed 
to Viola in Olmsted county, in 1876, and in the spring of 1883 to Elgin, where 
he purchased a house and lot. In March, 1884, he went into the Eureka Hotel, 
Elo-in where he is now caring for the comfort of a houseful of guests. Capt. 
Norton has filled many positions of trust and responsibility. He is now town 
clerk and justice of the peace for Elgin, and has served in similar capacities 
and as town supervisor many terms elsewhere. In the fall of 1873 he was elected 
from Winona county as a member of the XVII Legislature, and served at the 
session of the following winter. He has always been active in fostering schools, 
and has served almost continuously as a school officer. He is a conservative 
Democrat and his religious tenets are those of the Baptist Church. On the 27th 
of February 1864, he enlisted as a recruit in the Seventh Minnesota regiment 
Company B, and served till August 17, 1865. He participated in the battles of 
Tupalo Nashville, and the Spanish Forts, at Mobile, and in several hard marches. 
In 1861 Capt. Norton married Sarah Inez Gray, who bore him four children 
Of these only the eldest and youngest survive. Inez Augusta is the wife of 
Judson Hutchinson and resides at Sparta, Wis. Evan Oscar is at home. William 
Bradford and Edith Viola died of small-pox in Warren. . „^ , , 

William Dennison Woodward (deceased), son of W illiam Woodward, was 
born in Swanzey, New Hampshire, in 1826. He grew up on a farm, and received 
a limited education. The deceased was among the pioneer settlers of this State, 
having settled in Quincy, Olmsted county, in 1854. His eldest son William 
Henry was the first child born in that township. In company with another 
party Mr Woodward erected a saw mill on the Whitewater, and sold out his 
interest in 1856. He then settled on section 33, Elgin, where he remained till 
his death, which occurred in April, 1872, with the exception of one year's re^si- 
dence in Rochester. He acquired an estate of 480 acres, and was a successtul 
farmer He was a member of the Masonic order, and voted the Republican 
ticket In the spring of 1854, he was married at Trenton, Wisconsin, to Martha, 
daughter of David and Abigail (Marsh) Houghton, all of Vermont birth. In 
the spring of 1883, Mrs. Woodward became the wife of Leonard Knapp, with 
whom she lives in Dover township, Olmsted county. Our subject left five 
children, christened as follows: William Henry, now residing on homestead; 
David Orlo, Elgin; Mary Ellen (Mrs. S. A. Foster), deceased; Everett Ellsworth 
and Albert Elvin, Elgin. 



1336 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

David J. Wood, farmer, Elgin, is a i^randson of Uriali Wood, a native of 
New York. David Wood, the father of this subject, married Maria, daughter 
of Tobias Vader, also of New York. Tliis couple settled in Middlebury, 
Wyoming county. New York, where was born David J. AVood on the 10th of 
March, 1833. When the latter was twelve years old, his parents moved to 
Brandon, Wisconsin, where he grew up on a farm. On reaching manhood he 
engaged in farming in Mar(|uette county, that State, from whence he came to 
this town in 1864. His farm includes 120 acres on section 24, and he is engaged 
in mixed farming. He is a member of the Masonic Lodge and Chai)ter in Plain- 
view, and was a Patron of Husbandry while a grange existed here. His religion 
is the Golden Rule, and his politics Republican. During the Civil War he 
served as a recruiting officer, and is now in his fourth term as town supervisor. 
In January, 1857, he was united in marriage with Miss Sarah J., daughter of 
Horace and Lucinda (Barton) Holt, of Connecticut. Mrs. Wood was born in 
Greene county. New York, in 1835. Two stalwart sons have been given to Mr. 
and Mrs. AVood, viz.: Jared Deloid, now tweuty-five years old, and Richard 
Lewis, twenty-two. 

Matthias Wood, brother of the above last subject, was born May 19, 1835, 
at the same place, and received the same early training. He came to this 
county with no capital, and has made himself independent by industry and 
good management. His integrity is unimpeachable, and he enjoys the confidence 
and good will of all his colleagues. He arrived in Plainview in 1862, and 
secured 100 acres of laud on section 31, where his home has been ever since. 
His domain has been increased by purchase to 200 acres, partly lying in Elgin 
township. A tine frame dwelling and barns and outbuildings, neat and com- 
modious, mark the good sense and successful management of the owner of these 
acres. Considerable attention is given to stock-raising. His sheep are gi-ade 
and full- blood merinos; his horses are graded with Nortoan blood, and his cattle 
mirror the general thrift of their owner. Mr. Wood has been many years each 
director and treasurer of his school district, and has served two years as town 
supervisor. He is a steadfast Republican, and in religious faith most nearly 
conforms to Methodism. On the first day of the year 1858, he was wedded to 
Miss Clarissa J. Moore, who was born near Kenosha, AVis., January 22, 1840. 
One daughter is the only offspring of this union, born August 28, 1861, and 
christened Ida May. Mr. Wood's mother resides with him, and has been bed- 
ridden for many months. 

Benjamin Winter, a pioneer farmer of Elgin, was born near Cincinnati, 
Ohio, April 15, 1824. His parents, James and Jane Winter, were natives of 
Pennsylvania. When our subject was a small boy, his people moved to Ripley 
county, Indiana, where he was brought up on a farm. He married Margaret 
Powell, who was born in Beaver county, Pennsylvania, March 15, 1826. Mr. 
Winter became possessed of a farm in Indiana, which he sold when he came 
west, in 1856. In the fall of this year he settled on Section 10, where he still 
dwells. He has 240 acres, of which every foot has been subdued, and is engaged 
in mixed farming, with signal success. His prosperity has been earned by his 
own labor, seconded by that of his faithful helpmeet. His religious faith is that 
of the Christian Church ; his politics Democratic. John Henry, his second 
child, died here at the age of twenty-four. The rest, in order of birth, reside 
as follows: Eliza Jane (Mrs. John Ross), Plainview; Ann Maria (Mrs. John 
Allison), Brookings, Dakota; Phcvbe Frances (Mrs. Charles Wright), Plainview; 
Daniel Orison, Laura, Minnie F., and Benjamin Franklin, at home with parents. 

Rev. Oliver Perry Crawford, one of Elgin's pioneers, was born in 
Indiana, De^^ember 17, 1818. He is a son of Joseph Crawford, who ran a flat- 
l)oat on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. O. P. Crawford was reared in Indiana, 
and married ]Mary Ann Gibson, February 27, 1838. Mrs. Crawford was born in 
Brandywine Hundred, Delaware, January 29, 1817, and her parents, Joseph and 
Nancy Gil)son, were also natives of that state. Mr. Crawford was the owner of 
a farm in Indiana, built and operated a mill, and practiced medicine. He 
arrived in Elgin on the 30th of June, 1857, and settled on section 8. At this time 
he was a local preacher of the M. E. faith, and often conducted religious ser- 
vices at his house and at various points in the vicinity. Besides giving bis 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1337 

own services gratuitously, he was a liberal supporter of the itinerancy. He was 
an Abolition Republican, and served several years as town supervisor, and also 
as county commissioner. He enlisted in the third Minnesota regiment, but was 
rejected from service on account of physical disability. His present home is in 
Iowa, where he is an itinerant preacher of the Free Methodist church. Of his 
thirteen children, all but four are living, as follows : Russell Martin, Brookings, 
Dakota; Andrew G., Atlantic, Iowa; Sarah J. (Mrs. William Quigley), Big Lake, 
Wisconsin; Nancy T. (Morrison), Monroe, Iowa; Henry B., New Sharon, Iowa; 
Oliver P., Kansas; Mary A., with parents; Francis Edward, New Sharon. 

Joseph Crawford, third child of O. P. Crawford, resides on section 21, 
Elgin, where he settled in 1864. He was born in Putnam county, Indiana, Feb- 
ruary 10, 1842, and was therefore fifteen years old when he came here. He 
received only about twelve months schooling in all, but being of studious mind 
acquired a fair education. He is now the owner of the quarter- section on which 
he lives, and which he broke up and improved, besides half a section near Brook- 
ings, Dakota. Is now recovering from a stroke of paralysis, which destroyed 
his memory for two years. He has been connected with the M. E. church 
twenty-nine years, and is a member of the society at Elgin. In politics is a 
Republican. On the 17th of March, 1881, he married Orrel D., daughter of 
Robert Tuttle, of Linn county, Iowa. They have a son, born May 17, 1882, and 
named Joseph Lloyd. 

William H. Lyon, one of the substantial farmers of Elgin, is a son of 
English parents — John and Ann (Hinslea) Lyon — and was born in East Bloom- 
field, New York, on the first day of the year 1837. When he was but five years 
old, his parents removed to Fond du Lac county, Wisconsin, where he grew up 
on a farm and received a fair education at the district school. He became the 
possessor of a small farm there, but soon decided to go where land was cheaper 
and secm-e a larger one. He came to Elgin in the fall of 1867, and bought two 
hundred acres, part of which lies in Plainview Township. The Whitewater 
crosses his farm, and he has abundance of timber. Both stock and grain raising 
occupy his attention, and he is very successful. Mr. Lyon is a member of Plain- 
view Masonic Lodge, and a Republican in political preference. He has served 
three years as town supervisor. In 1864 he married Sarah Batson, who was born 
in New York, April 12, 1841. The living issue of this union have been named 
thus: Nellie, Emma B., John B., Charles O., and Ethel Maud. The first-born, 
Hattie R., died in the fall of 1882, aged sixteen. 

Otis Huntoon, Plainview farmer, is of remote Scotch descent. His father, 
Philip, was a native of New Hampshire, as was his mother, Hannah Morrison. 
Samuel Morrison, father of the latter, was a Revolutionary soldier. Otis Hun- 
toon was born in Eastern Townships, Stanstead county, Canada, August 18, 1836. 
His parents soon after moved to Vermont, where he grew up on a farm, attending 
the common school and Derby academy. In 1858 he went to Fond du Lac county, 
Wisconsin, and came thence to this state in 1862. He at first settled in Viola, 
Olmsted county, but two years later sold, and bought his present farm in section 
31, Plainview. He now has 293 acres, and is engaged in mixed farming. His 
stock includes 35 cattle, 15 horses, and 45 hogs. During this spring's seeding 
he is working some half-blood Norman two-year-old colts that give promise of 
making heavy horses. Mr. Huntoon bears typical New England features of face 
and character. Like his father before him, he is a firm believer in the princi- 
ples of Republicanism. He has served this town as assessor for seven years, and 
in 1875 and in 1880 took its census. He has had two wives, neither of whom is 
now living. The first, Viola Chase, of Vermont, was joined to him in 1861, and 
died in November, 1865, leaving two children. Nora, the eldest, will graduate 
from Union Normal school this year. Niles resides with his father. In August, 
1867, Mr. Huntoon married Emma, nee Sharp, a widow, of Dover. She died 
June 8, 1881, and left six children, named as follows : Grant and Grace (twins), 
Rosa, Carlotta, Archie, and Daisy Maud. 

Andrew K. Johnson, farmer, of Elgin, is a gi-andson of John Johnson, of 
Massachusetts. Ephraim, father of Andrew Johnson, was a Free Will Baptist 
preacher, and married Sarah Knowlton, both being natives of Maine. Andrew, 
father of Sarah Knowlton, served seven years in the Revolution War. The sub- 



1338 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

ject of this paragraph was born in Welliongton, Piscataquis County, same State , 
March 4, 1830. He was reared on a farm, and at sixteen began blacksmithing, 
which occupied his time for about twenty years. In tlie fall of 1853, he went to 
Green Lake County, Wisconsin, where he became possessed of a farm of eighty 
acres. Here he was married, in 1854, to Miss Susan Day, who was born in 
Brighton, Maine, August 19, 1831. Miss Johnson's parents— Amos Day and 
Hannah Kobins — were natives of New Hampshire and Massachusetts respectively. 
In 1860 Mr. Johnson bought land on section 19, Elgin, and moved thither the 
next year. He is now the possessor of 720 acres in one body, and heavily en- 
gaged in stock and grain raising. He also has a half-secton of land at Andover, 
Dakota, as have each of his children. Mr. Johnson's stock now includes eighty - 
tw'o hetid of grade cattle. He has buried twenty- four horses since his residence 
here. He is a member of the Elgin Masonic Lodge and Plainview Oddfellows. 
Is a thorough Republican. On the 14th of August, 1862, he enlisted in the 9th 
Minnesota Regiment, and served eight months on tlie Western frontier. At the 
end of this time he was discharged on account of disability and sent home to die. 
With characteristic determination he refused to yield up the ghost, althougli he 
has never fully recovered his health. His children reside as follows: Alfred A. 
and Laura, Andover, Dakota; Susan Adelia (Mrs. William Clone), Larimore, 
Dakota; Joseph Arthur, Andover; Leonard PL, section 19, Elgin; Fred Owen, 
Lillian May, Mary Edith and ISfora Elsie, with parents. 

Elijah Ordway, hardware merchant, Elgin, is a grandson of Benjamin 
Ordway, of Vermont. The latter was one of a family of twenty-two children, 
of whom all but two grew to maturity. Benjamin Ordway and Mary Dicker- 
man, parents of this subject, were, like himself, born in the town of Tunbridge, 
"Vermont, Elijah's birth dating February 27, 1834. He grew up on a farm in 
Orange County, and has nearly always been a farmer. He came to Elgin in 
January, 1867, and has owned and tilled two farms in the township. In 1874 he 
removed to the village and opened a hardware store, which he sold out soon, and 
it was afterwards closed up. After the advent of the railroad, it became evident 
that such a store would pay, and in the spring of 1881, in company with a son, 
he again opened trade in this line. His store is located on Park street, east of 
the depot, and is doing a good business. Mr. Ordway' s religious faith is Univer- 
salism, and he has always adhered to Democratic principles in public policy. 
He has been five years supervisor of this town, serving two years as Chairman of 
the Board. He has always been interested in the welfare of the public schools, 
and to him is due much of the credit for the the prosperity of the Elgin schools. 
The present handsome school building in the village is a monument to his public 
spirit and perseverance. In March, 1854, he was united in marriage to a distant 
relative— Miss Rebecka Dickerman, born in Topsham, Vermont. Of the four 
children given this couple, two are now living, both resident in this village, viz. : 
Benjamin S. and Alonza. Mary Jane died in Vermont at the age of two years, 
and Stillman here, aged thirteen. 

Alonza Ordway, partner in business of his father as above noted, was born 
in Topsham, Vermont, January 20, 1857. He was educated in the schools of this 
village, and has taught eight winters. On the 22d of February, 1883, he married 
Augusta Beier, who was born in Germany, and is four year? her husband's 
junior. 

James Tittertngton, a close- figuring native of Ireland, who puts no ti-ust 
in humankind, resides on section 35, Elgin. He believes that the compilation of 
such works as this ought to be encouraged— by otlier men's money. 

William Giem settled on section 4, Elgin, in the fall of 1856, and has dwelt 
there ever since. He endured many privations in those early days to make him- 
self a home, and now enjoys the reward of his labors in a comfortable inde- 
pendence. During the winter of 1856-7 he dwelt in a shanty twelve feet square, 
with board roof. The snow was so deep that he could not use a team, and he was 
forced to get wood on his back. Tlie nearest market for gi-ain in those days was 
at Winona ; but his first wheat crop having failed, his family was forced to live 
eighteen months without wheat bread, corn-meal and buckwheat flour furnished 
them with bread. Being without money to buy with, he had to put up with what 
he could produce. Potatoes were plenty, and they lived happily, for they had 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 1339 

hopes. William Giem is a son of John Giem, and .was born in Prussia, March 
14, 1827. When he was ten years old, his mother being dead, his father brought 
him to America, and settled in Holmes Countj^, Ohio, where William gi-ew up on 
a farm. He has always been a farmer, and possessed eighty acres of land in 
Ohio. He was married May 27, 1852, to Elizabeth Miller, a native of Ohio. 
Mrs. Giem passed away from earth in 1881. She left seven children, resident as 
below : Jacob, same section as his father ; Esther (Mrs. John Nelson), Warren, 
Minnesota ; Samuel, Silas, Melissa, Chauncey, and May with their father. The 
latter now has a farm of 236 acres, — ten of which consists of timberland — in 
West Albany, and raises both grain and stock. He is a Methodist in religious 
faith and a Democrat. 

Joseph Hample (deceased) settled on section 6, Elgin, in the spring of 1857, 
and died there February 12, 1884. He was born near Prague, Austria, September 
11, 1811. He married Maria Prince, also a native of Austria. While in his 
native land, his chief occupation was the manufacture of woodwork for clocks 
and accordians. He set out for America in 1850, and settled in Ohio, engaging 
in farming. Thence he removed to Winona in the fall of 1856, and spent the 
following winter in teaming. He was a faithful member of the Lutheran Church, 
in which all his family was raised. Of eight children born to him, but two 
reached maturity. The elder is sketched below. The other, Christina, is now 
the wife of Henry; Schenkel, dwelling at Groton, Dakota. In the early days of 
its residence here this family endured the hardships which fall to the lot of most 
pioneers. For nearly two years wheat bread was a luxury unknown in the house- 
hold, as no wheat was produced the first year. Corn and buckwheat furnished 
the staple breadstuff, and all were healthy and contented. 

Ferdinand Hample, son of the last subject, was born in the city of Vienna, 
Austi'ia, September 17, 1843. He received an English education in Ohio and 
this State, and is one of the most intelligent citizens of Elgin township. During 
the first three years of his residence here lie worked out among neighboring 
fanners, and has ever since remained at home. At his father's death he inherited 
the homestead, embracing 275 acres of fine prairie soil, and practices mixed 
farming. July 4, 1867, he married Augusta Windorf, who was born in Prussia, 
near the City of Culberg, October 6, 1850. Six children now surround the family 
hearth, named in order of birth : Joseph Henry, Clara Maria, Edwin Edward, 
Bertha Matilda, Paulina Lydia, and Adela Leonora. Mr. Ample has served four 
years on the Tow^n Board of Supervisors, being one year Chairman of that body. 
He is an active supporter of schools, and has served as Director of his district. 
The first two and one- half years of his residence in Elgin were passed in a log- 
hut, which was succeeded by a log-house. The present dwelling, a large and 
handsome frame structure, surrounded by convenient barns and othe out- 
buildings. 

John Q. Richardson, Elgin, is among the most substantial farmers of Wa- 
basha county. His grandfather, Zachariah Richardson, was of English descent, 
and his father, Thomas S., was born in New Hampshire. Ruth J. Smith, who 
became the wife of the latter and tlie mother of this subject, was a daughter of 
John Smith — a soldier of the revolution and of the war of 1812— of Scotch de- 
scent, and was born in Vermont. John Q. Richardson was born in Topsham, 
Orange county, Vermont, May 11, 1828. Up to twenty years of age his life was 
spent on the home farm, attending the common school, and at this time he had 
taught one term. For some years he was engaged alternately — attending school 
and in teaching and other employments to earn money to educate himself. He 
was a student in the academies at East Orange, Corinth and Bradford, and was 
subsequently principal of a grammar school in Newark, New Jersey, for nine 
years. In the year 1858 he visited Elgin and purchased 180 acres of land on sec- 
tion thirty- four. He removed thither from New Jersey in 1862, and has made 
his home here ever since. His domain now includes 265 acres and is finely im- 
proved. Both stock-raising and grain-culture occupy his attention. The next 
year after settling here he planted a large number of soft maple seeds, with a 
view to sugar- production. Having been often assured by eastern friends that soft 
maples would not make sugar, he resolved to give the matter a test. In the 
spring when the seedlings were a year old, he cut off the top of one and tied it 



1340 HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY. 

down where the saj) would run into a tumbler; when the wind had evaporated 
the water from the tumbler, a very fine sugar remained, and lie l)ecame satisfied 
that it was safe to plant out his ti-ees. He now has two hundred rock maples and 
thrice as many trees of the soft variety growing and makes sugar from both. He 
finds that the latter make a lighter- colored and more pleasant flavored sugar than 
the former. October 2, 1853, occurred the nuptials of J. Q. Richardson and 
Cordelia C. Colby, of East Orange, Vermont. Both are members of the Congre- 
gational Church. Mr. Richardson is a member of Elgin Masonic lodge, and an 
adherent of the Republican party. He has served his tt)wn several terms each as 
assessor and treasurer. He has one living child — Ralph W., born June 19, 1867. 
Frank, the first-born, died in infancy, and Emma C, the youngest, died January 
12, 1884, aged fourteen. 

Joseph Richakdson, farmer, Elgin, is a brother of the last subje^.;,and was 
l)()rn in Topham, July 1, 1832. His early life was the same as that of his elder 
brother, and he has always been a farmer. He became possessed of a piece of 
land in Vermont, but sold out in order to try his fortune in the great northwest. 
In 1856 he came to this town and pre-empted land on sections twenty-two and 
twenty-three. Returning to Vermont, he remained there two 3'ears and settle<l 
here permanently with his family in September, 1858. On the 24th of March, 
this year, he married Miss Ursula E., daughter of Stephen and Susan Miles. 
Mrs. Richardson was born in Stowe and her parents in Bickford, Vermont. On 
his arrival here, after paying all debts, Mr. Richardson had just six dollars letV 
Himself and his brave young bride set up housekeeping in the pioneer log cabin 
of the township, built by the Bryants, and elsewhere spoken of in this book. 
Here they remained three years, before moving on to their own domaittiJ-vFor 
seven years Mr. Richardson conducted farming operations in common with, his 
brother, to whom he sold an undivided half of his land and thus gained a capi- 
tal to work on. No books were kept, and at the end of seven years tiiey divided 
land, (then embracing 280 acres) stock and tools in half a day's time, without 
words or disagreement of any kind. Our subject is now the possessor of 485 
acres of land in this township, sixty in Olmsted county and twenty in Winona. 
He is a shrewd and successful farmer and combines grain-culture with stock- 
raising. His stock includes thirty horses, a like numl>er of cattle and eigiity 
sheep. Among his horses are an imported Norman stallion that cost $2,000"and 
a fine grade American horse. While on the way from Rochester with a grist in 
the winter of 1958-9, Mr. Richard.son had a very narrow- escape from wolves. He 
was driving a span of colts attached to a low pung, on which were placed the 
sacks containing meal and flour for the family. For over two miles the ferocious 
l)rutes surrounded the sleigh and made sundry snaps at Mr. R. , who sat on the 
sacks. As he had neither sled stake nor whip to protect himself with, and dare 
not let the horses out to their utmost speed lest he be thrown off, his feelings can 
be realized only by those who have passed through a similar experience. On 
nearing the cabin of a settler, the pursuers .slunk aw'ay and their prey escaped. 
When Mr. R. reached home his friends wondered what made him so white, and 
it was some time before they could draw from him an account of its cause. Our 
subject is a member of the Elgin Masonic lodge, and a lifelong Democrat. He 
has served six years as constable and two years as supervisor of the town. The 
first-born child of this family — Thomas S. — ruptured a blood-vessel by striking a 
hay- rack in trying to mount it, when about fourteen years old, and died from tlie 
effects within twenty- four hours. Susan S., the eldest living, is now the wife of 
D. W. Searles, and resides in the adjoining town of Farmington. The rest, 
christened in order of age as follows, are at home: Lenora M., Clara C, William 
H., Frank J. and Walter E. 



